Good morning, Friends, It is Sunday for me, in the middle of Saturday night for you. It is rainy, chilly and completely overcast here. We so wish it would rain heavily and for some time. The ground is terribly dry and the maize (African corn) crop is failing due to lack of rain. Life is so tough here for many people....................................................................................................................What moves me to write again so soon after the last letter I wrote only two days ago is the continuing story of this Comboni nun from Costa Rica I am guiding through her 8-day retreat. You have to hear what I have been hearing from her. Again, she lives most of the time in South Sudan, a nation very young and completely destroyed by tribal hatred and war. So many murders and robberies, and no one is imprisoned for doing such. This nun, Sr. Lorena Mulare is her name, tells me that two years ago she and the people she lives with and cares for in a South Sudanese village were being chased by armed rebels killing anyone in their path. These soldiers had a tank with which they were firing shells and cannons. Everyone in the village was fleeing and ran for the bush area to hide. While running a shell landed near Sr. Lorena and knocked her to the ground. It kicked up gravel and sand which got embedded in her leg and some of it cut into her arm. She said, "God, I guess I am going to die today." But after some seconds passed, she felt her leg and arm where the blast of the gravel had cut into her and she brushed away much of it and realized she was not going to die. So, she first fell into a fetal position, trying to protect herself. But her instincts told her this would not do, that she had to get up and continue to try to flee. When she stood up and tried to run, her body, thanks to all of this trauma, would not respond and so all she could do was walk, and that she did and continued into the heavily protective bushes and managed to collapse for rest and regain her composure. So hard was her heart beating that she thought she might die of a heart attack. In the days that followed, she and the villagers survived on roots dug up from the surrounding ground and their water came from a swamp whose water they filtered through the cloth of some of the dresses of the women or shirts of the men and women. ...............................................................................................................................................Then last year, in May, she had another traumatic experience thanks to the warring parties of the government troops and the rebels. Word had gotten out that trouble was coming,, that a battle between the two groups was drawing close to the village where Sr. Lorena and these very simple, very poor people were living. Most of the villagers where Sr. Lorena was living evacuated but she and a few of the other villagers unfortunately delayed and got caught, trapped between the two warring parties. There were bullets coming from both sides and flying over them and near them. The remaining villagers asked Sr. Lorena what to do, so scared were they. She said for all of them to gather in the church and lie down on the floor and together they would pray the rosary for God's protection. That they did and for some 20-25 minutes the shots continued and the killings of rebels and government troops by each other continued. When the shooting stopped, the villagers ventured outside the church and saw that not one bullet had hit the church, that all were safe yet exhausted by the stress of surviving under such violence and death all around them. .......................................................................................................................................... What I tell you here in this letter is still so fresh for me, I am still trying to take it in and appreciate as much as I can the meaning of all of this. I could focus on the idiocy of the tribes hell-bent on destroying each other; but what so moves me is what God is doing through this woman who chooses to risk her own life in order to stay with and care for these people who have no choice but to try to survive under such deadly circumstances. God has to mean so much to you that you would choose to stay with these most vulnerable of His children. No wonder, as I said in my previous letter two days ago, they experience the reality of God as a loving God and that this amazing God cares for them, especially by being with them through Sr. Lorena in their sufferings. ............................................................................................................................................. Yesterday she told me that it was so helpful for her to speak out her story to someone, to me in this case, since it helped her to heal from the trauma and the temptations to resent and hate the warring soldiers, especially the government leaders and rebel leaders. Everything in her tells her that her unresolved dark emotions will come back to eat her up if she does not work at bringing it all to God. She had to return to the places where these events took place, to walk there, to choose again to be with these poorest of the poor who are living so dramatically the passion and dying of Jesus. Only in this way could she come to peace, to reconcile with it all and to let the love of God flow again in her heart and soul. Many of her acquaintances, Combonis and villagers, have died already in this endless conflict. She is very aware of them in heaven now. She added that the gift that has followed is being more sensitive to the risen Jesus, seeing His presence and hope and even joy at times in the villagers and in her fellow Combonis. Yesterday was the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel reading for mass Mary says to Peter and John on Easter morning, "I have seen the Lord!." This is what Sr. Lorena is telling me and I had to pass it on to you. So, I feel encouraged to look around at the people I am with in the coming days and ask God to give me the freedom from my own worries and burdens to see with a heart of love and faith this same mystery unfolding around me--of the dying and rising of Jesus in the world around me, in Kenya and in the USA. in people who trust Him, even though it costs everything to trust. God is for real! Very, very real. And what a gift it is to see Him in action, doing what death and war, violence and revenge cannot overcome. ....................................................................................................................................... Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It is Friday morning here, July 21, and a little chilly which is normal for here at this time of the year. We are in the Southern Hemisphere, just barely (50 miles south of the equator), but also up in the mountains, 6000 feet up. It won';t warm up for us until the middle or late part of August. All things in time I guess!............................................................................................... I am prompted to write by two recent events. One is a conversation I had yesterday with a retreatant I am presently guiding. The other is what happened to me this morning during and right after the Eucharist while pondering the first of the two scripture readings..................................................... The conversation was with a woman missionary to South Sudan. She is a member of the Comboni missionaries, men and women who trace their origins to the 19th century founder, Daniel Comboni, already a canonized saint (If you knew his life story you would see why he has been singled out as such an outstanding follower of Jesus). The retreatant is in her early to mid 50s, a woman from Costa Rica. She has been serving the very poor of that war torn nation for quite some years, and after a 6 month leave to care for her 90 year old mother and 91 year old father back in Costa Rica, she is returning to South Sudan because she sensed in her prayer God calling her to continue serving these wretched people of South Sudan. What impresses me so from our conversation yesterday is her describing the chaos these people live in while the two main tribes of that nation war against each other; almost everyone, private citizens too, have guns. There are so many murders and no arrests. The poverty is grinding, homes are often robbed, sometimes even burned down along with crops. Life stinks in so many ways for these people who are powerless to stop the fighting and build a nation. I asked her whether the people ever ask why you choose to live with them and not some other safer, nicer place on earth. She said, "yes, they do but usually indirectly. They watch us closely, she says, to see over time whether we are who we appear to be. In time they will ask why we sisters stay with them in such hellish conditions. We stand out so glaringly with our white or olive skin among people whose skin is very, very black, thanks to the especially hot sun in that part of Africa." Then this nun said what really touched me. She said she has been told by these Sudanese people that the sisters staying with them in their terribly difficult living circumstances make God's love for them believable; they can see that God cares about them and is with them in their plight. In time these people give names to these missionaries. The name she has been given is "daughter of God." ........................................................................................................ The story of this retreatant reminds me of the four American women (three nuns and one laywoman) who went in the 1970s as apostles from the Cleveland diocese to be with the rural poor of El Salvador during the deadly civil war that was going on in that nation. Their letters to family and friends back in Ohio told of how there was no hope for these simple people to better their living circumstances but saw the meaning of their mission to be one of being companions with them while in a very difficult situation, encouraging them while these poor tried to raise their families and assure their safety while in the midst of so much war and bloodshed. It was, as these four missionaries described it, a ministry of accompaniment. Perhaps you know who are these four women I am talking about. On December 2 of 1980 they were raped by government soldiers and then murdered. .............................................................................................................At mass this morning, which I led for the community, we heard for the first reading the instructions to the Israelites, trapped in Egypt as slaves of Pharoah, of how to celebrate a meal with a roasted lamb. This would forecast what God would soon do for them; It would be called their Passover meal that celebrates their liberation from their enslaved state in a foreign land. Blood from the lamb would be smeared on the doorways of their homes as a protection from God's angel while it would strike down the oppressors but spare (pass over) them. Of course, this passage is loaded with symbols that find their fulfillment in the death of Jesus and especially in the shedding of His blood and how the Eucharist is our Passover meal. The more we wake up to our need for God, how caught we all are to some degree by our enslaving tendencies or attachments, we also wake up to the DESIRE for a freedom we don't have, to live a life with greater integrity and meaning, to give ourselves to something really worthwhile. And so, with faith in the love God has for us, when we wake up to that awesome fact, we then especially appreciate the blood of Him that was shed so that we could pass over from self-centered living to living a life that is really worthwhile and a DESIRING to give of ourselves back to the God who in Jesus shed His blood for us......................................................................................................................................................... I really got hit this morning with this awareness. I am at times overwhelmed with the depth of God's love, not just for myself but for you too and everyone for that matter, even for the most harden, uncaring, and self-entered of us--Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, aboriginies, etc. Everyone from the beginning of time. Nothing is more powerful, nothing more meaningful. NOTHING! This is the only power