October surprises?

+ We welcome Fr. Dave Smith, newly from Tanzania, who has arrived at Mother Knoll to take up his new role as Maryknoll's Chief Financial Officer, replacing outgoing CFO Fr.Richard Callahan. Dave shared some interesting tidbits of news from Tanzania, currently in the midst of a presidential election. Tales of chicanery and dirty tricks rivals anything going on here in the U.S., one week from midterms.

I strongly urged Dave to get involved in some kind of week-end ministry, just so he can get out of this loony bin and maintain his sanity. Interestingly enough, Dave said I was the second person to suggest that in the past 30 minutes. I maintain you can tell by how a person conducts himself here whether or not he gets away on weekends or not.

+ Super G, Fr. Ed Dougherty is, even as we speak, visiting the DPRK for the first time. (One wag at dinner suggested he's there to pick up tips. Another countered that the new heir designate could pick up a few pointers himself.) Fr. Gerry Hammond, who visits several times a year with the Bell Foundation that supplies medical supplies to the North, is accompanying him. Would be nice if Gerry finally gets permission to establish a residency in Pyongyang. Wouldn't THAT be a great way to inaugurate our centenary celebrations!

+ Keep sending prayers for the Holy Spirit to bless participants at the vocation retreat going on right now at Los Altos. Fr. Dennis Moorman, Fr. Jim Madden and Deacon Steve De Martino are directing the retreat for five prospects.

+ The new security system in now active. You'll need a swipe card to get in any door except the main entrance. I doubt this will curb the mysterious recent disappearance of the purificators from the sacristy, along with the new aspergellum, the old aspergellum, both holy water buckets, and complete set of summer vestments. Seems the foxes are living in the chicken coop.

Storm before the quiet

A storm with sudden hurricane-strength winds and possibly a tornado slipped past Maryknoll yesterday afternoon with only a 20-minute downpour and then slammed full force into Bridgeport, Conn., causing considerable damage.

The Korean Perpetual Help Sisters were enjoying some ice-cream in our dining room when the heavens opened. While this postponed by a few minutes their planned visit to the grave of their founder, Msgr. John Morris, the respite afforded them time to peruse the photo albums of Fr. Ray Sullivan, who regaled the Sisters with stories and treated them to chose a souvenir from our Gift Shop.

We dodged a weather bullet and the rain broke the humidity for now.

On again, off again and on again local Korea superior Fr. Gerry Hammond and I had time to catch up over breakfast, reminisce about back in the day when as a Peace Corps volunteer I spent six months at his place in Su Dong. We also chatted about the situation up North ( and I don't mean Canada) on this, the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. Gerry is here for his 50th. Ad multos annos!

Fr. Rich Augustin, here for his 25th from Korea, brought encouraging news about how our men in the Seoul house draw topics for breakfast table conversation from Knollnews. (Hi guys!) I apologize to all my faithful readers for the two-week hiatus whilst I was galavanting around Greece and Turkey the first two weeks in June. Had I known you guys actually read my ramblings, I'd have been more conscientious in posting.

Even when nothing noteworthy is going on here, I can always rant about liturgy, the tower bells, the hierarchy, the lowerarchy, vocations and cassocks, so I promise to do better. If you never want to be mentioned by name on this blog, my P/A number is 1846