Being! Or Nothingness

Papa Ratzi Rocks the Qasbah

“I know that you as young people have great aspirations, that you want to pledge yourselves to build a better world.  Let others see this, let the world see it, since this is exactly the witness that the world expects from the disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Read the whole homily from closing mass at Marienfield for the 20th World Youth Day.

The Meeting

  John Allen, Jr. has a great piece in his "The Word from Rome" column about The Meeting of Peoples and Culture in Rimini, Italy.  It's an endeavor of Communion and Liberation to help bring about discussion and education on various topics pertinent to the culture and politics of Western Civilization.  His column delves into the origins of CL and has a great interview with Msgr. Albacete about the Movement in the United States.  Msgr. Albacete sums it up great when he says:

"When people ask me about our contribution to American Catholicism, I say that I don't know and I don't care," he said. "I have more urgent things to worry about, the concrete problems of everyday life. That's where the Incarnation occurs -- either it's in real life, or it's all just words."

Maryland

Okay, I know.  I've been promising a post for the last month and nothing.  I have been busy preparing myself for move across the country.  It hasn't been easy, but it sure has been fun.  So here is the skinny.

I have left the illustrious town of Brenham, TX and the fantastic community of Houston to take a job in Youth Ministry in a parish in the Maryland Suburbs of Washington D.C.  There are a million reasons for this move but suffice it to say:  It was just time to go.  There might be a few details that get left out in such a description, but that's the point. 

It was sad to leave my teens who I had come to love so much, and their parents who were so supportive of me.  It was also particularly hard to leave the greatest staff I've ever worked with in my life.  However, it was breezy-fo-sheezy to leave all the gossips, slanderers, nags, liars, and antagonists.  I won't miss them and I pray (very hard) for however will be tossed into that den of lions next.

Hardest of all was leaving my friends in Houston.  They were my second family.  Christ really is all in all, and with them I had such a profound certainty of him that I had a very difficult time leaving.  I still haven't really left, and I will be returning in September for the CL Texas Summer Vacation.

The bright spot is my new job.  It's awesome.  I'm really excited to come to this parish which has had some pretty great things going that I look forward to offering my experience to.  So far the kids are great, the parents are great, and the staff is great.  I just wish I could find a place to live.

I will be leaving to WYD in Koln, Germany on Tuesday, so I will try to post some over the weekend and then you can expect more silence from me.  But I promise that come September I will be back to my old posting self.

Really, I feel like a complete wimp when I don't post.  Like I haven't done my blog workout.  I really will be posting more soon.

So that's the skinny on the newness!