An anniversary and a departure

This week we took part in the second session of the "Knee on My Neck: Slavery’s Ghost" program. It is amazing what a selective view many of us have gathered of our history. We are learning a lot.

We celebrated the feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist on Wednesday.

From Wednesday to Friday I taught an Introduction to Centering Prayer retreat. We spent an hour to and hour and a half each afternoon, learning about Centering Prayer and practicing it. I did OK with Zoom although I forgot to record the first session (the most information-packed one, of course). A couple of days before the retreat we had 14 registered participants. So I was suprised to welcome 26 participants by the time we started. It seems many folks register close to the event for these online retreats.

This Sunday, we said farewell to Max Esmus (earlier known as Br. Max). Br. Luc is driving him to his family home in Pennsylvania. In the morning, we all discovered a goodbye origami butterfly in our mailboxes. All the best, Max!

I got to preach this Sunday morning. Afterward, I recuperated the job of posting the sermon on Blogger, Buzzsprout and Facebook. I seeem to have not lost my hand at it. All of Max's duties have been reassigned but we will not be able to replace his beautiful organ-playing soon.

This Sunday also is the 50th anniversary of Br. Rafael's Life Profession. This morning eight of us went to the nursing home carrying balloons and chocolate cake. We gathered in the lawn under Rafael's third floor window and serenaded him. He knew we were coming and waited for us in the company of Br. Laurence.

We talked on the phone and they waved at us. The staff of the nursing home will deliver the cake and the balloons to his room. It's been three and a half month since we have been able to visit our nursing home brothers in person. The confinement is particularly hard for them as they need to remain in their rooms most of the time.

Visiting Br. Rafael. From top left, clockwise: arriving at the nursing home with presents; Br. Aidan masked to deliver the cake and Reese peanut cups to the front desk; waiting for Aidan to come back; trekking to the side of the nursing home; gathered under Rafael's window (from left, Bros. Robert Hagler, Carl Sword, John Forbis, Aidan Owen, Robert Leo Sevensky, Robert James Magliula, Bernard Delcourt - Br. Josép is the photographer); looking up for the apparition of the anniversary boy; (center) the top left window we were looking at is that of Rafael.

We are glad to be a multi-generational community.