Dear Friends, Happy New Year to each and all of you. I notice how all the paragraphs that I had separated in my last two letters were eliminated and all of the text of my letters was jammed together. That is not pleasant to read!! I am very sorry for that. I wonder whether separating each paragraph by two spaces rather than just one might solve the problem. I am going to experiment with that. So . . . my retreat concluded last Friday afternoon and now on this Monday we are back into the routine of daily work, no more partying, with all the Christmas decorations put away. So be it. First, thanks to any and all of you who prayed for me during retreat. It was challenging and in a number of ways very up and down for the first five days, then better for the next three and finally truly wonderful in the last two days. Part of the challenge was in trying to follow to the letter the directions of the author of a book for a 10-day Contemplative Retreat. While his (Fr. Franz Jalics) teachings are wonderful, I found it trying to use his detailed directions about how to hold your hands, what to focus on, and what mantra to use. It became just too complicated for me. I needed something more simple and once I went back to the way I pray contemplatively, everything smoothed out. But his teachings are superb, very clarifying, very helpful. I wish he had been here with me so that I could have talked with him during the retreat. Maybe he would have thrown me out of his group. But I did experience a lot of discouragement during most of the retreat, ups and downs in my moods, temptations, and generally having to trust, trust, trust, finally to trust my own experience and go with that. And that is when the great calm settled in and with it a wonderful sense of the presence of the risen Jesus during my meditations. One very important dimension that accompanied all of this was my realizing the gift of some very special friendships in my life, men and women who are so important to me, and then one new one who has recently come into my life. So much of the measure of what makes for such friends is the level of conversation we have had together, the sharings around prime values and relationship issues. Who is God, what do you still hope to do and experience before you die, what has made you suffer (e.g., divorce, death of a child, letting go in a relationship, childhood traumas, etc.) and what has made you laugh and feel loved and cared about: when I find people who are able and willing to talk about such topics like this, they become rare treasures and I truly experience God in them and with them. Such people are priceless for me. As I said in my book, friendship is often called the eight sacrament in the church's life, that is, in the life of God's people. All of this came up strongly on the first day of my retreat and again on the last day. So yes, I had some challenges, but it was all quite graced. I am blessed. Again, thanks for your prayers. On the first day I had an awareness of each of these friends represented by a flame of fire, a small, gentle flame, all of them together forming something like a circle. I could not help but associate this with Pentecost and also to recall the opening lines of John of the Cross' famous poem, "The Living Flame of Love". It goes like this: "Oh living flame of love (which refers to God's Holy Spirit) that so tenderly wounds my soul" and I added to his words ". . . with Your love . . ." I kept repeating this with much inner satisfaction. And then for the newest friend there was this one lone flame waiting to be brought in or invited into the circle. All of this began with my recognizing this flame of love flickering in my own depths and moving me to a new richness in my life. I am reminded of what has been stirring in me when in the last month I read closely a biography of the 18th century Carmelite nun, St. Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and how overwhelming was the longing in her to love God totally and each of her fellow sisters in her cloistered community. Reading that biography really, really grabbed my spirit, so powerful are the descriptions of the spiritual energy stirring in that young woman in her longings to give everything of herself to God, and that her deepest pain was that she could not find in herself a love adequate to the response of love God deserves. For her she keenly felt that God deserves the whole world, the whole cosmos, and then infinitely more, and this pain of not being able to give such to Him consumed her. Her spiritual director is quoted to have said that he believed her spiritual intensity was more responsible for her death at such a young age than the peritonitis that was the physical cause of her death. God has so strongly claimed her from her early childhood, so entered into the depths of her being and let her intuit something of the overwhelming goodness and beauty of God that she was "burned up" by it all. the intensity of it all in a sense killed her. The retreat also prompted me to take 15-20 minutes toward the end of each day and join the retreatants in their time of silence (8:00-8:30 PM) before the Blessed Sacrament exposed when all in the chapel sit in silence before Him and are quiet there--no songs, no common prayers, just BE. It is really something to have a chapel of 50-60 people and no one is talking or singing but each and all are completely focused on Him, in that sacrament mounted in a monstrance on the altar. On Wednesday I start my new course with the seminarians. Each Wednesday morning I will be traveling into the seminary to lead this course(9 miles from here; it takes usually 1 hour and 5 minutes to make that trip, so bad is the morning commute traffic! But this is when I had seen a big family of baboons along side the road coming back from raiding someone's garden!!). The course's title is: "The Humility and Foolishness of God." The students will be reading sayings of Francis of Assisi, the writings of St. Bonaventure, some material from Teilhard de Chardin, and then they will read a small book entitled "The Tears of God." The overall thesis of the course is that God has humbly extended himself to us so much, has bent down in tender care as a parent would to a struggling child but has been so abused in Jesus and ignored by so many of the people He loves that God has been called a fool for still choosing to be with us and to love us to the end. I will have nine Africans and one Ukrainian for my students. We should have some really good conversations. I am hoping this course will greatly expand their appreciation of who God is and what God's love is like that it will greatly impact their personal prayer and their preaching. On the next to last day of my retreat I relaxed by bringing rabbit compost and bone meal to my roses to jazz them up again. Right now the roses are looking glorious, with many blossoms of various colors, and some rising up 7 feet. But it has been about five months since I last "fed" them and the time is about now to reinforce that organic power that produces such color and shape and makes everyone walking by to marvel. I love it! I tell my retreatants at times: "this is reality, mixing it up with rabbit poop." They wince and I laugh!! I keep getting strong inspirations for a second book. I keep collecting notes for it. More and more I feel pretty sure about the title of the book: in the upper part would be these words: "If Only You Knew the Gift of God" and then in the lower part of the book these words: "From Habits of Control To Letting God Lead" Anybody want to buy it??? So it is time to wrap up this letter. God bless and thanks to those of you who express your appreciation for this blogsite. It motivates me to keep writing. Goodnite! Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It is late in the afternoon here on Tuesday, the 29th, in Christmas week. We have had gorgeous weather today, about the best that summer can offer: low humidity and in the high 70s. I was able to swim outdoors today for about 20-25 minutes. I am now so relaxed and feeling wonderfully limp. I never lie in the sun in the afternoon, however, nor walk for long with skin exposed since the sunrays here are so, so direct. Being almost on the equator means the sun comes in straight at us and not on an angle, as is the case in the Detroit latitude at more than a 40 degree angle. One humorous event for us is a donkey that brays so mournfully every 15-20 minutes in the village that is across the river and its valley near us. Someone in the village there purchased a donkey about a month ago. It gives out this desperate sound even in the nighttime, so someone has said. I don't hear it but during the day I do and I think it is saying loud and clear throughout the valley: "I am lonely, and I want a mate!!" This reminds me of a very funny scene in one of Fellini's famous films from Italy done maybe 30 years ago. The film shows the delightful craziness of an Italian family, at table sharing a meal, at the beach, in it interaction with the clergy (usually awkward!), going on a Sunday drive, etc. There is one scene from the movie that our local donkey reminds me of. It is a scene of the oldest member of the family, a man who is a widower and perhaps 85 or so in years, senile and dependent on nursing care. One Sunday afternoon he gets loose and climbs a tree, rather far up. The family who had been out on a picnic returns to hear him in the tree calling out loudly and repeating in mournful, drawn-out cries, "I want a woman. I waaant a wooomannn!!!!" Another event that took place some 300 miles to the east of here has greatly blessed this nation. Some two weeks ago a band of Al Shabaab jihadists crossed the Somali border into Kenya and stopped at gunpoint (AK 47s) a bus filled mostly with