LAETARE SUNDAY

So we are already half-way through Lent.  As a matter of fact in just two weeks we have Passion or Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week.  We have had a meeting to decide on a schedule and hopefully will be ready for the great days of the year -- THE SACRED TRIDUUM.

During Lent I help with a lot of penance services in the parishes in this deanery.  I have already helped two evenings at the parish at Madison and this evening I will help at the parish here in Norfolk.  The parish here is quite large and we usually have about ten priests from the deanery helping with confessions.  This coming week they will also have a day for confessions for the grade school and high school located just down the road from where I live.  They have both a Catholic grade and high school.  Also, later this week I will go to Stanton to help with the confessions one evening.

Both the Sisters and the nursing home have a rather nice rose or pink chasuble for Laetare and Gaudete Sunday.  So I wore them today.  Here are a couple pictures.

Myself with Sister Barbara.  Sister Barbara is the

sacristan and also does all the decorating in the

sanctuary.  Notice the decorations for this Sunday.  

Sister Barbara always has a smile on her face.

Our weather continues to go back and forth.  Today it is somewhat cloudy but warm -- supposed to get up to 70 or more.  But, tomorrow it is supposed to get cold again and stay pretty cool all week.  We still have had practically no moisture all winter.

I had to have some work done on my computer this last week.  Evidently I had picked up a virus or malware someplace.  So I had to pay a company some  money to remove that and clean up my computer and all of it was done electronically.  I could watch them work on my computer.  I could not of course see the person but I could see the work being done.

I guess the monks at home are busy getting ready to move out of the monastery as soon as the students leave.  I'm glad I have already done that.  I cleaned out my room completely before I left and did not even store anything.  Anything I wanted to keep or thought I might need I brought with me.  

I pray you all have a blessed Lent during these last days before Easter.  Today we had that beautiful Gospel account of the young boy, born blind, being healed of his blindness by Jesus and eventually come to full faith in Jesus.  That is what we also are trying to do during this Lent.  In imitation of Jesus and, in our present day, with Pope Francis, may we all learn to be merciful.  "It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice."

Here is a little prayer that was given to me when I was in the hospital after the shooting in 2002.  I still say this prayer everyday:

Acceptance prayer:

My Jesus, I ask you with all my heart for your love.

Only your love will help me to accept my sufferings

and carry my cross in such a way that I may be your 

true follower.

O Lord Jesus, graciously accept the sacrifice of my

sufferings for the temporal and eternal salvation of myself

and my loved ones.  

Jesus, my dearest Lord and God, my Teacher and Redeemer,

have mercy on me.  Most Holy Spirit be my consoler.

Prayer written originally by Blessed John Newmann.

MORE NEWS FROM NORFOLK, NEBRASKA

To begin with the weather has turned cooler again.  One day it is up in the 70's and then a few days later it is cold again.  March weather I guess and perhaps also for April.  It got down to about 14 degrees last night I think, but at least today it is again sunny and up close to 40 degrees.

This was a week of feasts.  Monday was St. Patrick's day, Wednesday the Solemnity of St Joseph and then Friday the feast of St. Benedict.  Here at Norfolk the Sisters celebrate this feast of St. Benedict as a feast and then on July 11, they celebrate that feast of St. Benedict as a Solemnity.  At Conception we do just the opposite.  But, that is fine.  We still had a nice celebration last Friday and on Friday evening I again went down to the Knights of Columbus fish fry.  Paul Moser (no relation to me as far as I know even though my Grandmother Reichert was a Moser) always buys me a beer and there is nothing better than good fried fish and a cold beer.  Most Fridays during Lent they serve close to 800 people including a lot drive throughs.

The deacon candidates from the Archdiocese of Omaha were here again this weekend for part of their training.  The chancery office had contacted me earlier in the week to ask me to confirm two of the candidates who they found out had never received confirmation.  So after receiving a letter from Archbishop Lucas delegating me to do this, I did it at Mass on Saturday.  While I had confirmed a couple converts while at Brookfield for Holy Week a few years ago, I had never administered the sacrament any other time.  The bishop is of course the regular minister of confirmation.  I am posting a few pictures here.

