Meet me in St Louis, Louis

Okay, so here I am again, at the Visitation Monastery in St Louis. I'm here to do a retreat with the sisters as they prepare for the annual renewal of the vows. The renewal takes place on the feast of the Presentation every year.

To come here I had to cancel one of my classes with the Church history group… but I had agreed to help the sisters with this last Spring. They had called it a weekend, and of course I didn't realize that it was a weekend that extended into Monday. Even so, it seems to have gone well.

I've also learned more about the girls who frequent the school of the Visitation here, and of their projects for outreach into the community. Some of the older sisters who no longer teach are most active with these girls in these volunteer projects. The young people seem most responsive; the sisters are most hopeful that the best Christian values are transmitted through these experiences among the poor and needy of St Louis.

Well, it is Sunday afternoon. I have one more conference and a homily tomorrow morning, and I had better get my ideas together for this.

Ian Murdoch's proposal

On Saturday night Ian Murdoch arrived from Washington DC. I had a long conversation with him during an afternoon walk to Peets Coffee shop.

Bart to the airport

This morning Aldo Giraudo completed the last details with Arthur for the publication of his study on Don Bosco. At noon I accompanied Aldo to the San Francisco airport by way of the Bart. We got there at 13.35, checked him in and had some lunch. He was very encouraged that Arthur's writings will be a major contribution for Salesian studies and formation.

Along the route to SFO we spoke of my possible transfer to Rome. My concern has always been that provision be made to keep the ISS in Berkeley in a position to develop. However, I honestly wonder if I have anything else to contribute here. It may well be time for me to go, and let the Salesians of Calfornia provide the ISS with new instructors. What is absolutely necessary is that the Salesians here provide a support staff. Mary Greenan and I have been doing all aspects of program development and hospitality. We (or I) cannot keep doing all the house and business aspects and still deepen the study and reflection pieces.

Well, I was left with these thoughts once Aldo went through security and into the departure lounge of the international terminal. I headed back to Berkeley on the Bart. When I got home, Mary Greenan was cooking dinner, because our cook Marilu could not make it to work today. Point demonstrated: how does Mary prepare materials and deepen the programs if it is she who has to make the beds and cook the dinners too.

The California province of the Salesians needs to move from lip-service to real support of the ISS and Don Bosco Hall. Unless they do, then I will definitely make plans to move to Roma.

BTW, the dinner was excellent: pizza!

Long week - mission accomplished

Aldo completed a long week with Arthur putting his writing in order and preparing it for publication.

Arthur's research has been ongoing since 1981, when he was part of a team of three Salesians who left Don Bosco Hall to go to Rome to study Salesian Spirituality at the Salesian Pontifical University. The other two Salesians, Tomás Juárez and John Itzaina, had been designated as members of the formation team for the theology students of the San Francisco province; Arthur had been teaching Sacred Scripture since 1953, and since 1975 attempting to complete his doctorate in Sacred Scripture with the Jesuits at Berkeley. However, the Salesian general council was attempting to take initial formation in the direction of more-in-depth grounding in Salesian spirit and praxis. Thus, when Arthur, Tom and John left Berkeley in 1981 to go to Rome, Don Bosco Hall was temporarily closed and our theology students farmed out to the Eastern USA province.

Upon Arthur's return from Rome in 1983, he began to put together a plan for ongoing formation in Salesian fundamentals. He designed the program that would become the basis for the Institute of Salesian Studies (ISS), and this began at Don Bosco Hall in 1984. Since that time Arthur has done serious research into the life and works of the Founder (Don Bosco), and has taught core courses at the ISS. The content of what has been 21 years of Arthur's teaching forms the corpus of the work that Aldo Giraudo is now working to have published.

"No one else in the Salesian world has developed so systematic a presentation of Don Bosco's life and work as has Arthur Lenti," Aldo told me today. "We need to get this into print and spread around to English-speaking Salesians. We also need to think of how to translate this work into the major languages used in the Salesian world."

I was very encouraged my Aldo's enthusiastic report, as was Mary Greenan and Tom Prendiville. And Aldo has been hard at it all week, helping Arthur to put his writings into a publishable form. We celebrated the accomplishments of this very busy week by going out for an American dinner at Pyramid's Brewery: Aldo, Mary Greenan and I.