Dear Friends,

  It has been awhile since I have posted anything here.  I have been so busy and then had a little sickness in the last two days but am feeling much better since this afternoon.

  What do I tell you about?  First, I really enjoy the course I am leading at the Jesuit seminary every Wednesday AM.  I have 11 seminarians for it, four who are from India and 7 from nations in Africa (Ghana, Zambia and Uganda--no Kenyans!)  They are all about 30 years old.  I got accustomed at Manresa to a much wider experience in the students who came to the reading courses I led there, so I have had to shift.  Still, I enjoy them a lot and their interest.  They have a lot of questions and their questions reflect less life experience than what I had at Manresa.  We are reading through St Teresa of Avila's "The Interior Castle", a masterpiece in presenting some of the most exciting things God can and will do in people who really want God to be God in their lives, who learn to surrender and let God lead in their life, and are faithful to daily contemplative prayer.  If only more people knew about this and would commit themselves to this being part of their daily living!!  The joy in it is deeper than any other joy or happiness that can be known in this life.  Sometimes it is rather difficult getting to that place, the cross in it all.

   Then the batch of  four retreatants I am guiding now.  There is one who is astounding in her experience of God, just so moving.  It is all I can do not to burst out in tears during our sessions, (I do so after she leaves!) part of it because this person is touching on some of my own very deep longings for God.   I even recognize in her experience some of what I have been reading in some of the more advanced stages of the spiritual journey described in the "The Interior Castle".  It is like I know just what needs to be said to her since I just finished reading Teresa's advice for such situations.  There are times when I leave these conversations and sense that I have been blessed to touch on the Source of all reality, the deepest and most beautiful part of life, and that we all are living most times at a rather superficial level, oblivious to what is truly in our depths, of what we are being prepared for, of how stupid are many of our values or what a waste there is in how we spend our time so often.  It precipitates the question:  "what is really the Real?"  There is so much that is really, really empty!  And it sells well, economies depend a lot on its being well marketed.

  I came here almost 13 months ago.  In that time I have guided 88 people in retreats, the vast majority of them for 8 days, a few for 5 or 6.  Then I led a retreat in July when I gave talks, two talks a day over 8 days, to 17 others.  I am amazed that I have done this much: 105 people!

  Oh, yes, my roses.  They give me balance from all of this listening to so many people on retreats!  You should see them, the roses that is, not the people!  I am now getting wonderful results from the bone meal and composted cow manure I feed them.  Generous amounts of water too!  The leaves are so healthy and now that the temperatures are getting warmer, the blossoms are coming.  I have three bushes whose blossoms are pink but not pink-pink  There is a touch of orange in the the blossoms, almost like a peach tone that gives an off-tone of pink.  Just out of this world!  Then I have put up two poles on opposite ends of the rose garden, about 11-12 feet tall, and planted vines from seedlings at the bottom of each pole.  This plant gives off clusters of small blossoms of orange and yellow.  Right now the vines are beginning to wrap themselves around the poles and climb. Someday, in 3-4 weeks, I hope the poles will be loaded with clusters of these blossoms and make them like a torch on fire.

  Two-three weeks ago I made a major decision on a proposed pilgrimage to Italy I had hoped to lead.  I cancelled the effort because I thought the price was just too high and many who would want to come would decide not to come because of the cost.  I think the problem was the time of the year (June) when airfare and hotels are the most expensive.  Right now I am exploring the possibility of a pilgrimage to Italy during late October or early November of 2015.  I want to make it rather Franciscan in spirit, and also have some good times in Venice, Padua, Florence, and Rome.  I should know in the next month at most whether this attempt will go or not.

  I need to go.  God bless.  As you move into autumn, we are moving into warmer temps after some really cold days in July and August.  Thank God those days and temps are over for a good long time.

Bernie Owens