Community retreat -- Ordination to diaconate

Conception Seminary College
The graduating class of 2011

The school year ended on the weekend of May 14-15 with graduation on Saturday afternoon, May 14 and a solemn Mass of thanksgiving on Sunday morning, May 15. The students were then free to leave for the summer. The graduating class was one of our larger classes for many years so hopefully that is a good sign for the Church in general.

The day after graduation on May 16, the monastic community began it's annual retreat. It began Monday evening and concluded on Friday morning, May 20. The retreat director was Bishop Joseph Charron, C.PP.S., bishop emeritus of the diocese of Des Moines. He was very good and gave us some excellent conferences. He is a very pastoral person and kind and charitable.

On the last evening of the retreat Brother Guerric Letter, O.S.B., was ordained to the diaconate. Bishop Charron was the ordaining bishop since he was already here.

For the summer Brother Guerric will serve as deacon in the parish at Maryville. Father Martin, one of our monks, is pastor there and will be his mentor. In August he will return to St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana to complete his last year of theology in preparation for ordination to the priesthood.

After the retreat a number of monks had to leave already for other assignments, including some leaving for home visits and vacations. Most of the monks on mission were here for the retreat and it is always good to see them.

Last weekend; that is, graduation weekend, I had to go to St. James Parish in St. Joseph for the weekend Masses. On Sunday afternoon I returned and then left for Des Moines to meet with the oblates there on Sunday evening. After spending the night in Des Moines at the St. John Basilica rectory where our friend, Father Aquinas is pastor, I returned to Conception by noon on Monday.

Our summer will be a little quieter around here but there will still be many activities to keep us busy. I don't plan to go for my home visit and vacation until the latter part of July.

I pray you all have a wonderful and blessed summer.

Easter continues

I hope you had a blessed Easter and that you continue to know the joy and peace of this blessed Easter season. We spent forty days in Lent preparing for the Easter feast, and now we spend fifty days celebrating. The Easter season will not end until Pentecost which this year is June 12.

The Triduum for me was a real blessing. As you know from my last blog entry I was sent to the parish at Brookfield, MO. It was a blessing to be able to celebrate each of these days as the celebrant. I have not had that chance very often. Since I was master of ceremonies here at Conception for so many years and then Prior for fourteen year, I had to be here most of the time because of my jobs. Of course I always enjoyed being here. Conception knows how to celebrate these days for sure. But, I also enjoyed the chance to be celebrant.

Sister Donna, a Franciscan Sister, is the pastoral administrator of the parish and usually the priest at Marceline, MO comes as the sacramental minister. However, since he is not able to be both places at the same time it is difficult to work out a schedule to celebrate these days two places. On Holy Thursday at 7:30 PM I celebrated the Mass of the Lord's Supper. I washed six people's feet and Sister washed six. We had a nice procession after Mass to the altar of repose.

On Good Friday we had the liturgy of Good Friday also at 7:30 PM. It is a more sober celebration but went very well with the reading of the Passion and adoration of the Cross and Communion.

The Easter Vigil we celebrated at 8:30 PM on Saturday evening to make sure it was truly dark when we started. It was such a wonderful experience to celebrate this. I baptized five people, and had two make their profession of faith and confirmed three on this night. Sister had set up a rather large container for the water and we baptized by immersion. It was the first time I had done that. She is going to send me some pictures so I will post them when they arrive.


It looks like now that summer is almost here. The temperature is supposed to be up in the 80's today and we haven't had any rain now for a week or more so the farmers are very busy in the fields.

Two or three years ago I was able to visit Pella, Iowa,
about this time of year and the tulips were
beautiful. A nice place to visit in early May or so.

Our students returned last Sunday and now this week are finishing up the school year. The last day of classes will be Thursday, May 12, with graduation on Saturday, May 14, and then they will leave after a Mass of Thanksgiving on Sunday, May 15. Then it will quiet around here although we do have a lot of things going on during the summer and continue to have a lot of retreatants on weekends.

On Easter Sunday I got to go to Brunswick (where I was born and raised) to have Easter dinner with my sister in law, Vera, and her family. This is a picture taken as we were preparing to eat. As you can see it is quite a large group and one of her sons and his family were not able to be there. Her husband, my brother Jim, died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 73. It was great to be able to see them all again and of course we had a delicious meal.

For any of the oblates who read this please note that I will be in Des Moines on Sunday, May 15, for an oblate meeting at St. John Basilica. Hope to see you there.