- 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.
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Ten years ago, minus about six weeks, I served as the supply priest for Trinity, Lincoln six days before my consecration as Bishop of Springfield. Today I was there for the final regular scheduled canonical parish visitation of my episcopate. (I have a few more gigs on my calendar: March 7 in Mattoon, the Chrism Mass, the Triduum at the cathedral, May 30 in Cairo, and June 27 back at the cathedral--May 2 is available and not yet spoken for--but the every Sunday routine of my life for the past decade (in a larger sense, for the last 32 years) is at a major flex point.) As much as it could have been in the midst of a pandemic, this morning at Trinity was luminous. We confirmed eight adults, six of them qualifying as "young." My homily had to compete with the sounds of active young children. (I would much rather do that than have no kids in church.) Trinity is one of the exciting points of light in my ministry in the diocese. I took my time getting out of Lincoln because I wante...
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