Looking at new ways to live the Salesian Vocation

This evening Fr Pascual Chavez came to speak to the communities of the UPS, giving a panorama of the Salesian Society and the Salesian Family after visiting every country and province where the Salesians are operative during his 5 years as rector major. The only country that he was unable to visit was Miramar - Burma. They rejected his application for a visa 3 times over the past 3 years.

In his talk, the Rector Major stressed the need for a new paradigm for consecrated life in the 21st Century. No longer are religious to be the worker-bees of the Church. This was so important during the 19th Century and up until the end of reconstruction following World War II. However, the agencies of the state and the private sector have stepped in, now, to fulfil their duties to the people. Religious must become a prophetic and contemplative presence in the Church if they are to become the signs and bearers of God’s love to the present and future generations.

Don Bosco’s motto — Da mihi animas coetera tolle — is not a plan for social action, but a prayer on the lips of a community consecrated for apostolic life.

Feast of Mary Immaculate amid sunshine and rain

Rome is enjoying rainy weather these days, but every so often the wind blows the clouds out to sea and this gives the Eternal City a couple of hours of respite.

That was the story this morning. I awoke to a brilliantly blue sky, but clouds were moving in to cover the heavens as I moved to the university church for the 11.45 feast-day liturgy… and by the time we came out of the services at 13.00, it was raining.

All the communities at the UPS, of Salesians and the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts, came together to celebrate. Even those from the infirmary joined in the one Eucharist. Presiding at the concelebrated mass was Fr José Luis Placencia, director of the deacon's community San Tommaso. His homily linked the scriptures with the concerns of youth today in a way that invited me to reflect more deeply on contemporary situations and their significance. Fr Mario Llanos directed the music and singing - there was good participation throughout.

After the mass there was a reception for all the communities in the hallways leading to the dining facilities. The fare was simple but nicely presented, and the whole point of this was to get the Salesians of the different communities to mingle and chat a bit. The festive dinner came next, with each community celebrating in its own dining room as usual. Almost everyone dressed up for the occasion, and the meal went slowly allowing for good conversation. All told, there was a family feel to this feast of Mary Immaculate.

Rome was not built in a day

That is an old proverb that I heard quoted to me often when I was an impatient child. The Italian equivalent is Roma non fu fatta in un giorno. I suspect that the proverb comes from a Latin maxim [nec uno die condita est Roma, nec uno cecidit die] since the phrase seems to be a longstanding saying used in all Western languages. Apart from its educative message, today I have reflected on its practical meaning. Something close to home brought this proverb to mind…

After nearly four years of construction and after we had given up all hope, the Comune di Roma today had workers taking down the barriers around the perimeter of Piazza dell’Ateneo Salesiano and open it for the public.

Even while I was a student at the UPS in the early 1990s, there was serious talk about the City of Rome making plans to excavate beneath the plaza to build parking garages there. Our quarter of the city had become more populated that first projected, and the use of cars had multiplied exponentially since the quarter went into construction in the late 1960s following the construction of the Salesian University in this spot. The building of a parking garage underground seemed logical, straightforward, easily accomplished…

However, once construction began, so did the politics. Many citizens (and the university itself) had believed that there would be underground parking and that the four lanes of traffic through Piazza dell’Ateneo would be restored. Others (the green party of the quarter) had other ideas, and so, in October of 2005, they pushed for public hearings, and demanded that a giardino pubblico (aka, a park) be built into the Piazza, curtailing traffic into two narrow lanes, with now parking above ground. Such a move would mean that the gate of the University would no longer open on to a roadway, but that the piazza itself would never again be filled with automobiles, all parked and hampering traffic anyway. The two carved lanes would permit a constant, if slow, flow of traffic and this would be an improvement.

That was the reasoning to ease the traffic congestion and the danger of racing cars. The park-piazza would also englarge the green footprint in our part of the town (although the University itself has three parks within its perimeter).

