Category: Church

The Catholic Church in Cambodia.

Gethsemani Retreat

Today was our second full day of retreat and Bishop Price spoke about knowing yourself, being aware of your good points and your weaknesses, and how they influence how people will perceive you.
Gethsemani Abbey has hundreds of acres of farmland and forests. Today in the afternoon break I rode my bike along miles of often really rough dirt roads in a forested area. It felt good. The forests told me I am home.
A view of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani.
A view of Gethsemani from the west.

Gethsemani Retreat

Retreats have different styles from year to year. Some retreat leaders like to preside and preach at all the liturgies. Bishop Ed Price, our leader, wants us to take those roles and today Fr. Roy Stiles presided at our first liturgy together.
The food at the Abbey of Gethsemani is simple, prepared by the monks, but wonderful. The temptation is to take some of each offering–and eat too much.
Most of the day, and especially the meals, are in silence. We sit individually in a large dining room that has a wall of windows looking out on to a garden full of birds picking seeds from bird feeders.

A long collaboration

Today we celebrated a memorial service for one of our Louisville priests who died. Archbishop Shelton Fabre presided. Next to him (on the left) was Deacon Dennis Nash whom I worked with in the 1970s when he was a high school student and I was running a youth group. We’ve been in contact over the years and it was great to see him now ministering to the People of God here.

On the road again…

The past two weeks have been terrible for bike riding: temperatures mostly in the 20ºs and 30ºs and then 8″of snow that just started disappearing two days ago. The cold I could deal with; the ice and snow on the streets were a no-no. But today the sun was out, the sky was clear, and the thermometer rose to the low 50ºs so I rode to the Maloney Center, the former St. Vincent de Paul School turned into a diocesan office building.
The riding was great after such a long absence. The large majority of the snow has melted. The snow that remains is in piles where parking lots were plowed—like above at the Maloney Center–and on really small streets untouched by sunshine.

What about the Beatitudes?

In a recent interview about Christianity in society, Fr. James Martin commented about traditional Christians always wanting to post the Ten Commandments in schools and public places.

I often wonder why we don’t put the Beatitudes in classrooms since it’s always the 10 Commandments. What about “Blessed are the poor?” It’s amazing to me that mostly Christians want the Old Testament in the classrooms and put on signs, but what about “Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers?” Why is there never a push for that attitude? It’s a very strange thing to me. It is because [the Beatitudes] are hard and it’s stuff that we want to avoid.

Immigration Rally

Yesterday a vigil was held to support immigrants and decry violence targeting them. U.S. Representative Morgan McGarvey spoke to the assembled people at a Louisville park. The vigil was scheduled to take place at a Catholic parish but was moved at the last minute.

The change of venue to the park created traffic jams on the street near the park and parking problems that delayed the arrival of many and may have dissuaded others from attempting to get near the site.
The sun was setting and it was really cold as people gathered in the park for what turned out to be an outdoor vigil.

The increased number of younger people was notable and encouraging.

Representative McGarvey spoke to the gathered crowd in a shortened program. The traffic was so bad and we had to walk so far from a parking place that I arrived at the actual vigil site so late that I caught only the last minute of the program and then we all headed back to the warmth of the cars.

RITI: Room In The Inn

RITI is a program becoming nationwide that utilizes warm church buildings as sleeping places for homeless people on cold nights. RITI Louisville has started this service just this week as temperatures dipped to the single digits. The start of the program was delayed by fire regulations.

The program has three shifts per night. The first shift from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM welcomes the women to the center, gives them supper, and puts them to bed. The second shift today, from 10:00 PM to 5:00 AM, consisted of Jean (L) and Bob (R). They really have nothing to do all night except to provide supervision and security. Here they are at the end of their shift at 5:00 AM as Diane (C) and I arrived for the third shift.
Diane (above) and I arrived at 4:45 AM while the women were still sleeping, and started waking them at 5:00 AM, gradually turning on more lights. There were 11 women listed to come last night but only 4 arrived because of the weather conditions (extremely cold).
Diane and I arrived and were on our feet till we left at 7:00 AM. The second, the night shift, stayed in the little entrance way behind us all night to monitor any comings and goings. They can take turns sleeping as long as one of them is awake.
As the women guests woke up and got ready for another day, Diane and I set out morning supplies, started two big pots of coffee, and helped the women put away their bedding and tidy up the room.
At 6:30 AM on a regular day, the women guests must leave the facility but another shelter program in an adjoining building allows them to come in out of the cold and shower and wash clothes, etc. Here our overnight guests pack up their things to move to the other building.

RITI is a really wonderful program.

National Catholic Office of the Deaf

Pastoral Week (Sunday)

In the morning we had our last information session and then left right away for a national pilgrimage site, The Grotto on a Portland hilltop.

The Grotto is a shrine to Mary as Sorrowful Mother and is part of a huge rock face on the hill top.

At the top of the cliff and the grotto is a beautiful forest of magnificent trees.

On the edge of the cliff, with a panoramic view, is this chapel for meditation and prayer. It is amazing that all of this is within the city of Portland.
Our time at The Grotto concluded with a final liturgy. The presider was Bishop Stephen Raica whom I first met at the 1978 Florida NCOD conference in Florida, when he was a new priest getting into deaf ministry.
Back at the hotel, we had a concluding banquet. For me it was a chance to meet more new friends.