than can overcome death and in the end it blesses us with the gift of being able to pass over from this troubled world into the Infinity of God's new world and the family He is creating and wants us to be part of forever. In the meantime there are walking among us people who are pouring out their own blood for their spouses, their children, their suffering parents and relatives and neighbors, fellow parishioners, even their enemies, the wretches of South Sudan too--saints among us even though they are not aware of being so. ..................................................................................................... The next time we drink from the chalice hopefully we will catch in that action the allusion to how a marriage proposal was done in Jesus's culture. A man and woman would give their 'yes' and seal their life-long commitment to each other when they both drank from a cup of wine that had been poured out by the father of the future groom. Jesus on the last night of His life gave us Himself as blood, inviting us to drink from the cup and say our personal 'yes' to a relationship that is more profound than any other relationship on this earth could be. He poured out His blood literally, the following day. He is inviting you and me to grow into a similar sense of generosity, to say a 'yes' with the same depth: pouring out our selves completely as He did for us. Yes, it will take a lifetime to do such but what matters is the DESIRE to do so and each day to live with the hope that in God's timing we will each be given the generosity to make this same kind of gesture back to Him, with boundless gratitude and infinite love. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, Here I am after a really busy month of June when I was away from my computer for almost all of the month. I spent two weeks in the Holy Land, then after less than three days back here, and getting lots of sleep and time to pack and leave again, I spent a week away in Tanzania leading a retreat for 14 Notre Dame nuns. While in Tanzania I got a really bad case of bronchitis which I am slowly getting over. It requires so much extra sleep. Groan! Besides, winter has settled in here and it gets quite chilly at night. With no heat in the room nor on the floors, it demands extra blankets and a cap sometimes on my head! But I am so glad to be back home and no longer living out of a suitcase. ........................................................................................................... The time in the Holy Land was just the best. We were 30 in all with a terrific guide, Rula Shubeita, a Christian Palestinian who is very competent in her role. So satisfying for me to work in tandem with her, she as guide, I as chaplain. ............................................................................................................ Our weather was most agreeable, even though pretty hot in the afternoons. One has to drink lots of water. This caught up with me when in Galilee. I got quite dehydrated on my third day there and got very weak. I had to stay home in bed for a day to regain my strength. I suspect the altitude difference was a factor. I live at 5800 feet above sea level here in Nairobi and the lake of Galilee is at 600 feet BELOW sea level. the day this happened was the 45th anniversary of my ordination as a priest. I was well enough by the evening to join everyone for a fabulous meal at a restaurant some 30 minutes by bus from our hotel facility. On the drive back from the restaurant we could see the full moon shining beautifully off the serene surface of the lake. On the following evening, our last one in Galilee, I was able to see the same full moon come up slowly over the mountain range (blood red at first) that forms a boundary on the other side of the lake, 8-10 miles across. Wow, what a stunning thing to watch. ........................................................................................................ What stood out on this trip, my 5th time there? Being able to pray mass at Calvary, so close to where the cross was mounted. So too praying mass on the top of Mount Tabor in the magnificent basilica commemorating the transfiguration of Jesus on that spot. Also, going to the rock in the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed for three hours on the last night of his life and begged the Father for some other way out but eventually surrendered and was willing "to drink the cup." I have often thought of that place is where our future was decided on; it is the place where he said 'yes' and from that moment forward we were guaranteed the opportunity of eternal life. I have many times asked, "Suppose he had walked out before the soldiers arrived to arrest him; suppose he backed out on his call and on us? There are no bigger words in our stories than 'yes' and no'. ........................................................................................................ I was also quite touched by the church built on Mt. Nebo, the burial place of Moses overlooking the Dead Sea and the Promised Land. This is where Moses died and finished his call to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt; it is quite close to where Jesus started his public life and was baptized by John the Baptist. So impressive how the end of one journey was taken up by Jesus to begin his own journey, for us, to finish what Moses began! The one hour boat ride on the Lake of Galilee, going relatively close to the shoreline where so many of the places Jesus did extraordinary things; this was a great way to preview what we would visit later. I always enjoy walking through Capernaum because it was the headquarters, so to speak, for Jesus during his three years in Galilee. It is special to take time there and imagine how busy the market there had to be, an international crossroads. To see the basement of St. Peter's house still intact and imagine Jesus having resided in one of those many rooms, at Peter's invitation. Then to visit the synagogue or remnants of it across the street from St. Peter's house and read from Mark's gospel the account of what happened there to Jesus, what he did there. Just amazing! I am so taken by looking at the nearby