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.