Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Were it not Sunday, today we would be celebrating the Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi. In fact, today is the 800th anniversary of his death, and the Franciscan Friars and Sisters around the world are celebrating this great jubilee. Just about everybody knows Saint Francis. He’s the plaster birdbath guy, right? The saint who hung around with fuzzy pastel […]
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Today, I spent the morning and early afternoon on Vashon Island training altar servers at our sister parish of Saint John Vianney. This past Wednesday evening, I trained new altar servers at Saint Frances Cabrini Parish in Lakewood. Tomorrow, at my own parish, I will lead a training/retraining session for the Saint Patrick altar servers. Bear in mind that I […]
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Twenty years ago today, I made my final oblation to Saint Martin’s Abbey. For twenty years now, I have been an Oblate of the Order of Saint Benedict, an amateur monk living in the world. As best as I can, I live according the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, adapted to my life in the world. At my oblation, I […]
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On today’s Vigil of the Assumption, we celebrate also the memory of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan Friar and priest who spent much of his life as a missionary. He returned to his native Poland, where he helped lead a publishing house that produced religious tracts and anti-Nazi literature. The friary itself provided shelter to refugees, including some 2,000 Jews […]
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Every day, I read a chapter (or part of a chapter) from the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict. This is done on a specific cadence, so that in a year I read through the entirety of the Rule three times. Today’s reading discusses the three promises a new monk makes upon entering the monastery. These are not, as you would […]
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This morning just before I started my 5K walk, I reflexively checked the email on my phone. What I saw absolutely stopped me in my tracks, and I had to take a couple of minutes to regroup. The first two emails were little nudges to respond or follow up to older messages. The top one was something I had written […]
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Today is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, known throughout the Spanish-speaking world as Santiago and in French as Saint Jacques. He was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. Saint James is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Seattle. May you have the joy of the feast! James and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the […]
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This is somehow Francine’s second birthday since she passed to the Lord. No, I don’t understand it either. It was our custom to celebrate her birthday with a dinner at some new place we hadn’t tried before. In 2023, we had her birthday dinner at a local tapas place called Amor. Her photo from that dinner now hangs in the […]
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Fifty-seven years ago today, on July 20, 1969, human beings first set foot upon the Moon. My mother claims I watched the landing at the tender age of two, hiding underneath the coffee table. If so, I don’t remember it. My lovely bride Francine, however, did. Her birthday is July 21, and she clearly remembered having a lunar module on […]
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One year ago today, I buried the love of my life in the cold earth of a priest’s grave. It’s an impossible thing. My heart aches even to think about it. Since I have returned from the Camino, the largest presence in Pistachio House is Francine’s absence. Today is also the feast of Saint Benedict, and Francine and I are […]
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This morning, I’m getting on an airplane to fly to Paris. God willing, I begin walking on pilgrimage from Vézelay, France, on April 9. It was Francine’s dream to walk the Camino from Vézelay ever since she heard about this route in 2022. We have been actively planning this pilgrimage walk since late 2023. Francine was an enthusiastic pilgrim – […]
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This is not my normal St. Patrick’s Day post. If you’d like to read something about the Saint, check out last year’s post. Today, I want to talk about this day last year. Francine journaled obsessively. Every year, sometimes more than once, she would try out an entirely new journaling system. Like me, she never met a notebook she didn’t […]
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This has been a rough week. One of the ways I volunteer at my parish is as an adult catechist. I’m part of our OCIA team; we teach the faith to those adults seeking baptism or full communion with the Catholic Church. We have a great team – we have some folks who are real theological heavyweights, some folks who […]
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For several years, before we bought Pistachio House, Francine and I shared an apartment with the various children and cats. The address was 13o2 Division Avenue, and we were in apartment 13. Francine was convinced that 13 was a lucky number (“it’s lucky in Italy!”), so on most Fridays the 13th we would have a little party. These were small […]
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Today was once one of the most solemn feasts of the year. It’s gone by several names over the millennia: the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Candlemas. Coming forty days after Christmas, it was once the end of the Christmas season. Even today, there are relics of this […]
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Eighteen years ago today, Francine and I were married at Saint Patrick Church in Tacoma. The celebrant was our good friend (and my former coworker and chess opponent) Rev. Bryan Dolejsi. Afterwards, we had a reception at the Holy Rosary school auditorium. Both the wedding and reception had a roaring 20s theme. Francine made her wedding dress and some of […]
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Francine in 2024 This weekend we celebrate the great feast of Christ the King. Traditionally, here at Pistachio House, we have had our “Franksgiving” feast on this weekend. This was Francine’s favourite holiday, as she embodied the Benedictine charism of hospitality. She loved gathering family and friends and cooking for them. We did our best without her and in her […]
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