Don Mario Toso, rector of the University, protested the arrangement at the time, for he said that this would make it impossible for buses to enter the university grounds. However, his arguments were not heeded and the park project was approved. This, of course, mean a restructuring of the ground level after the garage was completed. According to the original plan, the ground level would be paved over and appear as it had before… a wide piazza with two lanes of traffic in either direction. Instead, the park had to be sculpted into place, and this is what added two more years to the construction job.

But today it is open finally - just in time for the feast of Mary Immaculate (there are festive lights decorating the sidewalks for the Marian celebrations already) and for the Christmas holidays. It is a nice holiday present to the neighborhood. As for the access to the university gate? Well it will not matter now. The piazza has been blocked off for four years already, so no students will remember the easy bus access of years past… nor will they experience the gridlock of the blocked piazza that was the reality of the 1990s.

So, this makes me think that there is a lot of truth to the proverb Rome was not built in a day. It is a lucky thing too. Taking so long to build around here makes people forget the conveniences of the past and welcome new arrangements for the future, because they have had to live with the inconvenient arrangements of construction projects that blocked and bothered for what seemed like a lifetime. Not only do you learn to deal with the waiting, but in the end you are ready for a shift that you might not have welcomed had it come quickly.

This might be kept in mind by liturgists too… but that would take us into another discourse. Nec uno die condita est Roma, nec uno cecidit die… but now that they finished another angle of Rome, it is a wonderful feeling!

St Ambrose Day

In Milan (we were saying at breakfast) this is the day when the Winter Season begins. For some that means skiing, but what it really means is that the Opera Lirica opens its season at the Teatro alla Scala, and the social and political life of Milano and Lombardia move into their most engaging time.

How interesting that in sophisticated, post-modern, post-industrial Milano, everything wonderful about the city's life and culture is still gauged to have its yearly beginning on the feast of St Ambrose!

It just occured to me that our Salesian parish in Berkeley, which is under the patronage of St Ambrose, can increase the celebrating by engineering a piazza in front of the church, building a habitat for morning doves, and endorsing the arts (oh, but this last element is something that they already do).

As for beginnings at the UPS: this morning the latest issue of the "Salesian Spirituality Notebooks" (Quaderni di Spiritualità Salesiana) hit the shelves of the bookstore. This is a kind of popular journal developed by the Institute of Spiritual Theology here at the UPS. The theme of this issue is "Da Mihi Animas": Pastori dei giovani (Give me souls: Shepherds of young people).

This edition of the Quaderni is a contribution in the reflections for the next General Chapter, and was edited by Aldo Giraudo. We actually discussed the theme for this issue back in May 2006, and Aldo has put a lot of work into this.

Along with others of our Institute, I too offer an article in this issue on the spiritual heritage of St Francis de Sales. It is an article that I worked on while at the UPS last Spring, and then made it into my presentation for last summer's symposium on the Da Mihi Animas motto of Don Bosco that we held at the ISS in Berkeley. That presentation was well received, and afterwards I reworked my intervention for publication in the Fall 2007 issue for the Journal of Salesian Studies. So far the Fall issue has not been printed.

My plan is to take the article that I have developed in the Quaderni and include it in the Italian version of my class notes (which I am developing for publication as a book). I will do the same with my Journal article for the English version. That is a project that has been on my agenda for two years already, but I cannot quite pull it all together. Maybe I need to have Aldo act as an editor for me too, as he has done for the Quaderni and for Arthur Lenti (hmmm… this is a thought!).

Still, it is all very exciting… and of course, we don't do it for the feast of St Ambrose, but for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which begins this evening!

Observing the feast of St Jane de Chantal

In the last few days I have been asked about whether we will celebrate the feast of St Jane Frances de Chantal in class. Actually, the feast of Jane de Chantal in the USA is observed on August 18th. You can find this in the local ordo.

Now, as of 3 years ago, the Church universal celebrates the memory of Jane de Chantal on August 12th. The assigning of her feast seems complicated, but it is not really hard to understand (he laughs).

