En Route

Arrived New Orleans and awaiting transportation for a few hours. Piped jazz music and free wifi on the atrium at Louis Armstrong Int'l Airport.

Travel refreshes awareness that I will pick up and move again this year. Moved in 2006, moved in 2007, moved in 2008 and will move again in 2009. Details forthcoming as available.

Is change the only permanent, dependable, reality in this world? Christ has come into the world so that we might possess,in Him, the only thing that lasts: Divine Love.


Not for me the carefully manicured existence, a luxury of stability. Is it not also the embedded presence of the chaplain that brings into contact with the Word those who will never enter a church or who are alienated from the Church?

My consolation prayer and, today, Psalm 139 (138) as illuminated in Breviarium Romanum. Take a look.

More information about our ultimate "destination" after arrival due to military infosec precautions. Perhaps photos also depending on technical support (read electricity).

Hint: Am going both to a new country AND a new continent; this will make four of seven.

Peace: Pray for it,
your travelling correspondent

(Photo: West Expansion Lobby, New Orleans Int'l Airport. Photo album here.)

Auguri di buon anniversario, Santo Padre! Happy Anniversary, Holy Father!

We pledge our steadfast love, fidelity and prayers.
Thanks be to Almighty God.

Ad multos annos.

Requiescat in Pace Reverend William G. Finch: "You have taken away my companions and loved ones; the darkness is my closest friend."

Gone home to God: a priest and pastor of God's holy people in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

"O LORD, the God who saves me,
day and night I cry out before you.

² May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

³ For my soul is full of trouble
and my life draws near the grave. ^c]">[c]

⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like a man without strength.

⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.

⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.

⁷ Your wrath lies heavily upon me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
Selah

⁸ You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;

⁹ my eyes are dim with grief.
I call to you, O LORD, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.

¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?
Selah

¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction ^d]">[d] ?

¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But I cry to you for help, O LORD;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.

¹⁴ Why, O LORD, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death;
I have suffered your terrors and am in despair.

¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.

¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
they have completely engulfed me.

¹⁸ You have taken my companions and loved ones from me;
the darkness is my closest friend."

-- Psalm 88

Father Finch suffered a fatal heart attack following the Mass of the Lord's Supper at the Church of Saint Raphael in Rockville, Maryland, on 9 April 2009. His last words were to let those around him know that he was dying and to ask for the last rites of the Church. May his soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.

More about Fr Finch's death as reported by the Charleston Daily Mail from a Washington Post story.

Funeral rites:

Monday April 13th at St. Raphael Catholic Church
Vigil: 3:00PM to 9:00 PM
Vigil Mass: 7:30 PM

Tuesday April 14th at St. Raphael Catholic Church
Funeral Mass: 11:00 AM

Prayers, please.

"...and I will be whiter than snow."

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Psalm 51:7


He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes.
Psalm 147:16

Photos of Saint Peter's "under cover" by ((((..))))

La Famiglia Restaurant, Baltimore, launches new website

LATEST:

NEW PHONE NUMBER

443.449.5555

La Famiglia Restaurant has launched a web site here. Menu, wine list and more information is available.

La Famiglia Northern Italian Restaurant, Baltimore, MD

105 West 39th Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21210
443.449.5555

-valet parking-

Main dining room with fireplace

Fabio from Sardinia heads up the experienced kitchen crew

Bar and dining area for private parties

Dino and wait staff wrap up at the end of the day

Main bar area has comfortable seating options

Bert serves at the bar

Bar and lounge with varied seating for meals

Make your reservations now for the most distinctive and authentic Italian dining experience in Baltimore, Maryland: La Famiglia Northern Italian Restaurant.

Located near the Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University, the menu offers a wide variety of antipasti, salads, entrees and seafood. The wine list has excellent choices from California and Italy. The ambience is sleek, modern and comfortable.

LaFamiglia Northern Italian Restaurant
105 West 39th Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21210

Hours:

Lunch
Monday through Friday: 11:30 to 2 pm

Dinner
Sunday and Monday: 5-9 pm
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: 5-10 pm
Friday and Saturday: 5 -11 pm

Telephone: 443.449.5555

More photos coming soon.

Treno a Napoli - Train to Naples

You know you have arrived when you see this world-famous topography looming over the teeming and most densely populated city in Europe from the train window:

Despite vicious rumors to the contrary, there are functioning trash trucks in Naples.





Welcome to my place of worship for the next week, the chapel of San Sosio in Miseno, dedicated to one of the deacons martyred with the great patron of Naples, San Gennaro. The "casa canonica" or rectory-apartment upstairs, will be my home during my stay. Fr. Domenico, the pastor, has invited me to celebrate holy Mass here some days this week.


The holy patron, San Sosio.


Despite the disappointments of the past, in faith and trust we turn again and again to the "images" of Christ in the members of His Body in order to truly know and love Him and discover His love for us. Here catechist Enza prepares her class for the celebration of the Sunday liturgy through a lesson on the encounter of the Lord with the Samaritan woman. By taking part in the catechism class, the visitor receives a gift from the Lord, His love, that is possible only by giving oneself as He does in the word of the Scriptures and His Body in the Eucharist. "What you have received as a gift, give as a gift."


New friends reach out with curiosity, inquiring about my home far away and discover my life in many ways is very much like theirs.





Rewarded at day's end with a home-made meal with old friends.


Enzo and Teresa.





Father and son, Donato.





Pasta with lentils, a fresh salad of tomatoes with tuna and olives, fresh bread, salami and steak.
The food was swept quickly from the plate. The cook has a passion for his craft and the guest is most pleased to taste the fare. Grazie amici!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008