Fr. Kenneth's Update

Advent is going by very fast.  Just one week from this coming Tuesday is Christmas.  For Christmas this year I will again be going to Brookfield, MO, to celebrate three Christmas Masses.  After the last Christmas Mass I hope to go on down to Brunswick to visit some of the relatives.

My wasn't that terrible -- the killing of all those children and others out in the state of Connecticut?  When I first saw the news about that I first wanted to get angry, then I wanted to cry and finally I said I can only pray for them.  It just seems to me that this country is coming more and more to not respect human life.  I don't like to say this but I cannot help but wonder whether killing babies before they are even born has made us more and more insenstive to the value of every human life.  Having been through one tragedy like this myself it really seems to have an effect on me.  I think so much, not only of those who lost their lives at such a young age, but of their families.  As for the children who survived you have to wonder if they will ever want to go back to school.  Let us all continue to pray for them -- the living as well as those who were killed.


A couple weeks ago I was so happy to see one of the students who graduated from our seminary college.   Greg Dolan who attended school here from 2000-2004 and then later dropped out of the seminary, stopped by for a visit.  He is now in his last year of medical school out in the state of Washington.  He will graduate in the spring 2013 and he was travelling around to visit pediatric hospitals.  He wants to specialize in pediatrics and he is looking for a place to go for his residency.  Picture on the right of Greg and Fr. Kenneth.

One of my pride and joys after 53-54 years of being a priest is that I got to preside at the marriage of all thirteen of my nephews and nieces.  Now their children are getting married but I tell them it is not possible for me to travel and preside at all the grandnephews and nieces weddings.

I am also happy to have been able to preside at the wedding of a couple good friends.  Both of them were at one time seminarians but discerned they were not called to the priesthood.  In August of 1999 I presided at the wedding of Steve and Christy Arnold at Leavenworth, Kansas.  They now live in Minnesota where Steve is now a permanent deacon and are the parents of five children.

Steve and Christy and their children:  Sam, Isabelle,

Nathan, Lucy and Benjamin.

In May of 2008 I presided at the wedding of Benjamin and Alicia Darnell in Springfield, Mo.  They now have two children.  Benjamin is a youth director at Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Wea, KS.  

                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

On the left above is Ben and Alicia's son, Isaac, who was three years old last August, helping his mother shop and on the right is Fr. Kenneth holding their daughter, Anya Marie, who was born last May, 2012.
       
Students all left for Christmas vacation this past Thursday.  They are off for about three weeks returning in January.

As we all prepare for Christmas these last days of Advent hopefully we will all keep in mind what we are celebrating on this feast--the birth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, who took on our human nature in order to bring us salvation and eternal life.

God bless you all.
          

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                   

 

Thanksgiving -- Advent soon

Thanksgiving week is now ended.  Here at Conception, as usual, we had community meetings on Tuesday afternoon and then most of the day on Wednesday.  Then on Wednesday evening we began celebrating our jubilarians for this year.  This year they are as follows:   Fr. Norbert Schappler, 60 years ordained, Fr. Denis Dougherty, 60 years professed, Fr. Roger Schmit, 50 years ordained, Fr. Daniel Petsche, and Fr. Aidan McSorley, 50 years professed, Archbishop Jerome Hanus, 25 years episcopal ordination, Fr. Peter Ullrich, 25 years priesthood ordination.  Wednesday evening we had a social event and then on Thanksgiving day, Mass at 10:00 AM and then a traditional Thanksgiving meal at noon.  I am sure many of you have already read about each of these in the new Tower Topics which you have probably received by now.

The students left on Tuesday by noon.  Classes were held in the morning but no classes in the afternoon so they could leave by noon  on that day.  They will be returning today on Sunday.  Today is also the solemnity of Christ the King and the concluding Sunday of the Church year.  

That means that next Sunday, December 2, will be the first Sunday of Advent in preparation for the Christmas feast.  Of course if you have been in any of the stores it looks like Christmas is already here, but nothing we can do about that.  We don't put up any decorations around here until a couple days before Christmas. 

The day after Thanksgiving we had a young monk who is studying at Atchision KS,  St. Benedict Monastery.  He is a monk of St. Bernard Monastery at Cullman, Alabama, but is in college at Atchison.  His name is Brother Bernard Denson.  He left today after the noon meal to go back to Atchison.  

Brother Bernard Denson, O.S.B.

Last week on Sunday afternoon some good friends came to see me and stayed until Monday afternoon.  Benjamin and Alicia Darnell and their three year old son, Isaac, and their six month old daughter, Anya Marie, were here to visit.  So good to see them.  At one time Ben was here in the seminary but later he dropped out of the seminary.  When he and Alicia got married in 2008 they asked me to preside at the wedding ceremony which I did.  Ben serves as a youth minister in a parish and Alicia is a stay at home mother.

They continue to work on the roof of the monastery.  Yesterday they had a hugh crane here so that they could lift copper up over the monastery roof to the scaffold set up in the courtyard.   Here are a couple pictures I took of that.

