Hello again everyone,
My finals last week went pretty well. I am glad to be done with the quarter, this was probably the most stressful quarter that I’ve had in seminary, but on the whole it wasn’t too bad.
After finishing finals I hit the road right away to get to Stevens Point. I had decided to spend the night at the house of a couple that are close friends of mine before going to Fr. Tom’s on Saturday. I was getting into town early and since it was Veteran’s Day I decided to stop for my free meal at the Appleby’s restaurant which I was passing on my way in. The line was out the door, this is a very popular thing that they do, however, I was alone so I was told that I could sit right away if I didn’t mind eating at the bar. So I did that and had a beer and the shrimp basket meal that they had on the veterans menu. It is very nice of them to give the free meal, although the beer was kind of expensive. I then headed down to my friends and had a great evening playing with their kids and visiting with them. It is always nice to catch up with friends.
Saturday was pretty much a down day until Mass and going out to supper with a couple of parishioners. I also attended both Masses on Sunday, I get so much strength from this community and although I get here regularly it is always special. Following the evening Mass on Sunday Fr. Tom and I were planning on picking up a priest friend of his at the airport nearby, but his first flight was delayed so he missed his connection and we had to drive to Appleton to pick him up. This friend is leading a talk tonight (Thursday) at the parish about the new translation of the Roman Missal which will be changing many of the words used at Mass starting on the First Sunday of Advent.
After we finally got out of the airport at about 10:30 we stopped for Supper and then Fr. Tom asked me to drive back to Stevens Point. I have driven his car quite a bit, so this is fairly normal. Driving back from Appleton is a 65 mile per hour road and we were rolling along until at about quarter after midnight I see a deer in the median running out in front of me, I hit the brakes but ended up hitting the deer. After calling the sheriff, Fr. Tom calls AAA to get a tow, since the car was not able to be driven. This took quite a while but we eventually got back to the house at a little before three on Monday morning. Fr. Tom and his friend Fr. Chris were planning to head up to a parishioners cabin up north on Monday and after dealing a little bit with the insurance company that morning he was able to borrow a car and still have their relaxation time.
I of course felt really bad, but there is nothing that can be done when a deer runs out in front of you. I spent a lot of Monday doing some little things around town before going to have dinner with another couple of my college friends. A little after leaving there I got a call from Fr. Tom that the insurance company said that the car is totaled, so he is beginning to look for a new car. I was then able to sit in on a Bible study at the parish with college students before catching the second half of the Packers Monday Night Football game.
Tuesday I served for a funeral that the parish was having. A retired priest celebrated the funeral. The lady that died wasn’t really a parishioner. She had just moved to town when her health turned so she hadn’t joined any parish yet. She had met Fr. Tom through one of our parishioners who works in spiritual services at the hospice and she had asked Fr. Tom if our parish would have the funeral. I was kind of saddened that there were only about 50 people who attended the funeral, and although it sounds like this woman was a devout Catholic it didn’t seem like her children could even remember the responses at Mass. This makes me a bit sad.
Other than that I did quite a bit of work around the parish on Tuesday and Wednesday and was able to go to the Pointers men’s basketball season opener game, which I went to a lot of games while I was in college, so I always enjoy that. On Wednesday the two priests returned and we went to a talk at the university by a history professor who has looked in to the various types of propaganda that countries use when going to or in war. This was a very interesting talk, and it was kind of set up to time with the art display Visions of War that the university had by art students and veterans timed to coincide with Veteran’s Day.
On Wednesday night Fr. Chris had the late night Mass and it is always so very wonderful to pray with a group of about 50 college students at a weekday Mass. I will do a few more things for the parish today before the talk tonight. Tomorrow morning I will head home to get ready for the gun deer season which opens this Saturday.
That is the update for the first part of this break. I hope you all are doing well and incase I don’t get another post in before it, have a Blessed Thanksgiving and don’t forget to give thanks to God.
Peace,
Adam
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