women. The intent of these young men, covered on their heads with headwraps and wearing masks, was to separate the Christians from the Muslims and shoot the Christians right then and there. This happened twice or three times last year in roughly the same area. But the Muslim women this time refused to cooperate and even offered their burkha covering to the Christian women and then told the jihadists that they would have to kill all of the passengers together, Christians and Muslims, or they were to leave. This response apparently so stunned the terrorists that they left. The newspapers made great coverage of this story and wrote at length about what Muslims and Christians together in this nation can do when they unite and respect each other. These women did much more than what the army could have done or did. War stinks! Tomorrow morning I "go into the desert," so to speak, as I begin my own annual retreat. Some months ago I found a book that attracts me a lot. Written by Fr. Franz Jalics, a Jesuit from Hungary, and with the title: "Called to Share in HIS Life, the book maps out as ten-day retreat. It begins with simple acts of awareness in nature (so that will be my entire first day of retreat--just to look intently at what I am seeing while wandering about or sitting on a bench on our retreat house grounds). Then on day 2 I shift to a number of 30 minute meditations where with my eyes closed I focus my attention simply on the palms of my hands that are folded together in my lap and absolutely still. From there in the later days the focus shifts to more explicit spiritual, religious subjects: the mother of Jesus and then entirely on Jesus. I am to read nothing, not listen to music, eat alone and in the quiet, and of course I am not to turn on my computer. In this way I give myself to deeper and deeper quiet and deeper and deeper intimacy with God, who is beyond every image and feeling but is the ground or basis of everything and is ever present as the background or foundation of all particular objects of attention. You can imagine how important it is to be as still as possible with your body when meditating. Of course, distractions come up in the mind and imagination and feelings; that is bound to happen, but one is urged "to look beyond" such items in your attention and be aware of the divine Presence in its infinite presence, its infinite depth. With a steady faith one can reasonably hope to be blessed with an increasingly sensitive awareness of this boundless Presence who is mercy infinite, love infinite, penetrating everything and holding us all in its embrace as the most loving mother would hold her children, whether in the womb or in her arms. Does this seem too far out, too extreme? It does not seem so to me, and so I feel I am ready for such a retreat and do look forward to it, while knowing there will be times when things will seem "dead" or rather "dry" and even boring. But that is part of the entire experience: to avoid seeking certain kinds of experiences and be at peace with whatever is, aware of and present to the One who is "behind" all of this as the foundation of everything, the Source from which everyone has come and to whom we are returning. This Source is beyond all shapes, all particularity but is All, All. Anyway, I am off to dinner and wish all of you who read this a very blessed New Year, with health and joy of soul. Please remember me in your prayers. Thank you. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, Greetings on this 3rd Sunday of Advent! I had spent an hour some five days ago typing a letter to post of this blogsite and then suddenly everything disappeared and I was unable to retrieve what I had typed. What a waste!! I was much too busy during the rest of the week to try again since I was in the midst of leading a retreat for 15 people. It was not an individually guided retreat, the usual kind of retreat given here, but had a form of two or three talks per day to the group over eight days. Staying with the schedule kept me quite busy. I am happy to say that the retreat was received very well and struck deep chords in the lives of the 15. Praise God! Its theme was, "Who is the Holy Spirit and what does the Holy Spirit do in each of us and in the world." Thank you to any and all of you who prayed for them and for me during the past week. One interesting thing I learned a few days ago is that we have a group of lions in a forest only some 5 miles away. They are not penned up but in the wild. I heard that one of the nearby farmers lost one of his dogs to a lion two weeks ago. The lion came out during the heavy rains we received and got the dog. I am told the lions emerge more likely during the rains because humans, the most dangerous animal of them all, tend to stay indoors when the rains fall. Lions, afraid of meeting humans, feel safer coming out to hunt during that time. (Guess what! It is raining now!) I have never thought of us being the most dangerous of animals, but with our guns and bombs and capacity to make war, I guess we are! The temperatures here have gotten hot in the afternoons. We are into the beginnings of summer. The days have gotten somewhat longer. Next week, on the 21st, we will enjoy the longest day of the year, while those of you in the Michigan area will experience the shortest day of your year. In the meantime we are enjoying so many beautiful flowers. Our dahlias especially are luxuriating; the blossoms are so abundant and gorgeous to view. And yes, my roses are prospering. I think they are soon due for a reinforcement of the rabbit poop and bone meal I put around their roots. In the meantime I am painfully aware of the hundreds of thousands of people starving in the nation just north of us, Ethiopia. Their lack of rain has led to this disaster for them. It is very sad. In my last posting I indicated that I had more to say about the pilgrimage I was co-leader for in Italy last month. I emphasize that it was a pilgrimage and not a tour. A pilgrimage is a time away from what one calls his home, his familiar surroundings. It is a journey that involves searching, a quest for a deeper life with God. At least that is what it is supposed to be. If any of you know the story of the medieval English writer, Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", then you know all kinds of things can happen on such a journey, and everyone partaking in it can have different experiences, some happy and some not so happy. The expectations of people for what they want the pilgrimage to be can vary greatly, as did happen on this journey for the 35 of us. Most seemed very happy and fulfilled by their two weeks, but a very small number seemed not so. Those of you who read this most likely know that one moment of my two weeks on this pilgrimage was to meet personally Pope Francis and pray mass with him at his residence and with 15 other priests. It was a great, great moment for me. I have a wonderful album of some outstanding photos of the mass, of all 16 of us priests with him, and then some amazing photos of him and myself meeting, talking for about one minute, his blessing some rosaries I held in my hands, our sharing a hug, and then saying our goodbyes. (It became quite evident to me that the pope is not comfortable at all speaking in English. He never really learned it. This makes his address to the US Congress last September all the more remarkable. He must have practiced a lot with his pronouncing the words of that speech; I found it easy to understand him that day. As great as that moment with the pope was, it was not the most important and meaningful event of the pilgrimage for me. What was number one was what happened for me when visiting a Carmelite monastery in Florence followed by what has been happening for me in the weeks that have followed. In this sense the pilgrimage has continued and has gotten deeper and richer. I went to this monastery, with the great majority of the pilgrims, one afternoon to see the incorrupt body of a saint whose biography I had read nearly ten years ago. The name of this remarkable person is Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart. While she is a canonized saint, she is not very well known, certainly not like the Carmelite saint, the little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux. This young woman, born in 1747, died after only 22 years, in 1770, six years before the American Declaration of Independence. She died from a hernia that quickly developed into peritonitis and this killed her in less than 24 hours. Yes, it is remarkable that her body never decomposed, but that detail is only an external sign by God of the profound spirituality of this young woman and the very deep union she and God enjoyed together. She was the oldest of six children from a fairly well-to-do family in Arezzo. From the time of her early childhood, probably as early as when she was about 4, she would frequently ask adults in her family "who is God?" This question and her continuing search (pilgrimage) was the driving interest of her whole life. In hindsight this stands out as a strong sign of God's marking and choosing her very early in her life for the closest of relationships with Him, and through this to become a great sign for the decades and centuries later of how real and close God is to us, of how deep relationship with God is the greatest and most fulfilling joy a person can ever experience in this life. The answers she got from adults to her question were never really satisfying. This quest drove her to apply during her final year of high school to enter Carmel in Florence. She was accepted by Carmel and started her life there in 1765. She was close to her parents, especially to her father. It was extremely hard for the both of them to see their first-born enter