.On a personal note, I find my eye sight getting worse as I get older.  There seems to be nothing really that they can do for it.  I still read and still am able to drive -- just renewed my license last July and passed the eye test.  But, reading from a book is more difficult.  So I now have a Kindle reader and find it much easier to read with that.  So if you ever want to give me something, a gift card from Amazon would be great as they are the ones who make the books for Kindle.  Kindle books are cheaper than printed books but still do cost.

Wishing everyone a blessed Advent season.

ELECTION IS OVER -- NOW WHAT?

   Yes, the election is over now.  At least there will not be so many ads on TVand other places concerning politics. Many were no doubt happy about the outcome, and many (like myself) were disappointed.  I think that what comes now is what really counts.   It is easy to make many  promises when seeking election but what happens after the election is what is important.  We must pray for our country, the U.S.A.  We are all proud of our country but we just seem to becoming more and more secularistic.  Almost anything goes, whether it be abortion, taking away religious freedom or anything else. So let's all pray for a change of heart in our beloved country.

Here at Conception we continue to be busy.  Every weekend our guest facilities seem to be practically full and often there are groups here during the week.  This weekend we have about 70 young men here looking at the seminary.  We have two of these weekends a year -- one in the fall and another in the spring.  Many of our seminarians had first been here for one of these weekends.  The weekend tries to give those attending some idea of what life is like in the seminary.  Most of the talks are given by our present seminarians.

A few days ago it was necessary to cut down a large tree that had been on the east side of the monastery for many years.  I know it was there already, and a full grown tree, when I came to Conception in 1948.  It was rotting and we knew it was pretty well hollow inside.  In recent years large limbs had been blown off during storms.  It was located just outside the window of my room so I was somewhat worried about it blowing over into my room during one of those storms.  At the same time it provided great shade for my room and others.  Here are a couple pictures of the tree after it was cut down.  You can see how hollow it was.

 Recently the monks were able to update their laundry facilities with four new combination washers and dryers.  Each monk, except for those in the Health Care Center (Infirmary), has to do his own laundry so we need to have on hand washers and dryers for this purpose.  Each student dorm also has similar laundry facilities for the students to do their laundry.

Washer on the bottom of each unit and the dryer on top.

Have a good month of November.  The last few days have been very warm here, but today we had some rain and it has been turning colder througout the day.

This weekend the students put on the musical HOW I BECAME A PIRATE.  I went to see it Friday night and really enjoyed it.  It was directed by Brother Cyprian.

Many blessings to each of you.
If you would also like to read my blog which I write for the oblates go to this web site,
www.conceptionabbey.org and then click on "oblates" on the left side of your screen and then on "oblate blog."

What the heck has happened to Fr. Kenneth !!

It has been a long time since you have heard from Fr. Kenneth hasn't it?  And I certainly have not been very regular in writing for the last months or maybe the last year. I just keep putting it off -- so there is no other excuse.

First of all I wanted to show a picture which indicates we are still working on the roofs around here.  They are now on the last building but it is a large building -- the Basilica (church) and the monastery itself.  They have indicated that they hope to be finished by Easter, depending of course on the weather.  The above picture is in the countyard where they are putting copper on part of the church roof.

I continue to go out and help in parishes as I am needed.  Two weeks ago I went to Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in St. Joseph for the 8:30 AM Mass, and then came home only to leave for Des Moines a couple hours later for an oblate meeting.  

Last weekend I went to Kansas City to attend the wedding of one of my grandnephews, Sean Aubrey and his finance Caitlin Koenig.  Although she is originally from the Chicago area, they were married at St. James Church at Liberty, MO. Father Mike Roach was the celebrant and I concelebranted. Sean is the grandson of my brother, Harold, my only brother still living.  Sean is a pharmacist and works at a Price Chopper pharmacy department.  His grandfather (my brother) was also a pharmacist and he has an uncle, Steve, who is a pharmacist.  So it seems to run in the family.

Today and tomorrow I go to Clyde for their 11:00 AM Mass for the retired Sisters.  I feel like a younster over there as many of them are well up into the 90's and the oldest will soon be 105.  

This weekend we have Serra Clubs from this region here for their annual meeting.  These are Serra Clubs from Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.  The Serra Clubs help to foster and encourage vocations to the priesthood and religious life as well as help as they can financially.  They do a lot of good work for us in our seminary work.

I have been to see a couple eye doctors in the last weeks.  My eyes are certainly not as good as they used to be.  Especially my left eye has pretty poor vision.  I do enjoy reading so I asked for and received permission from the abbot to purchase a KINDLE reader.  They are made and sold by Amazon.com.  It's amazing how many books you can store on them and to make it easier to read the books you can change the size of the font as needed.  I am gradually adding books and enjoy reading again.

I'm sure we will all be happy when the election is over.  Certainly a lot of money is spent on advertising.  As I posted on Facebook just today:  "I have never voted for a pro choice candidate in the matter of abortion and I don't plan to ever change that."  Taking a baby's life is simply murder.   

Fall is always a beautiful time but I cheated a little -- this picture is not from this year.  

Cardinal Dolan's prayer to the DNC in Charlotte, Sept. 6, 2012