Jane de Chantal actually died on December 13, 1641 - but this was the feast of St Lucy, an martyr from Sicily during the Roman Imperial period. St Lucy remains a very popular figure throughout Europe, so there was no way of moving her to place Jane de Chantal at the time of
her canonization. Thus her feast was observed on August 21st (the birthday of Francis de Sales and the day of her own Canonization in 1767).

When the Roman Calendar was simplified and revised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI, August 21st became the feast of Pius X (who died on that day in 1914, and who was canonized in 1954…). Since Jane de Chantal was already on that day, Pius' feast was placed on September 3rd… But the 1970 revision attempted to put the saints on dates that had something to do with their lives. Thus, Pius went to August 21, and Jane to the closest free day near the day of her "dies natalis" (birthday to eternal life): December 12.

For the Americas the day was a problem. Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe was strongly observed on that day throughout the continent. So, the Visitandines asked the Holy See to have the feast brought back to August, and the closest possible day was August 18.

When the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe became popular also in Europe, thanks to the efforts of John Paul II, then the universal calendar moved Jane's feast (as I have said) to August 12.

SO… will we ever have one day for Jane de Chantal?

I have it on the authority of several liturgists here in Rome that a new revision of calendar, lectionaries, and sacramentaries is already underway. Perhaps some day soon we will see this resolved. But for now, the day is August 18 for the USA and August 12th for the rest of the world. St Jane de Chantal, therefore, is not forgotten.

This is not to say that you should not party on anyway on December 13th. I think you can celebrate her memory more joyous now that you know that she is not neglected :)

Death of Joe Lucey: Note from Salesian leadership in Ireland

Today I received an e-mail from Fr John Horan, the provincial superior of the Salesians in Ireland, in response to the condolences that I (and a host of others) sent at the death of Joe Lucey. I think it is well just to include it word for word here.

Many thanks to you all for your condolences and prayers expressed at the time of Joe Lucey's death. They were very much appreciated. Joe's very sudden death, at such a young age, stunned us all. Though we knew Joe was doing great work with young people in all sorts of difficulty in inner city Dublin, it was only after his death that we realised the breath of his influence. The number of people he touched was truly remarkable. Joe was also Vice-Provincial and his death was a huge blow to the Irish Province, but God's ways are not ours and his death may paradoxically lead to new life. Again, many thanks for your support and solidarity.

With every best wish,
John Horan

Vocation of the Brother is not dead but times have changed

My friend, Bro. Joe Lockwood, has been sharing with me some concerns about the upcoming General Chapter of the Salesian Society (GC26), and pointed me in the direction of hte working documents for that chapter. He speaks of two articles that strock him particularly: §49 and §53.

The first passage says, among other things:

At the beginning and in the tradition of our charism it was Don Bosco's wish that the Congregation should be distinguished by the complimentary presence of consecrated Salesian priests and lay men. Therefore we are called to make visable through our life the primacy of God, demonstrating that Salesian communites are composed of consecrated persons, before priests and laymen.
[…]
Aware that the Congregation is putting its identity at risk if it loses its consecrated lay component, we are called to make the effort to re-discover the identity of the Salesian brother, to propose to young people his originality, to give him greater prominence and to provide him with a sound formation programme.

In the other paragraph, §53, there is the affirmation that young people are normally attracted to Salesian life rather than immediately to priesthood. Formation has a lot to do with their choice for one or other form of Salesian consecration.

Often young people want to become Salesians in order to follow Don Bosco, but they don't always ask themselves what sort of consecrated Salesian vocation they want to choose, that of the priest or that of the brother. In this a vital role is played by the way the Salesian brother is presented in the aspirantate, the prenovitiate and the novitiate.

A little lower in the same paragraph, there is this telling statement:

It is not always easy to present the Salesian brother in an effective manner; that makes it difficult for young people to identify with this vocation. The fundamental reason is the weakening of the identity and the visibility of consecrated life and a state of life, in our communities.

I've read attentively the two passages in questions, and really I do not see that there any question. Without the vocation of the "salesiano laico" (the brother), we cease to be the Salesian Society. The articles do not call into question either the vocation nor Don Bosco's will to offer such a role as vital to our life, consecration and mission. What is questioned is the limited vision of many provinces that have not understood and have not promoted the vocation.

