Dear Friends,

  Friday evening here, and I will not be long.  But I want to say "thank you" to any and all who are praying for me and the four people (three seminarians and one nun) I am now guiding through their 30-day retreat.  I have one other nun for 8 days and she finishes on Tuesday morning.  There are times I am so, so moved by what is happening in these people and the stories they tell me of their own encounters with death, with struggles, with their thirst for God.  I feel so, so close to God as I listen to their stories and how God has and is moving in them.  I wish I could package such and show the world.  This makes me think of the prophet Isaiah who describes in chapter 40 his going up to the top of the mountains and shouting to the world, "Here is your God!"  while he tries to lead God's lambs and sheep to safety, to life.

   One of the nuns is such a "tough" character, born the third of triplets, nearly dying as an infant, being carried in her first months in a little sack or small pouch on the belly of her mother wherever her mother went; then at the age of 18 she tells her mother she wants to become a nun, to which her mother picks up a stool or chair and throws it at her.  For three days this future nun hid under a desk, slept there overnight to avoid the wrath of her mother.  Only the word of her father, separated from her mother and living in another village, could spare her and manage to calm down the mother.  Today, 25 years later, her mother is proud of her as a nun.  (This is the same person who was part of a small group of nuns who 8 yeas ago went into a part  of Ethiopia where only Muslims live.  The Muslims burned down all their housing on Good Friday, would not sell food to them nor let them ride their buses,  and they were saved from violence and harm thanks to a 4-5 year old Muslim boy who instinctively (providentially??) came to their protection one day when these nuns were walking in a dangerous, threatening area of the village and insisted on their being taken to his home and fed.  The boy's father followed the wishes of his son and from that point on the town tolerated the nuns.  The nuns are still there to this day and witness to Christ by their living among these Muslims and loving them as best they know how with the kindness and welcome of Christ.  Tough heh!!??  Persistent, tough faith in Christ!!  It makes one really proud to be Christian and challenged to live one's own faith in Christ's love without any shame or apology.)

   Today is the first of nine days leading up to Pentecost, June 8.  The significance of Pentecost has grown and grown on me through the years.  It really is the climax of the church's life that we celebrate from the beginning of Advent, through Christmas and the Epiphany, through Lent and then Easter.  Easter is Jesus' great day but Pentecost is our great day when the Spirit of Christ comes with such power and changes confused, fear-based people into daring apostles who go to the stretches of the known world, as far as India in the east and Spain in the west to plant the seeds of the Gospel and invite people into life in Christ.  The same need is there in every generation.  I see the need so strongly in our own USA where so many seem confused, don't know who they are, are spiritually comotose, some feeding on drugs or what amounts to quasi-spiritual junk food because they can't stand the emptiness of their lives and the surrounding culture and what it offers them for meaning and purpose.  So many adopt pop culture, sports, and feel-good psychology in the place of the wonderfully good news of Christ and the challenge of His Gospel.  They end up being spiritually anemic, even anorexic in some cases . . . like they forget to eat nutritious food and slowly waste away!  And yet I have met so many really people in the Sates who are so alive, so full of hope and joy and have a clear sense of what life can be because they have experienced and live in fidelity to the love they have experienced from Christ for themselves.  They really do believe and radiate His Presence.  Pentecost has happened in their lives and they are wonderful to be around.

   It is bedtime here.  I pray for all you who read my postings.  Let us, please, join in prayer Pope Francis this coming Pentecost Sunday, June 8, when he receives in Rome the president of Israel and the head of the Palestinian Authority where the three of them will pray for peace in the Holy Land.  What a worthy cause!

   Oh, last Monday at 5:45 AM there was a huge boom here at the retreat house.  A hotwater tank exploded , rocketed into the air while landing 300' away,and tore a large hole in the roof of the retreat house's administration center, knocked down a number of walls inside as well as some of the outer walls, destroyed the kitchen and ovens, and cracked the walls and ceiling of the chief administrator's office.  People outside our walls started the rumors that Al Shabaab had bombed us.  Even local news stations began to report this and TV cameras came to our front gate in hopes of a sensational story.  (They were ushered away quickly!!)  So right now we are feeding 50 retreatants from  emergency, cramped kitchen quarters while constructing an emergency food-preparation area to give our heroic cooking crew a little more room for their much appreciated work.  In the meantime, 50 retreatants are in absolute silence and getting good meals on time, but it is really tough on the kitchen crew.  They are our heroes and heroines right now!!

Bernie Owens