On my way back to Cambodia, I have stopped at the Maryknoll Sisters retirement home in Monrovia, California. Sr. Arlene Trant and I worked together with the deaf people of Macau and now she is administrator of this home. She has been inviting me to visit so I made this my first stop on the return journey.
Today was a loose day with three really important elements: visiting Fr. Tom Dunleavy, a lunch meeting with Ted Miles, and dinner at the NYC office of Maryknoll with Br. Tim Riable.
A wooden statue of Mary in the entrance way of the Sisters’ chapel.
Today was a day for visiting people around the larger Maryknoll campus, on the grounds of the priests and brothers, then the sisters, and then the lay missioners.
The main seminary building occupants have just endured two weeks of Covid restrictions after a surge of infections. Those restrictions were lifted three days ago but one returning Maryknoll priest tested positive and is isolated in his room.
Today we had our usual Wednesday meeting of Maryknoll Cambodia followed by a liturgy and dinner together. The meeting was not unusual but for the mass we had five visitors–Marist Brothers in Phnom Penh for a regional meeting–in addition to our usual crowd. The usual crowd when I first arrived in Cambodia was 25-30 persons every Wednesday. “Usual” now is 7 people. It was a delight to have a bigger group gathering together tonight.