SBF Travels: To El Salvador and Arkansas El Salvador: Two trips in two months is very unusual for our community, especially one out of the country! LaClaire, along with our resident Oblate family, flew (4 hours) to El Salvador, Sunday June 22, 2008, returning Sunday June 29. Rosalba’s husband Pedro hails from this smallest of Central American nations. He worked there as a young man for the U.S. Embassy. His mother, a brother and sisters are still in Salvador, while other siblings have migrated here to the States. For the first time, Grandmother Villegas got to see 8-year-old granddaughter, Yesenia (Sunny), who made her First Communion here in Texas at St. Patrick's, Waelder, May 4th. Everybody's favorite on this trip, of course, was Personality Plus -- Christopher Pedro, the most recent addition to the Villegas family, born Nov. 20, 2006.
LaClaire wrote a beautiful journal of the El Salvador trip, which we print in its entirety at the bottom of Henry's Hollow Log (see link at the very bottom of this page). A brief sample of her journal is included here: Monday, June 23rd: "One young lady (teenage) keeps helping me up and down steps. Either I look old to her or she's being extra kind to a visiting Bolilla. Speaking of up and down: this countryside is multi-level. There are the high hills in the distance in almost every direction, including volcanoes, but even on city streets you will find other structures on a higher level right behind the houses on street level. There are hills and gorges everywhere on the open highway, and trees. Even from the plane, we saw nothing but green." To read the entire Journal, click on the Henry's Hollow Log link below, bottom of page.
Salvadoran Volcano Frames Our Travelers
Arkansas: I, John, visited beloved friends, Alan and Jonne Rosenau in Hot Springs, Arkansas, May 1-3. Alan, a former Anglican clergyman, and family were received into the Catholic Church in 1987 in the Little Rock chapel of the Carmelite Sisters. The following year -- in the same chapel -- Alan was ordained first a Deacon, then a Catholic presbyter, with wife, children and members of SBF joyfully present. Prior to that, Father Alan and SBF were dialog partners, sifting through issues of Church unity with fire and passion. In our book, Small Barn, Crude Manger, we detail this rugged Journey of Faith.
Fr. Alan and Buckley
While a guest in the Rosenau household, besides many mutual reflections on Church and State, I much enjoyed wife Jonne’s chicken and dumplings. We also delighted to take part in two liturgies celebrated by Associate Pastor Alan, at Hot Springs John the Baptist Catholic Church. But the very first thing we did when I stepped off my plane in Little Rock, was to visit the Carmelite sisters who hosted Alan and Jonne’s reception into the Church, and his subsequent ordination. It was a pleasure to renew friendship with this devoted and joyful community The sisters were as happy to see us as we, them. Bad weather --- capricious tornadoes that killed 8 --- prevented us from visiting Subiaco Abbey, which had been on our schedule from the start.
‘Small Barn, Crude Manger' We wrote this book to commemorate our 50th anniversary, which occurred Jan. 10, 2006. After laboriously assembling 40 copies of this history in three-ring notebooks, Eagle Book Bindery gave us a reprieve! They have printed and bound SBCM into a handsome book which we now have it in hand for those who would like a copy. A donation of $35 covers our costs nicely. Or we will accept in payment, “three kisses and a prayer” ... in a pinch, the prayer will do. How did we come to this professional printing adventure? For my 2008 Lenten reading, I chose a book by our old spiritual director, Fr. Roy Rihn. Called Select Homilies, I noticed it was printed by Eagle Book Bindery of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (http://eaglebookbindery.com/) Fr. Rihn encouraged me, to contact Mr. Steve Ferin, who operates the Bindery. I did and in a remarkably short time, we had a “proof” of the book in hand. The book was actually being printed amidst the recent Midwest flooding, of which Cedar Rapids was in the bulls-eye! The Bindery however, was on high ground, and the printing came off without a hitch. In the current (June 2008) issue of the American Benedictine Review a fine review of our book appears, written by our friend, Fr. Hugh Feiss OSB of Ascension Abbey, Jerome, Idaho. If you have an interest in obtaining a copy of our book, contact us by Email: themonks@gvec.net, write us at P O Box 366, Waelder, TX 78959, or telephone, (830) 540-4814.
