Full Days

A full day today:

Mass at nine o'clock this morning with the community of Poor Clare sisters in Jamaica Plain, where, instead of observing the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, they were permitted to celebrate the feast of their founder, Saint Clare of Assisi, the first Franciscan woman religious. Normally, Sunday trumps whatever saint's feast day may coincide, but exceptions can be made for religious communities whose patron or founder is that saint. So today we joined our sisters in rejoicing over the radical Gospel witness of Clare.

Then, from Jamaica Plain to Cambridge via the Orange Line and Red Line to catch up with some of my BU seminary friends just as the worship at Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church was concluding. We had lunch at a vegetarian-vegan friendly breakfast-and-sandwich shop in Harvard Square. And eco-friendly, too: they compost everything, including the plastic cups and cutlery! Hooray for civilization. We all proceeded to a neighborhood playground off of Central Square for an hour of ping-pong on concrete table tennis tables (yours truly emerged undefeated) before returning to my friends' house to learn how to play euchre (I learned fast and enjoyed beginners' luck).

Back at San Lorenzo Friary in time for meditation and evening prayer, then a pasta dinner. A good heart-to-heart conversation with my brother later in the evening, and now an early rest for tomorrow's full day. Our fraternity will be travelling to Yonkers and back for the funeral of one of our friars, Bro. Christopher Varley. After Bros. Zachary Grant, Walter O'Brien, Ephrem Karwowski, and Darius DeVito, he is the fifth brother to depart this life in the last twelve months. Here is a remembrance of him from the Province of Saint Mary. Pray for a safe journey for all the brothers coming to Yonkers to pay their respects. As we send our prayers up to the angels carrying Christopher speedily to the world to come, may those same angels speed us safely to our brother and back to our respective friaries.