the monastery and know she would never come home. In her short five years at Carmel it would take God Himself, during her times of prayer and daily responsibilities to the other sisters of the convent, to give her the answer she was looking for to her question. Three years before she died, in June of 1767, she was flooded with an awareness, overwhelming for her, that God is love. After this major event she walked around the convent as in a daze for three days. I am sure she had heard before the answer to her question that God is love, but it was during that divinely chosen moment in her life, when she had come to know God quite personally and felt so deeply the desire to give herself completely to Him, that this great discovery of her life, this answer "crashed" in upon her. She felt the truth that God is love as the sweetest of all truths resonating throughout her soul and body. This really changed her life with God and her fellow sisters from then on. God was claiming her quickly in her life for that final union, face to face, forever. I suspect we humans for the most part have little appreciation of how overwhelmingly true is this statement that God IS LOVE. It is hardly very personal when it is first posed to us. It is only when something "major" happens in our life that we get some out-of-the ordinary sense of this central truth. Most of us know that God is Love as the answer to a catechism question. And some have learned how to pray with Scripture passages and hear God speak His love for them in their prayer. But only when we come to know ourselves deeper than what the busyness and noise of our daily lives permit, or when we feel terribly vulnerable or have had a brush with death do we begin to feel the power of this question and experience the depths of this kind of love as the only kind of love that can satisfy us and bring us to the joy we have been made for, the joy we have been looking for. With this as background I can now say something about why going to visit the preserved corpse of this young woman during our pilgrimage and my subsequent reflecting on aspects of her life-story have made this part of my time in Italy the most meaningful and spiritually richest part of the pilgrimage for me. Since returning on November 23 I have spent 45 minutes each morning working through Teresa Margaret's biography and the passages I had noted when I was in Italy. I have been so attracted and challenged too by numerous sections of her biography. I will try to give you a sense of what drew me and is inspiring me so much. It is the frequent mentioning in the biography of this young woman OF HER LONGING TO LOVE GOD WITH EVERYTHING SHE HAS AND IS that has spoken to me and catches my spirit so powerfully. There is an urgency and longing about this I have not felt before to the degree I am feeling it now. God has recently done something to me, and I am noticing it. In the Carmelite tradition there is a demanding challenge to look honestly and intently at the countless expressions of self-centeredness in ourselves, e.g., in our ways of thinking, valuing, speaking and acting. The challenge is to acknowledge this self-focus and self-indulging instincts inside ourselves and commit to saying 'no' to them and then choosing OUT OF LOVE FOR GOD, to choose otherwise or simply let go and wait on God. This becomes a lifestyle of continually dying to self-centeredness, to facing its expressions in ourselves coming up many times a day, and to grow in the habit of choosing instead to do whatever good one can do in that situation OUT OF LOVE FOR GOD. As one gets to know their depths better, we discover how terribly self-focused we are, how instinctual we are, and how for the sake of our own security and protection from what we fear, we think 'self' first and too often choose accordingly. The hope is to live from love and for love, to be before God and live for God. Practically this can be realized in our keeping back an impatient answer or rendering a small service or favor and doing it in a quiet way. We can live a life that is too busy and so lose a healthy self-awareness, a vigilance over our motives. It is then easy to get distracted by our own interests, to do what we do for a purpose that has its roots in our self. The motive of seeking our pleasure or seeking praise can spoil what we should be doing solely for God. God can be far in the background, not all that important to us, and we then live that moment with no thought or room for God. We can pour out our self on a project but rely too much on our own self. The call, instead, is to reliance on God so that whatever I do, it is done with God. I think "we" rather than just "I" when I do what I do. In fact, it becomes a habit that whatever is done, it is WE who do it, together. I am more and more living a spirituality of trust. What is very challenging in the story of Teresa Margaret is the way she handled criticisms and rebukes, especially when she was not guilty or responsible for what she was charged with. She would not protest nor defend herself in such cases but ask for pardon for whatever she was accused of, even when she was not guilty. She cited the example of Jesus standing silent before Pilate and saying nothing in His self-defense as her model. It takes immense humility to experience one's self being condemned yet being innocent and then to remain silent. When feeling hurt and resentment welling up, and a need to protest the injustice of being so accused, I am especially challenged. Yet, it is in such situations I am trying to learn from this young woman. I feel she has such a powerful way of choosing and imitating Christ and letting go of the need to protect or justify one's self. I cannot think of a more demanding way of focusing off one's instinctual self-centeredness and choosing to love Christ and the one accusing you in such a painful moment. I want to live with such a freedom and focus. It is this kind of desire that has come on so strongly when in Italy and has stayed with me since coming back here. And it not teh desire for self-growth but the deep, deep disire to live for God, so meaningful, so strongly is the attraction. Saints are made, not born. It is at the cost of much struggle that they learn to conform themselves to God's way and will. Gradually they offer less and less resistance, until by surrendering themselves completely to God's purifying actions, they emerge as free and quite beautiful in spirit and good works. They have largely overcome their self-centered impulses and ways of thinking. They have grown into a gentleness and kindness of heart, a genuine humility and generous love for others through a steady vigilance over their self-focused impulses: a hot temper, a lustful look or thoughts, a tendency to let fear of failure or criticism make them pull back; a long-standing fear that they really are not that lovable, leading them to resentment or envying others. The courage to make such a journey comes much more from being strongly attracted to the Heart of Christ and His unique, totally fulfilling love than by their own will-power. He has come to mean everything to you; he is recognized as the pearl of great price so that you go and sell everything in order to possess, such an unparalleled discovery is He. (I allude to Matthew 13:44-46.) This experience changes one at their core. One is moved to do anything, to surrender all in order to belong solely to Him, no matter the cost. Meeting Him changes everything. I found in this biography a statement that draws me: to accept without complaint the unsought crosses of daily life is the surest and safest way of disciplining our body and our will, to come to this kind of deep relationship in God, with Christ. To curb our tongue, to refrain from the critical word for the right reason--that is, out of the desire to live in Christ's Heart and to live for Him alone--these are special opportunities for growing to a deep union with Him. Acceptance of the common lot of food and sleep, of noise and weather and other small inconveniences give one plenty of opportunities to practice this inner discipline of heart and will and, in turn, they prompt one to growth in love for Christ by doing this out of loving gratitude. The trials and annoyances of daily life that come from nature and people one lives with are the practice field for this growth in love for God, for Jesus. Heat and cold, lack of sleep, the fidgeting or irritating habit of someone, the unsympathetic companion, the food that disagrees; the very slow or complete lack of response from public services (government, post office, etc.) are the typical situations when we can choose a deeper life with Jesus or fail by choosing the way of focusing on self and indulging our impatience, anger, our impulses to criticize and gossip. The challenge is to look upon these people with the love of Christ, to sympathize with their troubles, excuse their faults, always speak well of them and never fail willingly in charity toward them ... in thought, word or deed. This is not easy! Between God and such a person, then, there emerges a single love, one shared life. The person has been so very blessed to now live with the freedom and habit of choosing in big and small moments from an other-centered love. There is seen in their lives a profound integration of all their inner life. Christ Jesus has become their all, their deepest hope and joy, their first and last choice no matter what. So . . that is it. This is the gist of what I wanted to share with you about how my pilgrimage really is continuing, only this time in my interior! God bless. I will try to write something before Christmas, certainly before December 30 when I begin my own annual retreat. Take care. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends,