 Beginning of Mass

 Anointing with chrism

 Imposition of hands

 Anointing with chrism

Prayer after communion and conclusion of Mass.  Two

priests from Omaha concelebrating and Deacon Jim Keating.

I also want to include a picture of the quilt I received last weekend from a group of quilters here for that weekend.  I am proud of it and it is beautiful on my bed.  Thank you to the ladies who made this.  A real work of love.

I have also finally figured out a way to put my Memories that I wrote in 2011 on my blog.  It is easy if you go to my Facebook and connect through there for this. 

SOME BEAUTIFUL SPRING WEATHER AND OTHER THINGS

Greetings to everyone again this week.  It has been a good week with a lot of warm and spring-like days.  We still have not had a good snow or rain here this winter so we pray for rain before the time comes to sow crops.

On Thursday, my day off, of this past week I got in the car and started driving.  I drove north of Norfolk on highway 81, and then over to Pierce and then on up highway 13 to Plainview.  I wanted to see the little town of Brunswick, Nebraska since I was born and raised in Brunswick, Missouri.   I never did find the town, but I know better now where it is located so I will get there the next time. There is certainly a lot of open country out here, lots of farm land which looks like it was mostly in corn last year.  Here are a couple pictures I took:

As the weather keeps improving I will go to many places in the area.  I don't like the big cities but I do enjoy the country.  

I got a big surprise yesterday (Saturday).  There are some large quilting groups that come here for the weekend now and then.  Last fall sometime one group was here and some of them came to Mass at the St. Joseph Nursing Home.  After Mass they told me who they were and I jokingly said something about:  "Are you going to make me a quilt?"  I obviously was not serious.  The same group was here this weekend and some of them are from Omaha.  The Omaha group did indeed make me a quilt.  I was almost speechless as I did not even think of such a thing.  I am putting a picture below but will post more pictures later.  This is just a picture I took when I put it on my couch here in the living room.  They took a number of pictures when they presented me with the quilt which they will e-mail to me.

This past Friday I again went to the fish fry by the Knights of Columbus.  As usual the food was all very good.  

This coming Tuesday is the feast of St. Benedict.  At Conception we celebrate this feast as a solemnity and the feast of St. Benedict on July 11 as a feast.  Up here the Sisters do just the opposite so this Tuesday will be only a feast, not a solemnity.

Have a blessed Lent and may God bless all of you.

COUPLE BEAUTIFUL SPRING LIKE DAYS

I just want you all to know that here in Northeastern Nebraska we had a couple of beautiful spring like days, probably warmer even than in Northwest Missouri.   On Sunday, March 9, the temperature reached a high of about 72 degrees.  And then on Monday, March 10, I think it got up to an official 73 degrees.  But--------as we all know such temperatures are not here to stay yet.  So by this morning the wind had changed around to the north and the temperature at the present time (about 3:30 PM) is about 35 degrees.  I had a dentist appointment this afternoon and when I left the office we were getting a mixture of rain and snow.  So it goes -- only God is in charge of the weather.

One of the Sisters who is taking classes at the college at Wayne, Nebraska, said the professor talked about Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas.  Evidently the professor mentioned that he had gone to school at Conception Seminary College and Sister said she had been there and knew where that was.  So I dug out the picture below of Justice Thomas.   He went to school at Conception for one year, 1967-68.  This picture was taken in the 1990's when he visited Conception.  At the time, I believe, he was a Federal Judge.  He has been to Conception once since he became a Supreme Court Judge.  

Justice Thomas in the center, on the left is Bro. Bernard,

and on the right is Fr Kenneth.  I was one

of his prefects the year he was at Conception.

The Knights of Columbus, as I mentioned before, have a fish supper every Friday evening during Lent.  I was not able to go last Friday, but someone told me they served about 800 people.  I hope to make it this coming Friday

Some years ago a number of my nephews and nieces started asking me to write down some of my memories from growing up on a farm.  Being born in 1933 I have seen a lot of changes during the years I have lived and especially remember those early years when we did not yet have electricity or running water etc.  So I began to write down some of my memories and completed this in 2011.  It is no master piece, but I did enjoy doing it.

