Dear Friends,

  Here it is, Friday, the 27th, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It is a feast day that means so much to me.  It sums up everything the Good News of Jesus contains in the scriptures and in church history. . . all that is meant to ponder at Advent and Christmas, Good Friday and Easter, Pentecost too.  It contains far more than words can capture.  It is so good that we have symbols like the pierced heart of Christ to capture all of this when words can fail us so often!  It allows us like Moses before the burning bush to "remove our sandals," put our faces to the ground, and utter "holy, holy, holy."  What a blessing when the eye of our heart opens and we "see" this reality beyond all the distractions and superficial things that are often sold to us with the promise that they will makes us really happy.  "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as entered into the hearts of people what God has prepared for those who love Him."  I Corinthians 2:9

  Today my memory goes back to 11 years ago this very day when I was leading 38 pilgrims through France and we spent two days at a relatively small village in rural northeastern France, wheat farming country.  The village is Paray-le-Monial,  about 15,000 in population, pretty, quaint, with a river running through the town and a monastery that was founded in the year 998. . . yes, more than a thousand years ago.  What put this small town "on the map" was a set of experiences a nun by the name of Margaret Mary Alacoque had from 1673-75 while living in a convent there in that town.  Over two years she had four intense encounters with the risen Christ in which He "showed" her His heart and encouraged people to discover in His Heart, in the depths of His person the riches of God, the greatest treasures of joy and love, meaning and hope that could be found in their life .  With the help of a young Jesuit spiritual guide, Claude la Colombiere, Margaret Mary gained the courage and insight to form and promote deep commitment and devotion to Christ whose love was symbolized by drawings and later pictures of His Heart, surrounded with the crow of thorns and pierced, with water and blood coming out, the ultimate act of God's love for us, of God's saving action.

   What was so special for me was to pray the Sacred Heart mass on that feast day in the chapel where Christ came to her and engaged her so intensely, so personally.  He said to her that He was bequeathing His Heart to her as her personal heritage and that He wanted her to share this "inheritance" with everyone she could.  She also said that He asked that the Jesuit fathers join with her and her sisters (of the Visitation) to encourage among all the people they met this same love and attachment to Christ as their friend of all friends, their first love and deepest truth.  That was really a special day for me.  I will never forget being there and participating in an afternoon procession of the Blessed Sacrament with many hundreds of pilgrims walking in silence and sometimes in song  through the sisters' cloister and then out beyond the cloister.

   The next day something quite unexpected happened for me.  Our group was going for the day to visit Cluny, a famous medieval fort/city that the Benedictine monks had built as a refuge from marauding Norsemen and  Teutonic fights, and Taize, a modern ecumenical monastery that is open to visitors from around the world and is quite famous for its music.  A few minutes before our leaving on the bus I went back to the chapel and went up into the choir loft for a short "visit."  While there in came a group of about 25 German visitors who had driven over from Germany a day or two before and were getting ready to celebrate mass.  All these men and women were in the thirties or even younger.  As they began the mass and were singing beautifully, I was so moved by what was happening.  In 1944 Nazi troops, men of their grandfathers' generation, came into Paray and carried away hundreds of men from the town.  These people were never heard from after that.  Obviously they had died in the camps or were shot.  A large monument in the center of town has been erected to remember these citizens.  And now here were members of the same nation who had brought so much hell to them worshipping the Lord on the day after the feast of the Sacred Heart.  I was so struck that this is how God heals, how God makes whole that which has been broken and wounded.  This was a most memorable example of "reparation" to God for the hatred and violence that people bring upon each other, especially through war.  That moment that day I will never forget.  Seeing those young Germans in that French chapel celebrating Eucharist must have pleased the Lord very much. It certainly moved me!

  Good news:  I finally got my "entry visa" yesterday.  Now I go to Immigration on Monday morning and get it stamped and then I am "official."  I have been  here ten months as of last Monday and only now am I getting my papers!  Soon I will get my driver's license.  I never expected such a hassle and wait!

  It has been really cold here lately.  Winter has set in.  Since our rooms are not heated, it can get nippy at night in our rooms.  So extra blankets, flannel runner's suit or PJs are what we grab for.

  I am officially on vacation till July 9 when I begin leading a "preached" or conference style retreat:  8-day long, two talks a day, 16 in all.  I have led in times past four day retreats of this kind  but never 8 days.  My theme is who is the Holy Spirit, what does the Holy Spirit do, how do we experience the Spirit.  After that retreat is over, I get two weeks off.  During that second vacation period I plan to do some sightseeing and prepare projects I will be leading starting in late August.  These include 8 Monday mornings starting in mid-September when I prepare six teachers of the famous St. Aloysius High School in Nairobi on how to pray Ignatian style so that in January they will be ready to have the school president lead them through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.  On September 3, I begin for 7 weeks weekly classes on St. Teresa of Avila's best book, The Interior Castle.  I will do this at the Jesuit seminary called Hekima College in Nairobi.  This is where future Jesuit priests study to prepare for their ordination and priestly lives.  Then on Tuesday afternoons, once a month, I will meet with the teachers of the seminary and lead them through discussions on some articles they are to read regarding "mission consciousness" in the ministry of teaching at a university level.  There will be about 15 of them, mostly African Jesuit priests but also a few lay men and women.

   All in all, I am loving the variety of things I am being asked to lead.  I did not get such opportunities when at Manresa, except in the early years of the time I was there and then each year in the biweekly reading seminar and the pilgrimages I organized.  Leading the internship for 19 years was very fulfilling but after some years I really think it no longer drew from me my "creative" side.  I was most ready for a change but did not realize that at the time this strong nudge from God came to me.

   So, this is all that comes to mind right now.  If I knew how to send an attachment with a posting, I would send you a homily I did last Sunday on the Eucharist.  It turned out pretty well and I wish I could share it but I don't know how or whether one can attach to a blog posting an attachment.  Anyway . . .  some other day!

   Lots of interest in this house in the World Cup.  One person from Chile and one from Colombia keep interest high.  I saw the US play Germany last night and I was quite disappointed in the manner and lack of energy in their style.  I hope they change for Belgium on Tuesday or they will exit quickly from the  tournament.

    The killings that have been going on here in Kenya lately are more related to farmers and grazers fighting over land.  The tribal killings are just awful, so many people fighting over cattle and land.  Lots of widows and orphans or fatherless children.  So tragic!  They have AK-47 machine guns to kill each other, machetes to slit one another's throats.  They do no kid around when they go after each other!

God bless!

Bernie Owens