The Musical Priest

I´ve a few spare minutes so I thought I´d update the old blog. First off, in light of Joe´s recent post, I have in fact eaten of the antiuchos. Anticuchos, for those of you who have not visited Latin America, are cooked beef hearts and intestines from the cow. That´s all I have to say about that. I have also eaten ceveche, which is raw fish cooked, so to speak, in lemon juice. It was delicious. Interestingly, I´ve not gotten sick since being here. Apart from a gnawing hunger - for some reason, regardless of how much I eat at any one sitting, I can´t lose my hunger - I´m doing quite well. Just a thought to share with you all. I have long held that the Catholic faith is tremendously sensate - we rely on touch (rosaries, sign of peace, holy water, the body and blood of Christ in the species of bread and wine) and sound (Angelus bells, song) and even smells (incense). Last night, as I prayed in the church next to the Juniorate where we are living, I experienced the convergence of realities...

Just a note to let you know that we´ve arrived in Peru. The flight was long but I was able to read a good chunk of a book I purchased so it was fine. I doubt I´ll update this blog much over the next few weeks. For those coming to vows and who have questions, please call my mother for details or leave a message on here and I´m sure she´ll get it. Please keep me in your prayers over the course of this summer and be assured that I will keep all of you in mine.

Here's a photo taken on Friday outside of the Montgomery Inn. Reputedly, this is the home of the favorite BBQ sauce of the late Bob Hope. Who'd have thought?

At 6:30 tomorrow morning we'll be leaving for Cincinnati for the joint Detroit/Chicago Province Days. This year's gathering will be held at Xavier University and, if our time together this year is as much fun as the gathering we had last year, we're in for a really good time. It's especially nice to gather together with other Jesuits and have the time to catch-up with one another. In no small measure do I delight in knowing that I'll see several of the men I lived with in Chicago so it'll be nice to have a bit of a reunion. On Monday morning I'll head to LA for the national conference of Jesuits in formation. This will be several days of meeting and coming to know the "younger face" of the Society. From Monday evening through Friday morning we will pray together, celebrate Eucharist together, and begin to look together at the future of our mission and ministry in the United States. On June 19th, we set off for Peru. This will begin basically five w...

I went to the Detroit feis today. As near as I can tell, this is the second or possibly the third time in my professional career that I actually went to a feis as an observer. I didn't quite know what to do with myself - it's sort of disorienting to just be one of the crowd! If I can say anything for being a spectator, it's that I got to come to the feis late, leave early, and I didn't have to worry about playing the accordion all day. Like last week, it was good to catch up with old friends and to spend time talking to "feis folk" in a way that my normal playing schedule doesn't allow. In other news, I was approved for vows this week. I probably could have mentioned this earlier, but didn't think it was that important. I figured that if the Jesuits hadn't seen fit to kick me out thus far, I stood a pretty good chance of taking vows in August! Seriously, though, I felt pretty confident that the provincial would accept my petition for vows...I thin...

I haven't been to a baseball game since Albert Bell played for the Cleveland Indians...so I'm thinking back in the late 90's. Anyway, I went to the Tigers/Yankees game last night and I'm going again tonight to see Detroit play against Boston. Today is a Loyola House work day, so I'm cleaning the carpets in the house. Not much time to blog, of course, but I wanted to say hello!

I haven't been to a baseball game since Albert Bell played for the Cleveland Indians...so I'm thinking back in the late 90's. Anyway, I went to the Tigers/Yankees game last night and I'm going again tonight to see Detroit play against Boston. Today is a Loyola House work day, so I'm cleaning the carpets in the house. Not much time to blog, of course, but I wanted to say hello!