Summer seems to have arrived

St. Raphael Church at Indian Grove, MO is today
celebrating it's 125th anniversary. This is the
church where my Dad and Mother were married
in 1921. It is still open today--a country church
at the little village of Indian Grove. Bishop Gaydos
will be there for Mass today.

Summer seems to have arrived. In the last couple of weeks we have had a lot of hot and humid weather. The weekend of May 28-29 and again on the weekend of June 4-5, I went to Kansas City to celebrate the Masses at St. Andrew Parish in the north part of Kansas City. The first weekend it was chilly when I left Conception so I wore a sweater. By the time I got to Kansas City it was hot so I did not even have to take the sweater out of the car. Both weekends I celebrated four Masses, one on Saturday evening and three on Sunday. I spent the nights with my brother and his wife, Harold and Dee Reichert who live very close to this church.

We have had enough rain so that everything is green and the flowers are blooming. It's a beautiful time of the year except for the heat and humidity. We do not have air-conditioning in the monastery except for a few rooms but most of us do have fans. We hope to eventually renovate the monastery and we will probably air condition then, but I don't know whether I will still be around by that time. Who knows? This summer we are planning to begin work on our new guest house. It will be toward the north part of the campus and will have 32 rooms as well as some meeting rooms. At the present time they are moving some gas lines in order to get ready to start building. I believe the ground breaking is scheduled for June 20.

I have been working on a little project, trying to write some of my memories down and make them available to my nephews and nieces, and other family members. It is kind of fun to do this and I enjoy such projects. I have, in the process, put together a number of older family pictures. A lot has changed in my life time for sure. We did not even have electricity on the farm until I was in the fifth grade.

Many of the monks are coming and going during the summer. Each final professed monk is allowed two weeks for a home visit or vacation each year. The latter part of July I plan to go to Brunswick and spend some time on the farm, just relaxing and visiting relatives. Sometimes during the summer we really get low on numbers, especially on weekends when many priests have to go out to parishes to help out.

Monsignor Louis McCorkle, a priest of the diocese
of Jefferson City and an alumnus of Conception, who
is in residence in our Health Care Center celebrated
his 90th birthday on May 28

Father Anthony Shidler, O.S.B. and Monsignor
McCorkle shake hands. Father Anthony will
celebrate his 90th birthday in August, 2011

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.

HOLY WEEK AND SACRED TRIDUUM

About 38-40 oblates attended the oblate
retreat the weekend of April 8-10, 2011

It was directed by Brother Cyptian Langlois, O.S.B.
Click on picture to enlarge it.

Today is Palm Sunday. At 10:15 AM the monks, seminarians and guests assembled on the plaza area in front of St. Michael hall for the blessing of palms, the reading of the Gospel and then the procession to the Basilica for Mass. We also had many guests present, m0stly members of RCIA classes from a number of parishes in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa.

To give you an idea of the monastic schedule during the Triduum, on Holy Thursday we have a communal penance service at 11:00 AM for the monks, students and guests. Then on Thursday evening we have the Evening Mass of the Lord's supper, during which the Abbot washes the feet of twelve people. After Mass the Blessed Sacrament is placed at the altar of repose and adoration continues until midnight. However, at 7:00 PM we have a special meal something like a Seder meal for everyone who attends the Mass.

From Holy Thursday afternoon until after the Easter Vigil on Sunday we try to observe silence and encourage our guests to also keep silence, especially on Good Friday.

On Good Friday we have prayer at 7:50 AM which lasts about an hour. The seminarians and the guests join the monastic community for this. At 11:45 AM we have daytime prayer, at 3:00 PM we gather for solemn liturgical service with the reading of the passion, solemn prayers, adoration of the cross, and communion. At 7:15 PM we have compline.

On Holy Saturday we again have morning prayer at 7:50 AM, Daytime prayer at 11:45 AM and vespers or evening prayer at 5:35 PM.

On Easter Sunday we rise early for the Easter Vigil to begin at 4:30 AM. It is usually after 7:00 AM when it concludes. Daytime prayer is at 11:45 AM and Vespers at 5:00 PM.

The seminarians leave soon after the Easter Vigil and are gone for one week, returning on Sunday, May 1. This year with Easter so late in April they only two weeks of school after they return before the end of the school year.

God bless you and I wish each of you a very Blessed Triduum and Easter.

Some Great Days

Written on Sunday, April 3, Laetare Sunday.

So what has been going on here at Conception? First of all, after most of the week went by with chilly days and nights, the last two days have been great. Today the temperature is up in the mid 80's but storms are forecast for tonight as a cold front moves in and the temperature drops again.

This weekend has been an off-campus weekend for the students so most of the students are gone. They will return Sunday evening.

Toward the end of March the Seminary Board of Regents met here so we had a number of bishops, vocation directors and others here for that. Among the bishops here for this meeting were: Bishop Robert Finn, from our own diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Bishop James Johnston, Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Kansas City, Kansas, Bishop Michael Jackels, Wichita, Kansas, Archbishop Paul Coakley, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Bishop Will Dendinger, Grand Island, Nebraska, Archbishop George Lucas, Omaha, Nebraska, Bishop Richard Pates, Des Moines, Iowa, Bishop Walker Nickless, Sioux City, Iowa.

In March also we had Pastors Day for the seminary. For this event the pastors of the seminarians are invited to come to the seminary for a visit. They were here for the Feast of St. Benedict, on March 21.

During Lent the monastic community has been having conferences and discussions on the Post Synod document Verbum Domini, the Word of the Lord, by Pope Benedict XVI, which has been quite interesting. We are also reading the entire document at meals during this season of Lent.

This week I am at Clyde all week to celebrate Mass for the Sisters. I am assigned to celebrate the early morning Mass at 7:30 AM for the community. However, on Tuesday and Thursday I will celebrate the 11:00 AM for the retired Sisters living at Our Lady of Rickenbach.

I am including some pictures of the campus in this blog just to show you that spring really is here and flowers are starting to bloom.

Between the Health Care Center and the monastery

Trees in front of St. Maur Hall