  Wow, more than a month has gone by since I last posted a letter.  Of course much of the reason for this has been my being out of the country for three of those weeks and then this last week, when I returned from Italy, being pressed by very demanding commitments with no time to do anything else.

  So, after an immense amount of sleep to catch up on all of this (9 hours the last two night, and hours nap yesterday after noon and an outdoor swim, and two and a half hours of sleep after breakfast and mass this morning) I feel much better and in the mood this afternoon to write this letter.

   From November 2-23 I was in Italy, first to stay some time with the family of the guide of the pilgrimage, Giorgio Abate.  He is someone who has become a wonderful friend.  He and I have teamed four times in the last ten years to co-lead pilgrimages either in Italy or in Spain.  Together we form a very well received team, and we have lots of fun doing them.   This latest pilgrimage began on Sunday, the 8th, in Venice, but I went earlier at the request of Giorgio's family to mark the 8th anniversary of the death of his only child, his first born son, Simone Pietro.  Simone, not quite 19 years old, was playing goalie in a soccer game.  His team was leading 1-0 and it was in the final seconds of the game.  The opposing team made one valiant effort to tie the game by bringing the ball down close to where Simone was standing guard and kicked it toward the goal.  With a full extension of his body Simone blocked the ball with his glove-covered hands but took a kick from one of the opposing players in the chest; the kick struck the vega nerve that controls the heart.  Simone fell to the ground,  briefly said he could not breathe, and then lay down and died.  The player who kicked him had been known to play like a wild man in soccer games and had been warned about this in times past.  However, he was not charged with any crime and Giorgio and his wife, Maria Pia, explicitly told the player that he did not kill their son and that they offered any and all forgiveness he needed.

  Each November 3 since then, Giorgio and Maria Pia have had a memorial mass for Simone at their parish, Santa Rufina, on the northside of Rome.  In fact, on the 3rd of every month they have a mass offered in his honor and pray for God's blessings on the foundation they established in his name, called Smiling Angel.  This is an outreach to orphans and very poor children, in India, in Albania, and elsewhere. With this effort Giorgio and Maria Pia have gone each December-February to either Agra, India or a village in Albania to be with orphans and to love them, play with them, and do physical repairs in their living quarters, and also to bring toys and playthings like slides, merry-go-rounds, teeter-totters, and make a playground area for them.  I truly admire how they have taken their grief over this devastating loss and with great faith and Christian love have channeled it toward those who have no parents or are extremely poor children.  It is a story made for heaven.  During the memorial mass I spoke in English at communion time and Giorgio translated for the congregation into Italian.  In essence I said that there are some losses and griefs we can never really get over and the only thing we can do is to bring them to the pierced Heart of Jesus and place them there.  There are no human reasons capable of explaining such losses, but only a love that is greater than death and has given Himself unto death for each of us.  Only this will ever help us make sense out of such losses,  Unless Jesus and His death means a lot to us, what I just said will be beyond our capacity to understand or accept, because one understands something like this only with a heart of love;  the mind by itself cannot fathom it.  I got the sense that a few had a sense of what I was saying.

  We then had a wonderful meal at the house of Giorgio and Maria Pia with a few family members.  The singing that followed the meal was so uplifting and I think furthered the healing for Giorgio and Maria Pia.

  The following day, after a late breakfast, I got in a good walk in the neighborhood and went with the family into downtown Rome to a restaurant to commemorate the death some three eys ago of Giorgio's uncle, a crusty character, Vincenzo.  The food was abundant and I got in a lengthy conversation with an Ethiopian man, in his early 40s, an actor and donning a head of long dreadlocks, looking like a hippie. and having a very gentle manner.   He was a guest as I was and we got into a rather engaging conversation about life, about how God works with everyone of us but only if we are humble enough to admit the truth of ourselves and own up to our weaknesses and needs.

  On Thursday, the 5th, the feast day of all Jesuit saints and blessed, I offered mass with Giorgio and Maria Pia at a chapel that is in their parish's charge.  It is a parish of huge importance to Jesuits--called the LaStorta Chapel--where Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, in November of 1537 had a profound mystical experience of God the Father answering a prayer Ignatius had prayed for more than a year.  Ignatius had asked God to place him and his companions with His Son, Jesus.  The Father places Ignatius and his companions with Jesus who in the vision is carrying His cross .  Ignatius experiences Jesus walking to Calvary say, "It is my will that you serve Us under the banner of the cross." And so this is what Ignatius experiences.  The Father had further said to him, "I will be favorable to you (and your companions) in Rome."  By this God intimated at the founding of the Jesuits, under the formal acceptance by Pope Paul III, almost three years later, in 1540.   What a consolation for me to pray the mass, the ultimate prayer of Christians, in this little chapel, big enough for 20 people at most, on that day.  (It was bombed and damaged by an American bomber during World War II (1944) and in the 1960s repaired.)

  On the following day, the first Friday, the three of us drove an hour west of Rome to a town right on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.  It is called Santa Marinella. Our weather was great and the setting was so peaceful.  We had driven there, the town where the fatal soccer match had taken place, to visit a chapel in a Carmelite monastery.  Two years ago I had read an article in the English Catholic magazine, The Tablet, about the founding nun being buried under the altar in that monastery and being absolutely preserved. The description of her life and way with God attracted me a lot.   I was curious and wanted to visit it.  So, after a great lunch at a Japanese restaurant and a lovely walk along the sea shore, we went to the monastery and had mass there.  The people we met, including the lay woman who had written the article, joined us in the mass.  One of the nuns there was from Tanzania, and so she and I said a few words to each other in Swahili and she just beamed.  Later, that evening, we had a home dinner in the house of Giorgio's niece with her husband and 5 year old son.  They asked me to bless their two floor home, then Giorgio's sister fed us with a fantastic meal.  Following that Giorgio and his nephew entertained us, each playing a guitar with a lot of skill, and leding us with songs we could sing along with.  What a wonderful evening was had by all.  Music is so powerful to transform people who at first are a little stiff into the best in spirit!  Some red wine helps too.

