Tuesday, 1 September  2009     WE HAVE BEGUN

On Friday morning I awoke to find no fewer than ten mosquito bites on my arms and legs. This place is crawling with mosquitoes. They are everywhere and all you need is one small space that is open --- and in comes a batch.

I’ve had my windows closed since Friday in my room with the air conditioning on low and sure enough yesterday morning I found two new bites on my legs when I awoke and six had up residence in the bathroom. Well, this was a challenge. So out came the hand towel and before long I was snapping at those little suckers. Just when I thought I had them all, one little sucker was trying to escape. I literally jumped about a foot and knocked him into the wall with my hand. He was filled with blood (probably mine).

Now just where are these creatures coming from?

Last evening we began the Chapter with the Mass of the Holy Spirit. All of us gathered in the chapel accompanied by the sisters from the General House, the auxiliary staff, and translators. We begged God to guide us in our endeavor.

Our Father General, Jan Hulshof, was the principal celebrant and called us seek out the signs of the Spirit from all in the assembly. At one point he lit a small lamp which as I have noticed is lit whenever we are together in Chapter.

My thoughts and prayers were very much with my brother Dan and his family as they held vigil for my sister-in-law who will be buried today.

This morning after breakfast we gathered with our little valises (filled with papers) in hand and gathered in the atrium waiting to be called into the Chapter. We presented ourselves when our names were called and were greeted by Fr. Jan personally and then made our way one by one into the Chapter Hall. After prayer and listening to a selection from the Constitutions on the role and function of the General Chapter, we took our seats and listened to Fr. Jan’s official welcome and instruction.

Saturday, 29 August 2009—GETTING TO KNOW YOU II

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28 2009 (II)--- GETTING TO KNOW YOU-1

We began our preparatory sessions for Chapter today with a series of exercises to help the capitulants to get to know one another.

A note or two about what we are doing here:

Every religious order or congregation that I know of has a General Chapter. It is a periodic meeting of the whole group (often through elected representation) to evaluate their life and prepare for the future.

The idea comes from the time when the monastic form of life was the main form of consecrated life. Each monastery would gather once a day with the abbot in chapter to read from their rule of life, listen to counsel from the abbot and to decide on practical matters regarding their life together. Eventually, certain specific times were set aside for a period of overall evaluation on their rule and its discipline—these eventually became termed "general chapters". And as monasteries developed daughter houses, these too would all gather through elected representation into "general chapters".

When religious institutes who were active such as Marists appeared on the scene, they used this concept for periodic meetings to evaluate their rule of life and its policies for a certain period of time. On a local level we meet ocasionally in community meetings and as regions of districts but out rule of life presrcibes that once every so often we meet according to geographic divisions called provinces in provincial chapter and worldwide in general chapter.

The Marists meet in general chapter every eight years although if a special need arises they can have one more frequently.

In the Marist constitutions it says:

The General Chapter represents the entire Society gathered to evaluate its fidelity to its spirit and mission, to resolve important questions concerning the Society as a whole, to decide on directions to be followed for the future, and to elect the superior general and his council. It has a special duty to safeguard the common heritage and to foster growth and development. (SM Const. 1987-163.)

There are about 40 Marists gathered here to work on the above tasks. We come from all parts of the globe--- Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Oceania.  It became obvious very quickly on that we are brothers and these first days are meant to help us build solidarity and unity in our purpose.

I received word through my sister Deb this afternoon that my sister-in-law Tracy M. (Janetski) Strasz died early this morning after a long battle with cancer. She was 44 years old and married to my brother Dan. They have two children, William who is a junior in high school and Sarah who is a freshman.

God has blessed our family with good in-laws and Tracy was one of them. She was the high school and college sweetheart of my brother. They married in 1987. She fit right in with our family and we loved her very much. Her long battle with cancer has been an example of courage for us. I will miss her.

Tracy was also a very loving and caring nurse for 20 years. She brought the gift of her faith through her nursing to her patients and in that way would give them a sense of the love of Christ.

While I am not able to be with my family at this time, my prayers goes to them.

After spending a quiet Wednesday in Frankfurt catching up on any number of things I had to do, I left very early on Thursday morning from Frankfurt to Rome via Berlin. The airport was a short walk from the hotel so it was very easy.

Arriving with plenty of time, I sought out a place to buy a cup of coffee.  Evidentially they do not have decaf in Germany. I thought maybe I would try another venue and they didn’t have it either. So, I had a café Americano (some say a weak coffee brew) which I found rather strong.

Satisfied for the moment and slightly wired on caffeine I proceeded to the gate. Wait! Police tape is cutting off all traffic through security.  Had there been an incident?  The number of police were few and no one at all was allowed in the security area. But thank God, they hadn’t had breakfast and the security area would not be open to the public until 7:00am.

A short plane ride to Berlin and then switching flights to Rome.

Rome was hot when I arrived. The temperature was about 35° Celsius (roughly 95° F and very humid) . Once off the plane it was on to baggage. Now, the flight arrived at 1:00 p.m. and this is usually the beginning of pranzo and siesta in Rome. Everything closes down from 1-4 p.m.  After waiting at the baggage carousel for near to forty minutes before any action was taking place, one had to assume that maybe people were on a pranzo break. Would I get my luggage? A good question. By now people were getting a bit heated and not from the external temperature. And the  numbers of people at the carousel began to grow as they added more flights. At one point ten flights were waiting for baggage. Pieces flowed two or three at a time. My bags arrived after fifty minutes and I was later told that was very fortunate.

In the waiting room outside of the baggage carousel—Marists. Thank you Jesus! What a great feeling after being on my own for a small while to see the brethren again. It felt a little like home. Fr. Paul Frechette, an American who is an Assistant General welcomed me and we waited for several more Marists to arrive before Bro. Visesio from the Generalate drove us to the Salesianum. (Fr. Paul did yoaman's work that day. He spent 11 hours at the airport and joked later that he felt like the character from the Tom Hanks movie who had to live in the airport. Thank you Paul for your generous service.)

The Salesianum is owned by the Society of Don Bosco (SDB) more commonly called the Salesians. One part of this rather huge property is their general house. The complex itself was built back in the 1970’s for one reason or another. In the 1990’s as Rome prepared for the Great Jubilee of 2000, it needed space for pilgrims to live. More than half of this building was converted into a hotel and religious conference center in part with the help of grants from the city of Rome and the Italian government.  This make over provides income for the Society of Don Bosco and a way to care for their property. This will be my home and the place of our Chapter for the next month.