Monthly Reflection (June & July

Monthly Reflection (June & July)homeabout mefaithmusichealing retreatarchivesphoto gallerylinkscontact meDaily ScriptureReadingsMonthly Reflection (For June & July)Greetings Friends and Family,The past couple of months havebeen incredibly busy for me as Ihad to say 'goodbye' to the goodpeople of Enumclaw and movenorth for a new assignment. I amstill in the process of getting settled in my new home at St. Brendan's andI must say that the people here have been incredibly kind and welcomingand the staff has been very helpful in getting me orientated. Things areoff to a good start and while any kind of move is a bit unsettling andpresents numerous challenges, I must say I have a good feeling about mynew assignment and am happy to be here.Live365 RadioStationHere are a few things that have happened in the last couple of months:Archdiocese of Anchorage Youth ConventionMy friend from college, Matt, once again extended an invitation for me tohelp out with the 4th Annual Archdiocesan Catholic Youth Conventionwhich was held inAnchorage, Alaska. I flewup on a Monday andstayed through Thursdayand greatly enjoyedcelebrating with the youthof Alaska who came fromall different parts of thestate. Matt's parentscame out from Montana tohelp with the convention and I enjoyed visiting with them during ourbreaks. We all spent a spring break together in college at Big Sky,Montana enjoying a week of skiing and fun. Matt had just announced thathe was leaving his parish where he first served as a youth minister andthen administrator to join another nearby parish as their newadministrator. I hope that his move went smoothly and that he is happy inhis new assignment. His wife, Theresa, is a veterinarian and is thinkingabout opening her own practice. They have three daughters.Page 1

Monthly Reflection (June & July)The Joy of Moving!After the Youth Convention, I returned to celebrate my second to lastweekend in Enumclaw and then I left for Priest Days which is our annualgathering of priests from the Archdiocese of Seattle in Ocean Shores,WA. I enjoyed the presentations but had to leave early to get back andpack up my belongings from the parish house. My mom and dad cameover and worked night and day to help me get things ready. It was difficultand we made numerous trips to the dump and to Goodwill, but with thehelp of a great group of helpers from the parish, we managed to geteverything loaded up in the U-Haul and I left for Bothell Saturday morning.We were greeted by a helpers from the Knights of Columbus in my newparish and had the truck emptied in just a little over an hour. I didn't reallyplan enough time to get things unpacked and squared away so I wasgradually working on that in the evenings until a friend from the seminarypaid me a visit. That motivated me to step up the effort and I finally goteverything put away.I made a quick trip over the mountains to see my family after celebratingmorning Mass on July 2nd. We all enjoyed a barbecue later that day and Igot the chance to see my Grandmother who is 92 years old. She wasdoing a little bit better getting around although her back is giving her a lotof problems. Her short term memory isn't so good, but as usual, she isstill witty and maintains her sense of humor, which I have alwaysappreciated. I went to bed that evening and woke up with a terrible pain inmy lower right abdomen. I paced around the house several hours, wentoutside, twisted and turned but got no comfort. As soon as my parentswoke up I told them I wanted to go to the emergency room and thought Ihad a kidney stone. Sure enough, I did have a kidney stone and I had tohave it surgically removed. That was a most unpleasant experience andtheir were several episodes after the surgery which once again broughtme to my knees. I'm in the clear now and drinking lots of liquids andwatching my calcium intake. I got a nice snapshot of the stones on thepathology report and should probably frame it and put it on the refrigeratoras a reminder to drink more water!I had my first weekend in the parish on the 16th and 17th of July. A groupof parishioners from Sacred Heart came up to introduce me and did agreat job. It was so good to see so many familiar faces from Enumclawand to share a meal with them Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.Page 2

Monthly Reflection (June & July)y g yThe people of St. Brendan's too were very kind and welcoming at thereceptions which were prepared after each Mass.July has been full of reminders of the brevity of life and I have had thebittersweet duty of celebrating numerous funerals for people who havebeen a real blessing in my life. A few days after my brief visit home Ireturned to Enumclaw to celebrate the funeral Mass for an extremely kindwoman who helped us with a marriage workshop and provided counselingfor numerous parishioners. Later in the month, I received the shockingnews that one of our deacons from my first assignment in Olympia who Iused to meet with monthly for spiritual direction died suddenly of a heartattack. I attended his funeral and it was a beautiful tribute to his life andlove for the Lord. I saw so many people from my first assignment thereand enjoyed visiting with them at the reception.Surprisingly as well, this past Saturday one of our parishioners I visited aweek ago died from cancer and then after Mass on that evening, one ofour daily Mass sacristans developed a massive headache after serving asa minister of Communion for that Mass. The ambulance was called andshe was rushed to Seattle where she died two days later from ananeurism. She was incredibly active for her age and I was really lookingforward to getting to know her better.On a more positive note, I did have the opportunity last weekend tocelebrate my very first baptism in my new parish and that was great.Welcome Benjamin James Klauser! (What a great middle name!)I'm heading off for a fishing trip with my dad to Vancouver Island in acouple of weeks and am really looking forward to that. Hopefully, I'll returnwith a cooler full of fish and some good photos.All in all, things are going very well and I'm feeling incredibly blessed. Howfitting it was to have the reading last weekend from St. Paul's letter to theRomans stating that: "All things work according to the good that God hasfor those who love him." (Romans 8:28)My only comment to that...AMEN!Page 3