Dear Friends,

   I wrote just yesterday, but something happened here within hours after I finished my posting that makes it worth writing again.
   There is on our property the buildings of the Jesuit community and then about a 5 minute walk up a hill are the retreat house buildings with its very spacious lawn and many flowers and trees.  At the retreat house building is a six-month long program going on for 10 young Jesuit priests.  We Jesuits call the program tertianship, a third and last phase of our formation process.  Their meals are taken in a dining room that can hold about 15 people.  They have a door to the dining room that opens out onto the large lawn area.
   Yesterday, around 5 PM, while no one was in the dining room, a family of monkeys visited the room; the door had not been closed and so it allowed these crafty visitors to enter.  They had smelled the ripe bananas on the counter and came in to help themselves to all the delicious fruit. I am not sure whether they got into the bread loaves as well.  After this theft, someone noted how messy these thieves were in leaving  the peelings of the bananas in various places, on the counter and on the floor.
   I thought you would enjoy this,.

Bernie