Heading South!

I'm looking forward to heading down to Charleston, South Carolina tomorrow.  After our high school expedition this past weekend, I am going to meet up with the missionary interns at Belmont Abbey in South Carolina.  Before doing that, however, I will be visiting my nephew in Charleston.  On Wednesday morning, I will be taking a Grey Hound bus to Columbia, SC and visit with a priest friend.  From there, I will get a ride to Belmont Abbey.  I'm excited to visit this campus seeing that is is a new up-in-coming Catholic university.

I received an excerpt from a book called Sober Intoxication of the Spirit by Cantalamessa, a Papal preacher at the Vatican.  I think is someone reflects where we are as an apostolate right now:

"I have asked myself sometimes, what in these new budding communities pleases Jesus so much....its seemed to me the secret of what makes them precious to God is there poverty, the fact that they have no past, and hardly any future, they are almost "nothing", like a little cloud that calmly disappears from the sky after having poured out its water.  Traditional religious orders have a past, often a glorious one, recent ones,  (lay institutes, ecclesial movements) have a future and sometimes they are very aware of it.  God is looking for something very - very small, among so many grand and established groups, (which do please Him and are useful to Him) something that He can take just as it is, without having to be concerned about its past or its future.  He is looking for something that will be useful to Him for an instant, something unencumbered that wants nothing, and asks for nothing in return for pleasing God save to please Him alone and to make His power and His wishes shine forth in the world" for souls who will say "Yes"  to All He asks.  Do we want to be that small thing that is precious to God? Do we want to be that instrument of "nothing" in His omnipotent hand? Then, let us not worry, about "setting up house", let us not worry about numbers, let us continue to pour out all that we are, directly into the bosom of life, that is the Church" p. 29,30

We'll keep in touch.  If you read, this let me know because I don't know if anyone reads the blog!