News from Around:

Been holding off on this for a while, but here come World Youth Day coverage…

We held our own WYD delegation meeting Sunday afternoon and I must say that my enthusiasm for this trip has finally kicked in.  Look out, Spain, here we come!

VATICAN CITY, VA — WYD 2011’s executive director Yago de la Cierva affirmed. The essence of Madrid World Youth Day (16-21 August), is happiness, new technologies and the Spanish spirit of “fiesta”. The greatest pitfall for Christianity would be that of living a sad religion. It is important to show the happy side of faith, to all those who do not know next to nothing about Christianity and thus have a gloomy vision of it. We want to disprove the commonplace association between Christianity and sadness. God does not want human beings to be unhappy. He wants the exact opposite. Happiness is fundamental for a complete Christian life. People will approach the faith if we as Christians have a positive disposition, if we are happy. For whoever is far away from Christianity, the faces of the young people taking part in the WYD, are the first thing they see of our faith. Happiness is our business card.”

Read the full interview from the Vatican Insider of la Stampa

News from ‘Round Here:

Gotta say, after the previous vacation week, to come back on Sunday and attend our second young adult mass at the basilica and the stopping in on the first day of the High School Institute was awesome.  Both efforts were going great guns and my fingerprints were not near either of them.

Returning to the desk Monday was good.  I was intentional about the task before me and got to it. Tuesday found me back up to High-LI for the public speaking practicum and Wednesday for a liturgy. My son, a High-LI grad, joined me Tuesday in coaching and we had great fun playing off one another.  Wednesday was a very hectic day with lots of stuff calling me away from my projects.

Thursday, our e-newsletter, one of my favorite projects, went out.  Other tasks were attended to and I entertained a surprise drop-in group of visitors from HighLi who, as part of their service morning, had delivered bag lunches to the homeless. 

Friday morning was mostly a home day with getting ahead on blogging, a little household shopping, an an evening listening to Father Jim Martin at a local church.

Up early Saturday morning to run a Pastoral Care errand and then off for closing mass of High LI where the opening homily was well bookended to a logical conclusion.