HOT, HOT, HOT AND YES, ALSO HUMID

As I am sure many of you have read or heard the mid-section of the country is in an extreme heat wave. Of course you have probably also heard, or seen news, about the flooding Missouri river. A number of the roads along the Missouri river, including Interstate 29, which goes from Kansas City to Omaha and beyond, is closed due to the flooding. Evidently they had an unusual amount of snow up north in Montana this winter and then some heavy rains in the spring. So they are having to let a lot of water out of the dams up north. That is what is causing the river to flood.

And then for the past week or more we have had day after day of very hot and humid weather. With all the water around that only makes it more humid. So they are telling people to take it easy, take a lot of breaks if you work outdoors and drink a lot of water.

They have now started to work on the new guest house. As you can see from the above picture they have been grading and preparing the area for building. It is expected to take a full year to complete the building. J.E. Dunn is the construction manager but of course there are many sub-contractors. (click on picture above to enlarge it)

During the month of July we are having our LCCIP program for International Priests who are working or preparing to work in the United States. The letters stand for: Language, Culture, Church for International Priests. It is a three week program held every summer here at Conception to help these priests acclimate to the culture and language in this country. With the shortage of priests in this country many dioceses are going outside the United States to try to find priests who are willing to come to this country for priestly ministry.

Click on picture to enlarge it.

The picture above is of an alumnus and good friend of mine who just recently graduated from the Wichita Police Academy. Pictured is Randy Gorges, along with his wife Vera, and his son Isaac. I have come to really appreciate and admire the police. They render a real service to our communities and in so many ways risk their life to help us. After the shooting we had here in 2002, I realized they are really our friends and not out to try to catch us doing something wrong.

Toward the end of this week I will be going to my little home town of Brunswick, Missouri to spend about ten days relaxing and visiting family and friends.

My prayers are with all of you everyday.

God bless you.

GROUND BREAKING FOR NEW GUEST HOUSE

The J.E. Dunn construction trailer was moved
in this week.

Breaking ground for the new guest facility.

The blessing began in the St. Raphael Hospitality Center.
Pictured are Abbot Gregory, Mr. Bill Dunn and Father Benedict.
Brother Paul is just behind the Abbot.

Monday, June 20, we had the blessing and the ground breaking for the new guest house to be built just to the north of St. Joseph Hall. Most of the monks, many employees and construction people and architects were on hand for the ground breaking. This week they began to relocate some of the underground structure such as the water line, gas line etc. Soon then they will begin digging preparing the area for the new building.

Pictured above are Steve and Christy Arnold and their family who visited me last week. I had presided at the wedding of Steve and Christy in August, 1999. They now have five beautiful children and it was good to visit with them again.

Tomorrow I am going to Brookfield, MO to celebrate a funeral Mass. Evidently the priests of the diocese are all on retreat and they could not find a priest to have the funeral. So they called the Prior and I am going down to do this on Friday. I just helped at this parish this past Holy Week so I know a number of the parishioners.

Most of you have read of all the flooding on the Missouri river. Fortunately we are far away from that but we all assure these people of our thoughts and prayers at what they are going through. Unfortunately it sounds as though it will last through most of the summer because of the heavy snow up north last winter and the heavy rains this spring.

To read the new oblate blog click here. and then click on "oblates" on the left side of your screen.

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.