Wednesday (St Agnes)

  • Usual AM routine: task planning at home; MP in cathedral.
  • Prepared for the midday Mass.
  • Took care of a bit of financial administration via email.
  • Spent some quality time with commentaries on the Gospel according to Mark in preparation to preach on the Second Sunday in Lent, at St Bartholomew's, Granite City. This is not always necessarily an extraordinarily rich experience, but it was today. Wish I had more time for personal scripture study just for its own sake, but I'm glad having to preach forces me to do it. (Early start on this one because of insane travel schedule in February.)
  • Took a vigorous walk (the only kind possible in cold weather) up around the capitol (opposite direction as yesterday).
  • Celebrated and preached the midday Mass, keeping the lesser feast of St Agnes, a twelve-year old martyr in Rome in the last general wave of persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
  • :Lunch from La Bamba, eaten at home.
  • Took a phone call from a priest who was responding to an email I had sent yesterday.
  • Tied up some administrative loose ends related to a visit to a DEPO parish (one of two I look after) next month.
  • Reached out by email to a potential videographer for the Lenten teaching series I'm giving at St Michael's, O'Fallon.
  • Drilled down on the second of two addresses I will deliver at Trinity School for Ministry at their Ash Wednesday quiet day next month. It is at the brink of completion.
  • Took another brisk walk, this time down to South Grand Avenue and back.
  • Worked some more on the liturgies for the clergy retreat.
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral.

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