- Morning Prayer and some time with the Journal-Register at home.
- In the office by 9am to meet with Fr John Bettman. Because he is now retired and about to move to North Carolina, he tendered his resignation as diocesan spiritual director for Cursillo and diocesan coordinator of Education for Ministry. I'm sorry to see him go. Both positions will be hard to fill.
- Celebrated and preached at the Mass for the Grand Ultreya of the diocesan Cursillo community. We commemorated the lesser feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pastor and Theologian. The opening line of the opening song was "We celebrate our life together." I don't think it was planned this way, but it could hardly have been more appropriate for the feast, given the title of one of Bonhoeffer's books.
- Fr Bettman gave the Witness Talk, after which we broke into several group reunions, with the clergy gathering in my office. Serendipitously, I was able to enlist the help of Fr Tim Goodman, a master wood worker, to construct a small ledge on one of the walls of my office on which I would like to place some votive candles, underneath the crucifix. The Ultreya continued with lunch in the Great Hall of the catehdral, where I got to touch base with a number of people. I then attended the beginning minutes of the Cursillo Secretariat meeting, but had to excuse myself because of a prior commitment.
- That prior commitment was a (video) Skype conversation with Fr Mark Winward, a priest of the diocese who is an active duty Navy chaplain currently attached to a Marine regiment stationed at Camp Pendleton that is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in August. He had hoped to attend my consecration, but pastoral duties intervened at the last minute, so we resorted to technology to help us get acquainted. Both Brenda and I got to meet both Fr Mark and his wife Casey, along with their two sons, Christian and Matthew. Mark's unit will be in an active and dangerous combat zone when he gets over there.
- After two or three hours of decompression at home, Brenda and I accompanied Dean Brodie and Linda downtown to the opening of an art show that includes the works of one of their parishioners at the cathedral. The artwork was wonderful, but I was blown away by the several bonsai trees that one of the artists was displaying. Why have I never paid attention to bonsai before? It is stunning.
- Spent what was left of the evening watching The Soloist. What a compelling story and a fine film.
Spring 2018 House of Bishops, Day 3
We have new stricter social media rules now in the HOB--no photos taken during a session without the permission of those in it. So ... I'm having to be more creative about finding pics for the blog, because I'm not going to take a panoramic group shot and then contact everyone whose balding head shows in the photo! Once again, the day began with Eucharist. This time, though, I took a pass, and opted for a vigorous walk on a brisk morning. Having looked at the liturgy sheet in advance, there were enough triggers that I knew the net spiritual effect for me would be negative. #selfcare I will say, however, that HOB worship has gotten incrementally less problematic during the tenure of the current Presiding Bishop, and I give props for that. When we convened at 10:15, there were the usual announcements, then a whirlwind set of summary reports from bishop members of the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) and the Task Force on the Study of Marriage. The full report
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