open fields next to Capernaum and know that it was in that general direction that Jesus would go to pray each morning he was in town, before the sun rose. So very special. ........................................................................................................ then in Jerusalem, to finally make the traditional Stations of the Cross (as apposed to the path scholars say he more likely took on his way to Calvary) and feel the hustle-bustle of the Old city and its mobs of people. We were there during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month and met huge crowds of Muslims who came from far away to get to the large mosque called the Temple Mount. It estimated that a half million were there. Perhaps you know that on the evening of one of the days we were there, three Muslim men were shot dead after one of them knifed to death a 23 year old Israeli guard who was part of the crowd control. I was amazed that so many Muslims came inside the Holy Sepulchre church (where the tomb of Jesus and Calvary itself is) and were visiting different parts of it, having their pictures taken inside it--one group near me in front of a bronze relief of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It left me wondering what it all means to them. I know Jesus is considered a great prophet for them, but still . . . When we got outside the church I chose to try to make conversation with three Muslim women, two of whom seemed to be daughters of the third woman. The older one could not understand me, the other two had some knowledge of English but not much. We made it out that they had come from Nablus, a major city in the West Bank Palestinian territory. We had visited Jacob's well in that city a few days earlier (the place Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well), the first time ever for me to visit there, and were excited to speak with residents from there. They seemed pleased to have some interaction with Christians and then Americans. I had a sense of God's great love for all of these people and the oneness of the origin of us all, everyone of us, a unity that transcends all the tragic religious and nationalistic divisions now dividing us. .............................................................................................. I got quite a surprise while in Jerusalem when on one of the mornings we were walking in a area where there were almost no people. While we were chatting and moving along quickly there was a rather haggard, short man walking quickly toward us and weaving through our group. He was acting like a vendor, holding high a number of postcards that when folded out stretched over about 5 feet. He was allegedly trying to interest us in buying these. I have had plenty of these cards before and so was not interested. It was crazy how he came at me, I dodged right to avoid him, then left as he "stayed" with me, then I went back right, wondering what on earth this guy was trying to do. My eyes were forward and up. Immediately he disappeared and then I looked down at my money-pouch fastened to my belt and saw that it had been "picked." He had distracted me long enough to unzip the top of my pouch and grab what was inside and then run before I knew what had happened. I was stunned, stood still in shock, and then began wondering whether the pouch had been left open from the time when I was on the bus five minutes earlier. Maybe the money or contents were on the floor of the bus. But soon I realized, no, I had been "picked" and this guy was a pro at what he was doing had caught me flatfooted.. He got close to $100 in US currency and a 50 euro bill. While I felt humbled by it all, feeling stupid and "out of my league" around a pro like that pickpocket, I soon realized that just the previous evening I had removed from that pouch $700 in US currency, my passport, my credit card, and my cellphone and left all of them in the strongbox or safe back at the hotel. I was immensely grateful for the "inspiration" to do that. If he had gotten any of these items, I would have been so, so distressed and would have become a terrible distraction to the other pilgrims for the last three days of our trip. God was very good to me on that one! I suspect the thief was quite disappointed with what he got me for. I am amazed how three of the pilgrims within the next 15 minutes gave me almost the same amount of money this pickpocket had taken. ...........................................................................................................One last item, there is at the hotel we stayed at in Jerusalem, Notre Dame, a 3D computerized reconstruction of the Man of the Shroud of Turin. Many suspect it is Jesus. It could be, but it might not be. But you should see it! To look right at him and see his build. about 5' 11", maybe 6' even. The wounds to his side and hands, feet too are so awesome. The look on his face is full of peace. Absolutely amazing. You wonder, you just wonder: am I looking at a reconstruction of what we worship as the Savior of the world looked like?? I wish all of you could see it. I purchased at the bookstore a booklet on this with many of the pictures with text presenting the scientific investigations relating to the cloth that wrapped the body of this man! This and the "Jesus Boat" that was found in 1985 buried in the sands of the Lake of Galilee seashore are two amazing elements to witness when going to the Holy Land and will stir you deeply. ..................................................................................... I need to go to bed, nearly 10 PM here on Saturday July 1. ............................................................ The retreat I led for 6 days with the Notre Dame sisters in Arusha, Tanzania, 5 hours south of here (June 22-29) was very blessed, but I got a horrible case of bronchitis when there. I am still nursing a cough and needing lots of extra sleep and water. Fortunately, I can sleep late any of the days of this coming week. I am off retreats all this week. This is as close as I will get to sharing with you in a 4th of July type holiday! ................................................................................................God bless. Bernie Owens