Note also that it says that the majority of young people who join the Salesians do not have a strong feeling for priesthood or brotherhood. They simply want to become Salesians. Thus (the articles point out) it is vital to present this vocation to those in initial discernment.

In no place does the document suggest (much less conclude) that the brother's vocation is dead. The crisis arises in that few today understand the nature of consecrated life. They confuse priesthood with consecrated life… and priesthood is seen in terms of ministry and leadership, so assumed to be the summit of Christian life… notions that are very confused and mistaken, but indications of a cultural crisis as well as of a religious crisis.

We cannot take for granted, then, that young people will understand religious vocation. They may be opting for priesthood but not for religious life, even though they say they want to be Salesians. Much work must be done in the area of educating the Catholic community, young and old, as to the nature of baptismal consecration and personal calling. In doing this, we can once again bring the ideals of the Brother's vocation to light and encourage many more to follow Christ with Don Bosco in this way of life that leads to the love of God and the love of neighbor.

This is not dogma. Simply, my thoughts, on reading these articles

Sacrofano - Community on Retreat

The whole community of Gesù Maestro (or at least 40 of us) left the university campus this morning and headed out to the country, about 30 minutes away, to a retreat center called Fraterna Domus. This is located in Sacrofano.

The timetable was easy-going. We left the UPS at 8.15 and arrived at the Fraterna Domus at 9.00 or so. Each of us had a room with bed and shower, but the grounds are stupendous. It is more like a national park than a retreat center. At 9.15 we had Lauds and the introductory talk of the retreat day, offered by Jesús Manuel Garcia. The theme was "Hope", which is the theme of Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical issued yesterday (and each of us received a copy).

The rest of the day was given to quiet and reflection, although there was the opportunity to join in a group discussion before dinner, which was at 13.00.

Dinner was festive. I found it to be an opportunity to share with some of the professors whom I do not really know, since we all work in different faculties. It was a lot of fun and very interesting to hear of people's projects and perspectives. After dinner, after we paused for a group photo, D. Giorgio Zevini, dean of the theology faculty, cornered me (again) to invite me to say good-bye to Berkeley and come to Rome definitively. The proposal is very interesting, and I see the need in the congregation for teachers of the Salesian spirit and spirituality is great. But is this the path for me?

This all needs reflection (or else I am just putting off a decision).

With those thoughts churning around in my head, I spent the afternoon reflection period walking through the forests of the Fraterna Domus. The afternoon went quickly then, with Mass at 16.00 and the return to the UPS at 17.00. Of course, we hit a lot of traffic on the way home, and what took 30 minutes in the morning, took 90 minutes for the return. All and all, a very wonderful day in the country, with time for prayer and community building… good food and challenging invitations.

Death of Joe Lucey

Got news this morning of the death, yesterday, of Salesian Fr Joe Lucey, in Ireland. He was an important figure of the Irish province, and very active in the European region of the Salesians in areas of youth-at-risk and initial formation. Joe was 47 years old, and was struck down by a heart attack.

It was in 1993 that I first met Joe -- at a weeklong meeting of the Salesian province teams of the English-speaking region. At the time I was the delegate for youth ministry for the Salesians in California, and Joe filled the same role for the Salesians in Ireland. We worked on some committees together during that time, and I had occasion to meet his several other times in following years when I visited Ireland or when I was part of some European initiatives. He was always on-fire, if I can put it that way: lots of enthusiasm; a strong sense of justice; compassion for the young in trouble; demanding of himself and others for a coherent Gospel witness.

My strongest memory is of him at work with the poor and gang-banger kids of Sean McDermott Street in Dublin. They were a hardend lot, but he had their confidence and did great things with them. Sometimes he expected all the young Salesians to have his same talent among kids-at-risk, but this was not so. Sean McDermott Street scares a lot of people, after all; if some of the young Salesians felt intimidated, it is very understandable. Joe Lucey, however, was not to be intimidated. He ploughed right into that work, and had some success.