   On the next afternoon Giorgio and I took the train from Rome to Venice, a four hour trip, and had dinner together with two of the pilgrims, Isaac and Balssam Hanna who for a few days before had been sightseeing in Lake Como and Milan.  We enjoyed a great seafood meal and a nice evening walk in Venice.  The next morning the 33 pilgrims showed up and we began our wonderful two weeks together.  A day and a half in Venice, a two hour stop in Padua, a beautiful afternoon drive through the white wine area of northeastern Italy on our way to Florence.  We spent two full days, three nights there and took time especially at the famous art museum there and the exhibit of Michaelangelo's sculptures, especially of David.  On Friday, the 13th, the day of the massacre in Paris, we visited the Franciscan retreat centre called LaVerna in the mountains of central Italy.  It is the place where Francis of Assisi received the stigmata, the five wounds of Christ in his body, in 1224, two years before he died. What a holy place!  What an awesome place for beauty in the forests of Italy and spiritual power!  While there we met a group of Lithuanian Franciscans, maybe two dozen, who had come there to say 'thank you' for the support of the Franciscans of Italy and of that place especially for supporting Lithuanians during the Soviet occupation prior to 1991.by shipping them many crosses that the citizens could place on hills around their nation in defiance of the communists who controlled their nation at that time.

  We then visited Siena, marveled at the artistry in marble in their cathedral, then enjoyed all the life in that town square (really it is a big oval-shaped bowl) where their twice a year horse races go on. Then on to Assisi, one of the most peaceful and prayerful places on the face of the earth.  The weather was terrific there, as it was every day of our two weeks--no rain whatsoever and then sun with autumn colors in the leaves and across the many hills and mountains!  In Assisi Giorgio's wife joined us after driving up from Rome, along with his sister and husband.  At the end of our meal one of the evenings Giorgio treated us to a lot of his singing with guitar.  The whole dining room, with other hotel residents, got into the music and all had such a fun time.

  After two days and three nights there we moved on through the Rieti area mountains to visit a very small church in Greccio, a very small village.  This church is famous for what Francis of Assisi did there; he  began the Christmas crib tradition as his way for teaching illiterate people the story of Christ's birth.  The church has about 40-50 Christmas crib scenes from all the continents and many nations of the world inserted into the walls up on a second floor level.  So many of the scenes reflect the clothing and looks of the people donating that crib scene--Japanese, Nigerian, European, South American, etc.  We celebrated the Christmas midnight mass there, with music for Christmas.  How wonderful!  Then we went to a nearby restaurant and had a great pasta meal, with veal and red wine, then Giorgio serenaded the cook and his wife while we sang 'happy birthday' to them--it was not their birthdays-- and sang a few other songs.  No one wanted to leave!

  Finally, we went to Rome, first to the Jesuit church, the Gesu, and then the next morning to the pope's weekly gathering for pilgrims--always on Wednesday mornings-- in St. Peter's square.  We were outdoors under overcast skies as he rode around in his elevated pope-mobile, greeting so many personally, especially little children and the disabled, and came very close by our pilgrims.   We visited three of the great churches in Rome: St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Peter's.  Also the Vatican Museum and the Sistine chapel.  Also we got a close tour of the Roman coliseum and a visit to the church called St. Peter in Chains where the famous Michelangelo statue of Moses is housed.

  The personal highlight for me was the opportunity to concelebrate mass with the pope and 15 other priests in the pope's chapel at his residence, Santa Marte in Vatican City, on Friday morning, November 20, the last full day of our pilgrimage, and then to meet him personally and talk with him for about one minute.   After mass I was next to last in a receiving line.  When I was with him, two professional photographers were shooting many pictures with fast lens cameras.  I now have a wonderful album of great photos of the pope and us 16 priests and congregation of about 30 lay people and nuns praying mass and then of just him and myself talking, his blessing a few rosaries I had in my hands, then of my telling him how much we in Kenya were looking forward to his visit, which just finished, and then his asking me to pray for him (he is not comfortable speaking English!), and finally we hugged and said our 'goodbyes.'  It was truly a golden moment.  How easy it is to be with him.  He is quite gentle and welcoming in his manner.  After I left I chose to spend the morning in quiet rather than join Giorgio and the pilgrims while they toured the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel (I have been there twice before.)  I chose to stay inside St. Peter's basilica and just pray, to be quiet and off my feet.. (There is a wonderful 'adoration chapel with the Eucharistic host exposed in a monstrance off to the right side of the basilica, on the same side and not too far up from the Pieta sculpture by Michelangelo. I spent a lot of time there.  Many people came there to pray.  Very moving.)  I chose also to go to confession when at St. Peter's, and the priest hearing my confession was an American Franciscan who I later discovered was one of the other 15 priests who prayed mass with me and the pope earlier that morning.  We had a good chat after I finished my confession and it was then that we discovered we were together in the pope's chapel for mass that morning..  He had spent some years in Ghana, western Africa, and we briefly compared notes.  When I re-connected with the pilgrims at lunch time, they were so curious about my experience in meeting the pope.  I did not at that time have the photos.  I did not get them until the following day, after the pilgrims had left for their return flight.  I will have to show it to them next summer when I return for a visit to the Detroit area and we have a reunion.

  On last Friday I had a chance again to be in the same room with the pope.  It was the last day of his three day visit to our nation.  I was in a Jesuit staffed parish that serves the people who live in the Kangemi slum of Nairobi.  There were about 800 people in the church and the luck of the draw had me sitting in the front row, about 40 feet away from the pope.  When he entered, the place went wild with applause and African style music, clapping, saying of bodies, waving, and the occasional loud cry with wagging tongue and trilling sound that women will sound out.  It was a time of great excitement.  We heard some speeches by two people who work in that slum and then a 3.5 minute video that summarizes the awful state of life these people live in.  Then a group of children from the parish  came swinging and swaying down the long center isle to the rhythm of music African style and drums provided by the choir of some 70 members and the last person presented the gospel book. One of our Jesuit deacons read the gospel passage abut the sheep and goats, about those who go to heaven and those who end up in the hell of their own choosing, then the pope got up and spoke a strong, tough message about the injustices done toward the people of the slums of Nairobi, about the bribing, the lying and cheating of the poor, manipulating them out of their land, and how this cries out to God for redressing.  He told the leaders these much discussed social ills of political corruption and tribalism are killing the nation and it has to stop.  He spoke about the right to clean, drinkable water, about the right to decent housing, freedom from robbers and drug dealers who beat up people, for health care and protection against the mosquitos.  He challenged the elected officials of the nation to do something about the plight of these people.   60% of the nation lives on 5% of its land.  The biggest landowner is the president of the nation.  We shall see whether this moves him personally!

   We Jesuits on this occasion numbered about 80 and I think this scared off the pope from seeing us separately as a group, certainly from any individual greetings.  There was one group photo shot of him with all of us and then he left to go to a stadium where he was to have a big youth mass and rally before flying out to Uganda.  It was very nice for me to have had the individual time with him the week before in Rome.  I was more than satisfied with that opportunity, and so was not at all upset about the shift he had to make.   I think he made a change from his original plans to see us because he was behind schedule and was put off by the prospect of seeing so many of us Jesuits individually. Just too many of us!!

   I have more to share with you, about how the pilgrimage continues with me since I have come home, but I will do that in my next letter, hopefully in the next day or two or three.  Enough for this evening.  I have a preached retreat to give for 8 days starting Thursday evening.  Prayers please. Thanks.  I wish all of you a very blessed Advent, such a beautiful season.

