Wednesday (Thomas Bray)

Spent the first part of the morning at home, working with Brenda to get ready to host the deacons of the diocese for lunch tomorrow. Then I accompanied her to a doctor's appointment, after which there was just enough time to drop her off back home and head to the office-cathedral complex and prepare to preside and preach at the 12:15 Mass. We kept the lesser feast of Thomas Bray. I drove down to Subway, grabbed a meatball marinara, and brought it back to my office for a working lunch. Processed a bunch of email and prepped for the afternoon meeting ... which was an "examination interview" with a candidate for the vocational diaconate. It's been more than a dozen years since we've had one of those in the diocese, during which time the national canons have changed, so we're having to sort of invent the wheel. So I gathered three deacons of the diocese and the three priests with whom they work (one of whom was absent due to illness) for a wide-ranging conversation with the candidate. I think it's a model that we can continue to develop. When we were finished, I cleaned up some odds and ends, ducked into the cathedral to pray the Angelus, then headed home an hour or so earlier than usual because of tomorrow's event. Later in the evening, I did some sermon work--repurposing an older text for use a week from this Sunday, and beginning a fresh process for preaching on Lent V (April 2 at St Andrew's, Carbondale).

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