Please keep the people of St. Anthony in your prayers

Yesterday was a difficult day for me. It started off with the first time I've been involved with a close relative's funeral from a priestly perspective. My Aunt died and I preached at the funeral. It was hard to lose her since she was such a sweet lady and someone our whole family will miss.

As I walked up to the church, my brother told me the church in St. Anthony was burning. I called my pastor who is the dean and told him what was happening. After the funeral, I went to the town and saw what I didn't expect. The entire church was destroyed. The building was at gound level when I got there and I saw the floor collapse.

Even though they had to know that their tiny little parish was going to close soon, (50-60 members), it's hard to lose something that was so important to them. I hope they can find some way to recover from it.

A good lesson learned

I have always thought of myself as a dog owner without a dog. A week ago I went and got a dog and found, in the course of a week, that I wasn't a dog owner without a dog. I would have had to change my life so much that it was clearly not worth it. I like being free to pray for hours on end and being free to read for hours on end. I like being able to be gone for a day or two to visit friends and not have to worry about having someone take care of my dog.

So, I took Hiro back. He was a great dog and he deserves someone who can take care of him. I kind of hope he won't even remember me.

The wisdom confession

The readings for the eleventh Sunday in Ordinary time all deal with the importance of being accountable before God. God knows of our transgressions before, during and after we commit them but we still need to actually ask for forgiveness to receive it.