Bernie Owens

Dear Friends,

  I write to you at about 8 PM on Sunday, the 25th, three weeks to the day since my last letter.  I feel sometimes like I have lived a full year and maybe more between these letters!  I am too busy to write more often.

  Anyway, I am happy to say we are finally receiving some substantial rains, and the grass and flowers already look much better.  We have been warned about El Nino and its expected damage, but so far we have not had anything like that.  I love being under the covers and hearing the rain hit our roof, whether when going to sleep or when waking up before the alarm goes off.

  I am finally seeing many of the roses I fertilized some six weeks ago bear abundant blossoms.  My God, they are out of this world in color, and their aroma too is intoxicating if you get close.  At the end of one of my lengthy bed of roses is an amarylis in full bloom, with brilliant red trumpet-like blossoms.  Just this morning it opened up fully, and so we will get to enjoy its beauty for another 10 days or so.  What takes the prize, however, are the jacaranda trees filled with clusters of lightly shaded purple bells. We have a number of them on our grounds. These blossoms last for some days and then they drop one by one on the ground under the tree and form a carpet of purple.  The trees are a good 50-60 feet high and when viewed from a distance fill the skyline with their stunning  beauty.  How lovely, how divine!  Their blossoms will be with us for another month or so.  In our backyard, standing over all other trees and flowers is a tree more than a hundred years old, probably closer to two hundred years old.  It is about 120 feet up, and its roots are enormous, at least the part of the roots that is above the soil line.  It is something else to walk on our concrete pathway that passes under the far-reaching limbs of this tree.  It is part of the whole landscape that is abut two and a half football fields in length, end to end.  All this grass and open field makes for a perfect place for retreatants to walk, to sit on benches and just be quiet while staring at the range of Appalachian-like mountains some 25 miles in the distance.  We have quite a place here, a veritable Garden of Eden.

   For the last three weeks I have followed very closely the synod of bishops which concluded today in Rome.  I have followed it with great interest and with much prayer because I know well how this meeting will prove to be a major turning point in the way the Catholic church relates to its married members and those raising children, also to those members whose earlier marriage ended in divorce. It is rather clear to me that some leaders are compassionate and some are not; some have listened to  the stories and sensed the pain of many members while some are caught up in a legal ideal that shows little or no appreciation for the place of compassion and mercy as the number 1 teaching of Jesus, more important than every other teaching He gave.   I suspect history will show that while what was taught at this three-week gathering is important, what is more important and has farther reaching consequences on the life of the church is the WAY that teaching is applied.  In other words, their is an attitudinal shift taking place toward certain very challenging pastoral situations.  Some get it, some don't--just like in the public square.  Some are people-sensitive and listen to what life is like for those different from them and so grow in understanding, patience and compassion.  And then there are those who for a lot of emotional reasons cannot get into the experiential world of people different from them and will apply their law as the only response they know how to give.

    Tomorrow's gospel reading of the woman bent over for 18 years and cured by Jesus on the sabbath is a good example of what I am talking about.  Jesus cures her, feeling her pain and caring enough to take the initiative to go out to her and heal her.  The synagogue official, however, harshly criticizes Jesus and says there is a law against doing what He did on the sabbath, that He should wait and come back another day to do what He did.  Jesus, shaking His head with much dismay, appeals to any innate sense of compassion in this official. He speaks up for this woman, a daughter of Abraham He calls her, and asks the official to think again and put people before laws. The pope did the same today.  During his homily in the mass that closed the synod he strongly challenged certain bishops who "bury their heads in the sand of doctrine", rigidly applied, and thereby close the doors of Christ's church to many hurting people, failing thereby to show mercy and sensitivity to the situations of many hurting members who hold on with a shred of hope that maybe God will help them find forgiveness and peace as well as a sense of being loved, of being wanted and cared about.  Pope Francis is leading the way to a church much more Christian, much more faithful to what Jesus taught, yes with truths to be lived but also with a mercy to be shown toward each and all.  Trouble comes when people divide reality into the good people and the bad people, the pure and the impure.  Trouble comes when the self-declared pure ones see themselves as worthy and eligible for God's gifts and others not worthy; yet they are blind to their own sinfulness and need for forgiveness and mercy like everyone else.  Everyone of us is the lost 100th sheep that in various ways wanders away.  No one is really among the 99 sheep.  Everyone of us needs to be found by God's never-ending love and lifted onto the shoulders of the Good Shepherd and brought back home.  This is what Pope Francis is emphasizing because it is what Jesus emphasized.  And like what was done to Jesus, some are terribly threatened by Pope Francis and tried just this last week to undermine his credibility by starting a silly, later disproven, rumor that he has a brain tumor--implying that he is mentally 'off' and is an incompetent leader.  One bishop at the synod even implied that Pope Francis has allowed the stench of Satan to enter the hallways of the synod; this is so like the Pharisees accusing Jesus of being a son of Beelzubub, a name for Satan in Jesus' times.

  Last Monday I took a copy of my book ("More Than You Could Ever Imagine:  On Our Becoming Divine"), autographed in Spanish, to the bishop's residence here in Nairobi and asked the bishop to give it to Pope Francis when he comes to Kenya next month (November 25-27).  I left my 'business card' in the book just in case.  The bishop and I talked for 5-7 minutes.  He was quite cordial and said he looks forward to reading it himself before he gives it to the pope and promised  he would not spill coffee on it.

  A week from this evening I leave for Rome, Italy.  I will be starting a pilgrimage in Italy on November 8-21 for about 35 Americans, most of them from the Detroit area.  We begin in Venice and end in Rome.  Between November 2 and 7 I will stay with some very close friends who live on the north side of Rome.  The husband, Giorgio Abate, is the licensed guide for the pilgrimage, while I am the chaplain. This will be the fourth pilgrimage he and I have teamed together in the last ten years.  He is very, very good at it, and such a cheerful, upbeat man who keeps the pilgrims loose and happy.  His English is excellent, so too his singing voice.  Eight years ago this coming November 3 he and his wife (Maria Pia) lost their only child, a son 19 years old.  Simon Peter is his name.  Simon was playing goalie in a soccer game and one of his own teammates went back to defend with his head against the incoming ball  and accidentally hit with the back of his head their son in the chest bone.  The son dropped to the ground, sat up momentarily to say he could not get his breath, and then lay down and died from cardiac arrest.  Every 3rd of the month, Giorgio and Maria Pia have had a memorial mass for their son. On this, the 8th anniversary of his death. there will be a special memorial mass at their parish, St. George, and they have asked me to come early, prior to the start of the pilgrimage, to join them in that memorial mass. Of course I will be there for this unique moment. Every December through mid-February since this tragedy, Giorgio and Maria Pia have visited an orphanage in Agra, India (where the Taj Mahal is)  to be with little children and disabled teens, to love them, play with them, care for them and set up a play area with slides, teeter-totter, sandboxes, etc.  Last December they went with two of their parish priests to Albania to help build a house for an extremely poor family with two small boys.  So their tragedy and loss has moved them to extraordinary trust and love of the Lord in these most unfortunate children.  What a perfect match:  a couple now with no children, and orphans now with no parents!   I am quite blessed to know them and share in their lives to the degree I can.

