Sick with the Flu

This image is on the wall with the vesting prayers in the sacristy that the priest prays before Mass.

Dear Friends and Family,

This message finds me sick with the flu, so I'm afraid you'll be stuck with (or blessed with depending on your perspective), a very short post this week. There is a very strong flu virus going around this part of Cornwall now and a number of the members of our little congregation have been hit, as well as myself. It's not so bad except that I can't do much except make it through Mass each day, sleep a good deal, and then do some reading or studying, answer some letters--and that is one real benefit of this illness: I've finally been able to sit down and answer some of your kind Christmas letters. As the mother superior here was remarking the other day, illness is a good teacher: it teaches humility in realizing how weak we can be, how short life can be (because even a mild illness reminds us that we could be called from this life at any moment), that suffering is even more important than our work, etc.

Also, especially for the benefit of my mother reading this, rest assured that I'm under a doctor's care and am doing fine--it's just a matter of rest, fluids, etc. and time to recover.

So since I can't write much else at this point, I'll leave you with a link to the monastery where I'll be making my annual priestly retreat, in a hermitage there, in a few weeks. Enjoy the photos: http://english.bethleem.org/monasteres/kinderalm.php

In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,
Fr. Tony Pillari