Sharing the Word For many years on this web site, we offered our commentaries on the three-year weekly Catholic lectionary. These appeared in church bulletins here in Texas when first crafted. We are happy to see them getting some new ‘wear and tear.’ Nine months out of the year, we send them week by week to the Pilgrims of the Little Flower, a study group in Lingan, Nova Scotia. A picture of this Prayer-Study-Share group was graciously provided by their leader, Winnie Odo. Lingan is on the eastern most tip of the Island in the Diocese of Antigonish. We were very pleased to dust these commentaries off after lying idle a year or so, and get them back in circulation. If any other souls out there are interested in receiving our thoughts each week, drop us a line at themonks@gvec.net. The set covers all three yearly cycles, A, B & C. Nova Scotia Faith Sharing Group
Also relatively new: our Found Email share group on the daily lectionary. Mass Readings for every day can be found at the U S Bishops website, http://www.usccb.org/nab/ A few regulars are committed to reading each day’s offering, and when the spirit moves, share insignts, questions,observations with the rest. A second group, whom I call the “bcc group,” for blind carbon copy, simply receive the sharings of the others. The sharings are occasional, and our group is ecumenical. Want to take part …or monitor the occasional sharings, contact us as detailed above.
You can enjoy a new Henry's Hollow Log by clicking on the link at the very bottom of this page.
Barnyard Theology: A Mother's Instinct A mother hen sat on three eggs adjacent our door for a very long time. Then one day we heard the birth announcement, "Cluck cluck cluck" ...three fit-in-your-hand yellow chicks fresh as new-churned butter poked through the leaves. Only thing is, the nest where Mother Hen had hatched her eggs, carefully concealed by wide-green canna leaves while she was "sitting" was just one step away from our back door.
The same door new puppy "Kelly" was let in and out of the house. As long as the hen was sitting, the pup burst in and out without noticing her. But three chicks popping in and out of the canna leaves was a different story! The very next time the pup burst through the door,a clucking Momma Hen rushed right into that pup ...leading with her beak, with arched wings flapping. It worked ...the pup kept up her burst on into the yard until she was at a safe distance from those precious chicks. The element of surprise had won the day.
But not for long... Pretty soon Kelly, normal Beagle pup that she is, told herself, "Hey, you're a chicken, and I am a canine. I'm not supposed to be afraid of you." She knew whereof she spoke. Pretty soon, there were just two chicks. Then one. Then none. Only a very distraught momma hen, clucking first here then there, as if she didn't know where they went. "And she would not be comforted, for they were no more."
Now Kelly paid a pretty high price for those chicks, and we are doing our level best to teach her that is not a wise course of action for her to take at all. But meanwhile, the hen taught us a lesson, a lesson about a Mother's Instinct. No one told her the pup was a peril to her chicks. She knew it already. And didn't waste time thinking about it. She went on the attack, using every weapon she had: clucking, flapping, rushing straight into the brute's face. It just wasn't good enough.
But it served to remind us of another mother, and another example of maternal instinct "taking over" in a seemingly ordinary situation. Picture this: Jesus and his disciples are at a wedding. His mother comes up, confronts her son and says, "They have no wine." "Soooo," Jesus says in so many words. "What does that have to do with me?" And further he ruminated out loud, "My time has not yet come." Ignoring this reply altogether, Mary turns to the waiters, and simply says: "Do whatever he tells you." You know the rest.
"Fill the stone jars with water," the overruled carpenter tells the waiters. "Now take out a sample and bring it to the head waiter." Tasting the water-made-wine, the head waiter says to the Bride and Groom: "You have saved the best wine till last. So how come? that's backwards of the way we usually do things..."
The point is Jesus was sure "his time" had not yet come. His mother's instincts told her it had. Just like the mother hen that jumped out of the cannas to do her job, perhaps without thinking, Mary went into action. Maybe Jesus was just reluctant to become a miracle worker. Maybe he knew, that just like those three baby chicks, sooner or later, it would get him killed.
Pancho, the Talking Donkey, says: check out Henry's Hollow Log ...and come back soon, ya hear!
In this column written in May of 1994, Henry talks about herons and egrets at St. Benedict's Farm.