The following verse, written by Joe, has been found to be especially poignant:

Master, I need you to find me. The hide-and-seek game is over. I need you to find me again and again. Come, hound me, sniff me out. Come free me from dependencies of sore-filled wounds -- the kind that fester with volcano strength. Come, break my breath, and breathe in me again, and fill me with an emptiness which has given all, for the love of you.

Funeral arrangements will begin with prayers tomorrow evening at 17.00 at Milford, in Limerick - and then a fewing at Sean McDermott Street Church in Dublin on Wednesday, with an evening mass there at 18.00. Thursday, the 12.00 noon funeral mass at Milford, with burial at Pallaskenry.

This is a great loss, I repeat, for the Salesians of Ireland. We can only pray that Joe Lucey's Gospel fire will inspire young people to take up the calling.

Ring Mass

All the Catholic high schools in California that I know (and perhaps in the USA for that matter), celebrate "ring mass" - the day when the juniors (grade 11) get their class rings. Usually there is a mass and a blessing in the Catholic schools…

So the Vatican holds its own "ring mass" on the day after the consistory: when the pope blesses the golden rings of the new cardinals, and then gives the ring to each of them. It is yet another encounter between the pope and the new cardinals -- a moment of reassurances and of shared joy.

It began raining -- strike that: POURING this morning by 9.00, and so I decided that I would not use my ticket to go to the Piazza for that celebration. However, I did follow it in the media… and and it was another festive/solemn happy-kind-of-day.

There is nothing in the USA websites about our Cardinal Farina, except for some lamenting about there being still some curial cardinals by some American commentators who want to insist that the new cardinals are not representative enough of the people… (cf. John Allen of NCR). However, I did manage to find some enthusiastic reports from the newspaper of Benevento. It seems that a huge delegation from don Raffaele's hometown of Buonalbergo came to Rome to attend the two-days of consistory and celebration, and that their wild, noisey, affectionate endorsement of their hometown boy more than make up for the silence of the world press.

Representative of the people of God? Hmmm … the American critics may be sour on it, but the people of Buonalbergo are very happy that Raffaele Farina, Salesian and their own priest, is now cardinal. They have loved him and have always found him to be approachable and simple -- one of them. Sounds like a good representation to me!

At St Peter's Square for the new cardinals

This morning I went down to St Peter's to assist at the public consistory for the creation of 23 new cardinals. Among the new cardinals is the Salesian Raffaele Farina, whom I can claim as a personal friend from my student days at the UPS (1990-1994), but also from several years earlier when he spent his sabbatical year (1984) in California and was a guest for a day at De Sales Hall. Of course, I already knew him in the sense that, as rector magnificus of the UPS, he had overseen my theology studies at the Crocetta and signed the diploma for my bachelor degree in theology. As a matter of fact, his signature is on all three of my degress from the UPS - Bachelor, Licentiate and Doctorate.

When the nominations came out a little over a month ago I was very happy to learn that (finalmente) Don Raffaele had been named to the cardinalate. So when tickets were offered, I immediately asked for one.

Tickets were to St Peter's Square, but the consistory took place inside the basilica. Those of us who were outside watched and heard all on giant screen televisions that were set up in the piazza. At first I was disappointed (of course) that I was not right there, but the sense of being seated in the crowd in the square and seeing all on the giant screens - things taking place a few hundred meters ahead of us -- well I was soon swept into it. There was a great feeling of participation by all in the piazza. We were really "there" after all.

Before the ceremony began, the big screens displayed a steady camera shot on the nave of the basilica. As the bells of St Peter's began to sound at 10.15, there was a zoom and a fade, and I recognized the camera techniques of RAI, and realized we would see what was being broadcast through Italy. The tremendous camera work made it all so close for us in the piazza, as we joined also in the responsory singing with the Sistine Choir (what a tremenous sound from that choir today! real improvement over how they sounded at the start of the 1990s!!!). And then I had a real surprise - a very pleasant one. The camera focused on don Pascual Chavez at least 5 times during the ceremony, including for an extended time during Pope Benedict's homily. I noted that there were no other shots on individuals in the church other than cardinals. Even though a Jesuit and a Franciscan were also receiving the red hat, there were not closeups on the Jesuit Superior General nor on the Franciscan Minister General. Just the Salesian rector major.