   I must go to bed now.  I am in the midst of guiding each day five people here for 8 days to process with me their prayer and their life journeys with God.  45 minutes each day with each of the five.  It is  a lot of listening and sometimes gets to be emotionally exhausting.  Some of what I am hearing from them is truly heart-wrenching, so much evil yet the almost unbelievable power of God's healing mercy, even for the perpetrators of such evil.  I am haunted at times by the saying of Jesus, said of His murderers while He hung on the cross:  "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."  Again, I am overwhelmed at times by the power of mercy.  It has happened in the personal life of Pope Francis and I am sure it is God, after humbling him so, has inspired Francis to emphasize this radical, sometimes scandalizing and upsetting message of Jesus.  Only because of this can we have any realistic hope for our world that is violent, cruel, and full of hate, yet with so many amazingly good people who love and sacrifice for its future.

   Pray for me, please, and for Giorgio and all of us on this pilgrimage in Italy, November 8-21.  Thanks very much.   I should have some great stories to tell you about this trip once I return.

Bernie Owens

Dear Friends,

  Today is Sunday, October 4.  It is 3:15 PM while I am beginning this.  The weather is phenomenal, with lots of sun and fluffy white clouds in a beautiful blue sky.  The afternoon sun is strong and direct.  Temps are in the 80s.  Spring is definitely here.  We still wait for the rains, which are supposed to be really heavy sometime this month.

  And after five weeks the teachers' strike is finally ending.  Kids have been home all this time but will return to school starting tomorrow morning!  Can  you imagine!!??  The courts that ordered a pay-raise of 50-60% five weeks ago have now ordered the teachers' back to school, with a 90-day period for negotiations between their unions and the government.  In the meantime, the opposition party has begun impeachment procedures toward the president for disobeying the orders of the Supreme Court.  All of this highlights the fiscal stress in this nation.

  I have just finished a long period of teaching people who were here at the retreat center for the last week:  52 of them, 18 in a course to learn how to guide people through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the rest involved in learning to be guides for the spiritual life of people. These were two separate groups here at the same time.   I had numerous talks to give, they were all received well, and then I had my weekly spirituality course on Wednesday mornings at the nearby seminary.  I get lots of energy when doing something like this, because, I think, I so enjoy doing this, but when it is over I just crash!  I sleep extra and try to 'veg' by digging in the ground, caring for the roses, etc.  

   Also, yesterday evening a group of us here joined approximately 150 others at a mass and dinner  at the seminary for a fellow Jesuit who was professing his final vows as a Jesuit.  He is from Burkina Faso, a small nation in West Africa near Ghana and Togo.  I very much enjoyed the music at the mass.  It was led by a group of seminarians, some of them my students.  The keyboard, the electric guitar, especially the drums, and then the distinctively African melodies and rhythms made it special.  There was lots of joy on the faces of these young men as they sang and sang, while swaying their bodies and hands in keeping with the beat of the music.  They make liturgy unforgettable and a very human, joyous expression of love and reverence for God.  During the meal, I sat at a table with nothing but male friends of the Jesuit taking vows; they were all from his native land, Burkina Faso.  One was a Muslim, the rest were Christians.  They spoke mostly in French and then would switch into English to include me.  I did enjoy myself with them and the delicious food.

  Of course, the biggest event of these last three weeks since I wrote you last was the visit of Pope Francis to the USA.   I watched on the Internet and listened closely to his talk given to the US Congress.  I saw and heard it live. It was 5 PM here, 10 AM where he was when he gave his talk.  I was very pleased by it, with the issues he addressed, and especially with his appeal to all of us for a more respectful way of relating, conducting dialog, and in conducting government and living together as a nation.   There were so many very impressive moments during his six days in the US.  I was particularly touched by his observation when coming to New York City that there are so many people in big city life who are always forgotten, are left nameless, are never acknowledged, are even shoved aside, yet God lives and acts in them, knows them, each of them, as His children, cares deeply about them, and gives abundantly to them His Spirit.  This has to be a little jolting to those who are rich and comfortable, 'successful' and secure.  His comment on this is a way to alert us to where God especially 'shows up,' especially among the vulnerable and those who are counted as nothing or unimportant.

    I hope those who are social workers and 'pro bono' counselors took notice of what Pope Francis said regarding the mystery of the Divine staring them in the face through such people, in their daily work.  Maybe some of them sensed with a renewed appreciation of how 'vocational' is their work, how much God really values it, how their lives and service are much more than just a career.  St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is today, would heartily agree.  Francis' encountering the leper, at first repugnant to him, and then his resisting those first impulses and then going to receive and even kiss the leper, proved to be one of the big turning points of his life and how he would relate to people, especially the poor.  He continues to be a challenge and powerful example to all of us in our own days about how we would relate to the 'lepers' of our own day.  I think Pope Francis had this same effect on many of the USA during his visit.  He is controversial, as Jesus was controversial.  He challenges by his actions, even more so than by what he says in words. Some people don't like him, they are afraid of him, reject him, criticize him . . .  just as the people of Jesus' day expressed their dislike and criticism of Jesus and what He said and did. Maybe this is why many of us do not want to risk doing what we know is the truth:  it is controversial and we risk being disliked, criticized, and rejected.

  These next three weeks in Rome will be historic.  Pope Francis today opened a three week synod or meeting of major leaders in the Catholic church.  (I saw the mass for this opening on EWTN.  I was very impressed by his homily and hope soon to obtain a copy of it.) Some cardinals and bishops are afraid of Francis, but he does not care about that.  While he wants them all to have the freedom to say what they think, it seems very clear that he is determined to emphasize that in whatever the bishops come up with in their final statement on family life, above all, the church has to be like Jesus, merciful while being clear about what Jesus teaches--passing on more that just WHAT Jesus teaches but doing so especially in the WAY Jesus communicates and applies His teachings.  Francis wants to make every effort to step away from a legalistic, rigid, cold application of Jesus' teachings.  Rather, he sees this to be a critical time for Christians, especially its leaders. to meet people where they are at, in their human situation, to be compassionate and understanding of their struggles and efforts to live in the Spirit of Jesus, to call them to the best of what they can be, and to do this with patience and encouragement, without judging them at the level only God knows their stories and burdens, to do this with a genuine love and respect, and then to show a special care for those who have felt rejected, like 'lepers' in today's society and especially in the Catholic church.  I think you know the people I am referring to;  Real ministry that is convincing, that imitates Jesus' way, begins with listening at length to the personal stories of people, especially closely to those who carry crushing crosses.  One has to feel something of what those who feel so rejected and misunderstood are feeling.  Like the nameless, faceless people Pope Francis says are living in our big cities, also in our prisons.  Otherwise, harsh judgments come out of our mouths, and are stated as if they were God's judgments.  Nothing could be more unlike Jesus' way.  These situations reveal whether we really know Jesus or not, whether we really buy into His way of relating, whether we are willing to wrestle with and confront our fears and judgments that keep us separate from Him and from each other.

