A Year of Formation

The nativity scene is still up! Will remain up until Feb. 2nd.

Prayer for as the priest enters the sacristy. It says, "In will enter, O Lord, into your Sanctuary with fear and love, to sacrifice to you the victim of praise."

Dear Friends and Family,

I am finally pulling out of this flu bug, even if I'm not completely out of it. It is a particularly nasty bug that has been laying people low all over Cornwall. Even our bishop caught it and has been almost a month in recovering, and is still not yet quite recovered. Hopefully by a week from now it will be fully out of my system.

Among the blessings of this past week I'll share two: today a young family from Plymouth visited. The husband is English and the wife is from Mexico city. It was a real joy to hear some Spanish being spoken again! Though I'm afraid that when I tried to speak it there was a mixture of Spanish and Italian coming out of my mouth. But it was a joy to meet here a good young Mexican mother--with all of the faith, courage, and other wonderful traits that Mexican mothers seem to have. The husband plays the organ and will be playing the organ for a Mass I'll be celebrating in Plymouth next Sunday. More on that later.... but for today it was very nice to have lunch with them.

The other blessing that I'll share with you here concerns a local 20 year-old young man who, you may recall, headed off to spend some time discerning a religious vocation this fall. After some discussions these past few weeks, I received a call from the Bishop Friday giving me the green light for something: for the next 12 months, if he survives that long, the young man will be living here at Lahnerne, assisting me with some of the work (such as the liturgy, kitchen, helping take care of the grounds, etc.), and I'll be helping provide him with some spiritual formation. The goal is to give him a year which can help him grow in the love of God and in learning to lay down his life for Him and for the salvation of souls. We shall see.... this is a bit of a leap of faith for me, and no doubt for him. But after praying about this it seems to me that it is God who arranged it and who would like for it to happen. And if that's the case, what else do you really need to know? He's a good young man. Please say a prayer for him and for me as we launch into this year, which will likely begin tomorrow, if he's able to get moved in then.

As I'm still recovering my strength I won't write more here. May Jesus and Mary watch over each of you, and grant you many blessings as we begin 2017.

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Tony Pillari