The Musical Priest

Hola! So here's where I'll be from January 2nd - February 7th. Gonzaga Eastern Point Retreat House 37 Niles Pond Road Gloucester, MA 01930-4499 #978-283-0013 If you fancy sending something, please do - cards, letters, a file to saw through the bars on the windows. Cheers, Ryan

Yeah, so this is my spiritual guru. He makes me hold this sign because I have "self-esteem" issues or something. Actually, ask me where I got it...it's a good story. I made Bill here hold it in order that he, too, feel beautiful. 

Happy Holidays! My friends, I have something most unnerving to share with you: I have what is known as "the athlete's foot." While wholly dissimilar from "the diabetes" and having nothing to do at all with "the cancer" the athlete's foot is a common affliction among, well, athletes. True to its name, I have literally athlete's foot: it's on my left foot and not my right; were I to have it on both, I suppose I'd have to call it "the athelete's feet" which lacks entirely the nice ring of "the athlete's foot." This is such an amazing find, really, and just fitting with the end of my first semester as a Jesuit: I've discovered I have "feelingS," I like to cook, and I've gone to the gym where I seem to be on good footing in my quest to be an athlete. Now, if my use of "the" preceeding the afflictions listed above is unnerving, you have Wilfred Brimley (Quaker Oats fellow) to b...

Hi all, Since this blog was started in order to communicate with family and friends, I figure I should use it for that purpose. On December 26th, the Duns family will be hosting an After-Christmas party...intended to consume the alcohol left over from Christmas day, of course. So if you'll be in the Cleveland area, shoot me an email and I can provide more information or, if you so choose, just show up at the house sometime that evening. Now, someone might say, isn't it rude to invite people over to your mother's house? My reply: Yes, and I don't care. Insofar as my family doesn't like me any more (they moved my books) and therefore are indicating that they don't want me in their house, I figure I'm an unwanted guest. Thus, I am within my rights as a rude interloper to invite OTHER people over, too. If hospitality were limited to only those that the host family desired to invite, then my brother would politic in such a way as to invite maybe three memb...

Since I've been a derelict blogger these past few weeks, I thought it'd be nice to post TWICE in one day. Hooray. The routine of the novitiate is well established at this point, just in time for us to leave in four weeks for the 30-Day retreat. For those of you who don't know (and do care) this is the 30-day retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. It's a fun-filled month of prayer and reflection where you pretty well figure out how terrible a sinner you really are and that God still likes you. Oddly enough, that's a big revelation for a lot of people! For me, it's the opposite. I know God likes me, but I figure God'll need a full month to realize that I really do like him. Next semester I will be returning to the classroom in order to instruct children in religion. When I was a young'n this involved making cards for everyone and his brother, singing practice for mass, and learning/saying that we love Jesus. Barf. ...

Hello Everyone! I'm sorry that I've been away for a bit - the Oireachtas was a huge ordeal that really occupied a whole lot of my time and energy. Now that I'm back and things have settled down, I reckon I'll have more time to write. So, let's have a quick re-cap of the weekend. It began with me waking up last Friday at 3:50 in the morning, leaving Loyola House at 4:15 in order to get to the airport by 5:00 am. Boarding the plane seemed a new and foreign experience...I sat in an area of the plane designated as "coach." It's a wild terrain, much different from the First-Class I'm used to flying on Continental. Surprisingly, I didn't find the savages back there to be too difficult to sit with; then again, the flight was only 35 minutes. Yes, I will have to fly with these people again very soon. It's nice to see how the "common folk" live. Actually, the only benefit to sitting in the First Class section of any airline is th...