And there was a big enough Salesian contingent in the crowd too - for every time Don Chavez was seen and every time Cardinal Farina was named, there was a cheer. Big cheers also went for the former bishop of Loreto, Giovanni Lajolo, for the archbishop of Monterrey, Francisco Robles Ortega, and for the archbishop of Houston, Daniel di Nardo. There were drum beats and enthusiastic cheers for the archbishop of Dakar (Senegal) Theodore Adrien Sarr, and for the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon (Bagdad) Emmanuel III Delly. These seem to figure in the news releases of the world press (or at least the USA press), but the television spotted Farina and Chavez. How cool is that?!

The exit from the basilica was solemn and festive at the same time, but I left and hurried to the metro to get home for dinner. I was starving. As I traveled home I noticed that it started to rain, and was caught in a downpour when I left the 80 express bus to make my way up Piazza dell'Ateneo Salesiano… I missed the soup, but made it for the main course… And there were chestnuts and barolo wine!!! Another treat on a very happy Roman day!

Tomorrow the cardinals will receive their cardinal's ring from Pope Benedict… that takes place at a mass, again in St Peter's. I have tickets for that too, but am not sure I will be able to go (and again, my tickets are for the square, not for the basilica).

Welcome News for Don Bosco Hall

The good news from Berkeley is that Jorge Santiago from Puerto Rico, who came for one semester, will now stay for two years!! At the same time, a letter came to Tom Prendiville from the Stanley Foundation with a 25,000. check for scholarships for Salesians from mission territories. It is a repeat of last year when with the help of Katie Calvert from the development office of the Western Dominican Province, helped us (ISS and DSPT) to apply for a grant. That work began way back in the Summer of 2005, and Katie succeeded in getting a grant for our students in 2006, and now again in 2007.

It seems that Katie is no longer working for the Western Dominicans. However, Tom Prendiville tells me that he will invite Gael Sullivan, as new director of the ISS, to speak with Michael Sweeney (DSPT president) and contact Katie to let her know that all her efforts have yielded good results.

And the timing is perfect: Jorge was refused a place in Chile but is accepted to DSPT: the grant can offset his tuition and living expenses so that his province is not going to lose and we get to keep him on board. Ah, if only DBH could hire Katie to do some grant writing proposals for our international students! This would take the edge out of things, economically … and that is a big part of our problem in bringing in Salesians for our programs.

Well, it is not the time to worry about this. It is time to rejoice with Jorge, with the DBH community, and to thank Katie and the Dominicans for all their efforts to help us to flourish. All this fits with my comments from yesterday. How important it is that we get the word out (PR, advertise, whatever…) about the ISS and our Salesian programs.

Continuing the series

The satisfaction on the face of Aldo Giraudo (pictured above) speaks volumes, don't you think? Oh … well, I think so.

Today Aldo presented me with a copy of volume 2 of Arthur Lenti's series, Don Bosco, Life and Spirit. He is sending 24 copies of the book to Arthur in Berkeley. The project continues, then, at a good pace.

The volume was delivered to the LAS last Wednesday, 14 November, thanks largely to the efforts of Aldo and of the Centro Studi Don Bosco here at the University. However, it was only yesterday that the LAS put Arthur’s second volume out for sale. Both Aldo and I have already communicated with Arthur via e-mail. I have not heard back from him, but Aldo tells me that he received an enthusiastic reply.

Arthur Lenti offers an extraordinary resource in this series… and I am hearing from a number of quarters how much his work is appreciated. Aldo tells me that there is already a move to translate the series into Spanish. Aldo Giraudo, by the way, remains the most enthusiastic supporter of Arthur Lenti's efforts and of the work of the ISS. Others in Rome seem to think that our Berkeley initiative has run its course. We need more "good PR" and less aggravation, I feel… but that is another story. For now, we bask in the sunshine-joy of Arthur's series.