   The question that Jesus puts to Peter and His disciples, "Who do you say I am?" is more cogent and relevant today than ever.  We need a critical mass of people who dares to live and relate differently than what our world, so violent, so self-righteous and so self-centered, counsels if the world is going to change at all for the better, to renounce war and become compassionate.  We need to have time for each other, to know and care about the stranger, the rejected, to "find Christ" right there in those people, maybe in the lonely ones living in our own house or community, and in so doing  really know Him for the first time, like Francis of Assisi did when he met the leper and kissed him, only to notice that when the leper walked away, Francis saw the risen Christ walking away.  Francis had seen the Lord, and it really, really changed the way he would live the rest of his life.  Believe me, this attitude and approach to those around us will change the world.  Does anyone hear this??  I pray that I am able to recognize the lepers around me and to be Jesus to them.  I wish the same for you who read this.  The way of Jesus is direct and daring.  I think that is what Pope Francis was modeling to Congress, to the UN, to those who gathered with him at Ground Zero and at the Family gathering in Philadelphia, so too in the prisons he visited.  May we in our own way can be ready and willing to go out to those around us who are in need of understanding and genuine care.  Our lives are precious to God and to the world. Let us support each other in making the most of what has been given to us, for the sake of the world and for each other.  And if we can, let us pray with confidence that the Spirit of Christ Jesus will come upon the gathering of the bishops in Rome during these next three weeks and that in the midst of their deliberations, maybe chaotic at times, the voice of God and Jesus can be heard and obeyed.

Bernie Owens

Dear Friends,

  I write at 8 PM on Tuesday, the 15th.  I has been at least two weeks since I last wrote.  these last two weeks have been really fatiguing, with little or no time to write on this blogsite.  This morning our retreat centre said 'goodbye' to 27 people who spent the last month here making the famous 30-day personally guided retreat according to the Spiritual Exercises composed by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits (died 1556).  I guided three of them, all women religious, two from the congregation called the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  I am emotionally spent from listening to the profound and deep sharings of these women each day.  With each day the content became progressively deeper, some of it emotionally wrenching and exhausting for me.  I cannot listen to such without taking on some of the feelings of the person telling their story.

   One other element that is taxing is to be listening to a heavy accent, Kenyan or French.  And when the conferences go the full 45 minutes and are back to back, I get exhausted.  So on Saturday eve, I slept 9 hours, then two hours Sunday afternoon and another 9 hours Sunday night.  Last night I slept my usual 8 hours and still felt wiped out after lunch today.  It is my brain especially that feels tired from working so hard mentally, and then, as I said, with the emotions mixed in with what people were saying.  I need to work out on the treadmill and stationery bike, to breathe deeply!!  That is what will get the brain to relax!

  One person processed the death and the 3.5 year dying process of her mother.  The final hours of her mother's death were so vividly remembered and such memories triggered by her praying on Mary, the mother of Jesus, being at her son's execution and witnessing so much blood being shed--so too this woman seeing her mother hemorrhage so suddenly and heavily at the moment of her dying!  She just lost it emotionally this time and then again when praying on the slaughter of the infants by Herod in an attempt to kill the  Christ-child.  The horrendous killings during the 2007 election here in Kenya and the murderous anger on the part of the dominant tribe toward the other major tribe that had been given large chunks of the dominant tribe's lands by the government some decades before boiled over and led to mass murders even of babies and little children.  For this person to pray about the death of the 'holy innocents,' contemporaries of the baby Jesus, triggered these memories.   The international World Court in the Hague is trying to put on trial some of the top political figures here in Kenya for such crimes, charging them with inciting these riots.

  I am happy to say that this same woman whose mother died so dramatically wrote a letter to her mother now in the next life and presumably in heaven. The letter was just wonderful, giving evidence of much healing and freedom to relate to her mother AS her mother is NOW.  She claimed the promise of the resurrection and experienced some of its power.  It was so good to see her be able to move to this place, for the peace and joy of her soul and to re-connect with her mother and no longer be stuck in the past with just memories.

   What I describe above illustrates what is my main work here in Nairobi.  My job, my ministry, is to listen to people, most of them speaking accented English, some of it very heavy, and I listen closely  to the details of the stories told--wonderful, amazing experiences, involving the wonders of God moving in the souls of impressive people, generous people who come from 11 nations in a part of the world where life is often cruel and really rough. So I get to sit "front row center" to what God is doing in the depths of these people and I am in awe.  I pinch myself at times that I am in Africa and not in the USA.  I walk away from these conferences often speechless at what I am privileged to witness--convinced more than ever that the invisible world is much more real than the hectic outer, public world--that God is so real and so active, while so much of the hectic world is deaf and blind and superficial with respect to what God is doing and saying.  I am so blessed.  This has to be one of the richest if not THE richest of times in my life--rich in meaning, rich in the beauty and hope God offers to anyone wanting relationship with Him.  There are times I "get a glimpse" of God, as if to look into God's eyes and simply rest there, to look deeply into God and allow God to do the same with me and then simply wonder in quiet at this Source of everything that is, this Being being so loving, so utterly good, so amazing.  Do you ever wonder at the miracle of there not being nothing--or to put it more positively--amazed that there is anything at all and everything that is comes from this one and only Source whose joy it is to create and love us??    I sometimes suggest to retreatants who are ready for this to take time once they have said 'thank you' for all the gifts God has given to them, and to then just 'look steadily with love' at God, the giver of all these gifts.  To look with love and allow one's self to be filled with wonder and simply BE there, rest there, being aware and losing one's self in that loving gaze: when anyone is willing to allow this to happen, to really want to pay attention to this Sacred Presence, then amazing things begin to happen in that person's life.  It is worth everything!

  It is that time of the year here when the jacaranda trees are all in bloom with their clusters of gorgeous light-colored purple bells filling out their branches.  The display of such beauty is breathtaking!  We will have these trees in full bloom for the next two months.

  The public school teachers in Kenya have been on strike for two weeks now.  The Supreme Court ruled in their favor for a 50-60% pay hike.  The president says the nation does not have the money. The teachers say there is the money but it is being spent on other things less important.  The teachers are angry with previous promises of pay hikes, when they ended their strike and then when they returned to the classrooms those having made the promises of a pay hike reneged.  These people lost the trust of the teachers.  So both sides are digging in.  To be continued.  In the meantime, the kids sit and the parents are stressed.

  It has gotten noticeably milder at night-time during these last two weeks.  I like that.  Spring is just a week away.  El Nino is supposed to hit very hard here and in Uganda (the nation to the west of us) during October with damaging rains.  We shall see!

   My roses are doing well.  Some bushes in our residence area are filled with roses and grow seven feet high; they send out 15 or more blooms--deep red and pink ones mainly.  We have one rose bush that puts out so many perfect yellow blooms.  I walk over to it, stare, and shake my head in wonder.  I never get tired of looking at such perfect flowers.  One of our hired hands makes bouquets to place in front of a wooden statue of Mary holding high her infant son. She cuts some of these roses and adds white cana lily blossoms and bits of flaming red calla lily tops.  The collection is very well done, so pretty!

   I need to move on and get ready for bed.  Enjoy viewing the coverage of the pope's visit.  It will be covered here on EWTN .  And then on November 26 we get to meet him in person here in Nairobi! Pray for peace!  It seems so elusive in the Middle East!

  God bless!

Bernie Owens