FINALLY I AM BACK WRITING ON MY BLOG.

I know it has been a long time since I last wrote on my blog.  This being the first day of Lent; that is, Ash Wednesday, 2014, I thought it a good day to try to get back to writing something.  

Things continue to go well for me here in Norfolk.  I enjoy the Benedictine Sisters who I serve here as chaplain and also the residents at the nursing home just across the street.  For those who may have forgotten I celebrate two Masses everyday.  I still rise at 4:30 AM, and after cleaning up, I pray the office of readings from the Liturgy of the Hours.  Then I say the devotional prayers that I like to pray everyday.  Interestingly, I have the entire Roman Office of the Liturgy of the Hours and all these other prayers on my Kindle. With my eyes not as good as they used to be, I find it much easier to read from this new gadget from Amazon.  I also have many books on this machine.  You have to buy them but they are a lot cheaper than the printed books.  

About 5:40 AM or so I usually go over to the monastery and there do some lectio, usually using the readings of the day.  At 6:25 AM I pray morning prayer with the Sisters, followed by Mass for the Sisters at 7:00 AM.  Today on Ash Wednesday the chapel was filled as many people obviously wanted to come to an early Mass on this day and receive ashes on their forehead.  After Mass I eat breakfast with the Sisters.  Then I return to my house and about 8:30 AM go over to the St. Joseph Nursing Home, visit with some of the patients, then pray the rosary with those who arrive by 9:00 AM or so, and then celebrate my second Mass at 9:30 AM. Much of the remainder of the morning I spend visiting the residents, taking Catholics communion, who are not able to come to Mass and visiting with most of the patients.

After eating the noon meal with the Sisters I have some time to do such things as relax a while, do my own laundry, go buy groceries for the evening meals which I eat on my own etc.  

Frequently I am asked to help in a parish with confessions. Last week I spent part of one afternoon visiting at the Veterans Home here in Norfolk.  It is a beautiful retirement home, rather new, which is available for veterans.  It is really very nice and quite large with room for about 150 people.  They would like it if I could help over there but I do not wish to get over involved.  When I was there last week they had 28 Catholic patients.  

Veterans Home at Norfolk, NE

I have been helping the 4th degree Knights of Columbus when I can.  Last Sunday I was supposed to become a 4th degree member but then it had to be canceled due to the snow and very cold weather.  They want me to be their chaplain or whatever that person is called.  I will probably take over doing that.  The Knights of Columbus council up here has a rather large building and during Lent they have a fish fry every Friday evening.  They started already last Friday and I went down there to eat.  It was very good.  I have been down there for a number of meals and other celebrations.

We have had a very cold winter so far, but have had very little snow.  The snow we have on the ground now is about the largest amount we have had all year -- probably about three inches or so.  Some of the farmers have expressed to me some concern about the lack of moisture. 

I am not a big television fan, but I do have cable T.V. in the house.  Just a couple weeks ago the company began the process of switching to all digital.  So all of us had to install a special little box on top of the T.V.  Now we receive even more channels.  I just hope I can still get the Royals games up here as I could last summer.  In the evenings I pretty regularly watch Fox News out of New York.  They fit my conservative thinking more than most of the other channels.  I also have a DVD player connected to the T.V. so can watch movies if I so desire.  

Recently I had some contact with Ben Espey and his family from Nodaway County.  He was the sheriff in the county when we had that shooting at Conception in 2002.  After serving as sheriff for 16 years he lost the next election, but we became quite good friends before that time.  

The former sheriff of Nodaway County, Ben Espey, horseback riding.

Enough for this time.  I pray you all have a blessed Lenten season.  Yesterday afternoon the oblates of the monastery here brought in all kinds of good food and we had a little Mardi Gras Celebration.

At Mardi Gras celebration with Sisters and Oblates