For my part (hey! that's me in the photo!), I am most pleased to see Arthur's work come to print. He has been the mainstay of the ISS in Berkeley since the onset, and now he is making an important contribution to the entire Salesian World. Yesterday in my class on Salesian Spirituality (TA2232) I presented a number of books to the students, and showed them Arthur's first volume. Now I will show them the two volumes together, and encourage them to delve into them.

Computer woes

The old adage says that "no news is good news", but I have come to realize that "no news is just no news"..

My laptop computer has been brought to the Apple people at Flaminia Computer to be fixed, but it is really not working right at all. It overheats quickly even with a chill pad, and the batter drains within 10 minutes of being unplugged. If I am on the internet it likes to crash the machine and I've been blocked in the middle of my powerpoint presentations too by a sudden, no-reason, shutdown of the whole machine.

So I went and purchased a computer for my working - a desktop, iMac - again from Flaminia Computer. The Theology Faculty here promised to pay, but there were all sorts of delays (which I will explain in a moment), so I used my credit card.

Flaminia Computer advertising WiFi

The total of the computer, with the three year guarantee and taxes, came to (gulp) € 1,611.00. The faculty (school of theology) assured me that they would reimburse me by check so that I could send this to you. However, things have developed differently. For one thing, since September, there have been the deaths of two brothers who worked in the financial offices of the UPS. Three days after I got  here, the head financial administrator of the UPS was rushed to hospital; after 2 weeks there, he came home and was well for a couple of days… and hten fell ill again. He is now in his native Poland for the last two weeks undergoing testing…

This would be a sad report of curiosities for you do not know these people. However, the impact is this: the new person working the finances at UPS does not have signature on all the accounts.

So, the long and the short of this is that the Faculty could not secure a check from the UPS, nor could they do a wire transfer. But yesterday the prefect of the Theology Dept came to me in my office and gave me € 1,611 in cash.

The final piece of bad news is that my laptop is still not functioning. As I said, it is crashing now all the time, which is not good for a Macintosh. I am trying to stabilize it, and hope to succeed, but I am also recuperating all my preferences and other data at this time (when I am free to do t his because my class schedule is 8 hours of class in the first three days of the week). When I return to Berkeley, I will need to get me a good desktop mac - because (already the technicians at Cal's computer place told me this :) I am using the laptop more than what it was designed for. A laptop is for travel an occasions that call for brief work, not 9 hours a day of work. It is the third time this computer has broken down, and I burned through two other laptops in the five years previous to buying this one.

So, it is not in my budget, but this is one of those necessities. I need to get a desktop computer when I get back to teach the second semester and carry on all the assignments that province, house and faculty put on me.

Whoa, that wasn’t so hard to say, now, was it?

The ever-crashing mac powerbook

It is hard to tell whether I have been busy or just worn and torn. On Friday last I went down to the Mac Store in via Flaminia, beyond the center of Rome but in an area that has been commercial since Julius Caesar was a teenager. They could not get the laptop to function and since I had a guarantee, they took it to work on. I went with a student and another professor, both of whom were interested in purchasing a mac for their office/rooms. At that point I took the plunge and purchased an iMac, having taken two weeks to get a type of a yes from the dean. It is an excpetional machine and I am working on it now, however I still missed my own little Apple Powerbook G4.

On Monday night, then, I got a call from the Flaminia Computer that my machine would be ready the next day. Accompanied by Marco Bay (who spent the summer of 2000 at Don Bosco Hall), I picked up the machine. I was very happy to see him, and the technician, Alessio, told me that the hard drive was damaged. They installed a new one and recovered my data…

But…

The data is there without the programs that were mine. Alessio installed the usual mac programs, many of which I never use, but my own particular ones are missing… I've got the original application disks at home and will install them…

And yet…

The computer really is not functioning. It crashes now frequently… but when do Macintoshes ever crash? So something is really WRONG here.

