Fruits of my retreat

I am happy share but one fruit of my retreat this past weekend, from which I just returned home. The other fruits will be shared on Good Friday during the Seven last Words, after the Good Friday Service at noon. The first fruit is: Standing on the threshold of a holy season.

With much gratitude and love to the Blessed Sacrament Community of Albuquerque (J.T., my Spiritual Director, friend, guide, and mentor, Fr. Robert Lussier, SSS, "Sparky," the midnight dessert scarfer, and Brother Peter, who, as an Irishman, exudes the "requisite Celtic spirit", and whose delicious cooking made my retreat truly pre-Lenten, as well as Tomás, who, like me is a son of St. Peter Julian, born, as was St. Paul, out-of-season) and the wonderful parish community of St. Charles Borromeo. As always, I express my humblest gratitude to my lovely wife, who, I am convinced, is the only woman who could be married to me. She knows everything about me and (inexplicably) loves me anyway. She daily shows me, a person who understands the importance of love, but does not yet love as he should, Christ. She is, among many things, my teacher. I thank my four beautiful children, who, along with their mother, are the surest signs of Christ's presence in the world for me. I also thank our Blessed Mother, St. Peter Julian Eymard, apostle of the Eucharist, as well as my patron, St. Stephen, whose eternal rest, I am certain, is often interupted by his having so recalcitrant a charge. As always to God be all praise, glory, and honor! In a word, a Greek word, latria.