Well, I have just to get it operating so that I can use it for class presentations. My classes at the UPS are going well (from the student feedback), so that has got to be the priority of the moment. I will try to understand what is missing that is causing the crashes. And I will make sure to back up everything so that if I need to return to via Flaminia, I'll not worry about losing data.

Amusing, really. Not only am I attached to my Powerbook, but I depend on it for almost everything these days… Thank God it does not make coffee too, or I really be in bad shape!

Cielo aperto, poco nuvoloso

Thursday and no classes to teach all day, so I took it easy during the morning and did some laundry and other little tasks. The sky opened very blue this morning, and the air is fresh and sweet. How I love the scent of Rome when the wind is blowing and the ground is wet. My laundry likes it too, because it can dry in the November sunshine that is sweet and not too harsh.

At dinner today, I entered into a discussion with my table companions about the growing clericalism that we detect in the church. Is this a swing of the pendulum? Or is it a symptom of something deeper taking place, particularly among the younger generation? Whatever it is, it is happening in Eastern and Western Europe, as well as in North America, as a new strident crowd becomes more indignant within the Church, and as Society as a whole moves away from any notion of organized religion and all its trappings outside the inner circle of Western churches.

Heavy discussion, on top of pasta with a bacon and egg sauce. We switched themes and spoke of ecumenism when it was time for the second plate of chicken, potatoes and spinach. More than 2 hours later I still feel heavy!!!

It is time to prepare next weeks classes, but the first three days leave me rather exhausted and I lose my ambition. No matter. It is time to act. Still, if I do not succeed in meeting any academic deadlines, I am consoled that the afternoon sun is drying my laundry. At least I will have accomplished one deed today that has something of value.

Taking stock

So yes, it is now two weeks that I am back in Italy. The courses are going fine… what will happen for the future for me, of that I am less sure. At the end of the day it is a question of where I can offer a better contribution, I suppose. I have not yet figured out all the details of what that is supposed to look like.

After the rain

Well, life in Rome has become, I suppose, very normal for me. I really cannot account for this feeling that I have about being in Rome and in Italy, but I must admit that I breathe a lot easier once I am here.

This morning has been glorious. After several days of rain, the sky is open, the breezes are fresh and cool, the sun is a kiss of warmth on the skin and a dazzle for the eyes. Oh, but I am supposed to be here to teach!!!! Okay, that too: I am working on my class preparation as I look out my office to the Alban hills.

Roma, quanta sei bella!

All Souls Day

All Souls Day and the holidays continue. We are having a nice few days of rest and just spending some time together. After this it will be non-stop until Christmas.

This morning I took advantage to sleep a little longer. I am still not over my jetlag. But when I went to find some breakfast at 8.30, there were some other professors there as well.

During the breakfast conversation I actually fielded many questions from the UPS professors about the viability of ISS and our continuation of the Salesian Spirituality and Studies program at Berkeley. I think that our ISS needs to organize a PR tour. The up-coming General Chapter would be the perfect time for it, but would our San Francisco representatives, David and Mel, agree to become proactively vocal? Something is needed to recapture the immagination and the good will of the Congregation, not only of the few who speak English.

Festive but quiet day

Today is the feast of All Saints. I joined the Don Rua Community for early morning mass at 7.30, and then for breakfast. After doing a load of laundry, I spent some time preparing classes, e-mailing friends, and, yes, taking a nap.

Am doing all the work on my classes on the borrowed laptop provided by Marco Bay. Next week I will have a chance to bring my Macintosh down to Center Rome to have it looked at by the Mac people. I have a full, 3-year guarantee so I should have luck for the machine. I just hope that I can get all of my data out of it. I recently put in a lot of photos, and I neglected to make a backup disk with them. I also bought some music off iTunes and did not have time to back them up (or felt too pressed to take the time). Well, that is my own fault. I have backed up my document files regularly (Word and PowerPoint), however, so I can present my work for my courses without fear.

There is a lesson somewhere in all this, but I am not ready to face that lesson right now.