Busy Times

I am back again after a few rather busy weeks. We of course celebrated Holy Week and Easter here, followed by intense preparations for the Feast of Divine Mercy. That was followed immediately buy a wonderful visit from my parents and brother down here in Uruguay, which was then followed by a very unexpected trip to the US. While my parents were here, we got the phone call that my paternal grandfather had died and so we immediately changed our plans and flights and the whole crew headed back to America for the funeral in Escanaba, Michigan.

I would love to elaborate on all of those events, but there was just too much there to write about at one time. Sorry. The one thing I will say is that I saw the first truly positive signs of life in my parish this Easter. I had hours of confessions over the course of Holy Week, and Masses were full the whole week especially at the Easter Vigil. That probably sounds normal for most of you, but when compared to the maybe fifteen confessions of last year and maybe thirty people who came for Easter Mass, this is a huge improvement. Those are the little things that give great encouragement.

This past weekend we celebrated the pseudo patron of almost the whole area around here, Saint Isidore the Farmer. I say pseudo because of course St. Therese of Liseux is the patron, yet the devotion to St. Isidore is noteworthy because of the agricultural nature of the economy in the area. So we again had a procession and Mass in his honor followed by horse games as last year and finally a small play by the kids of the school followed by some folk dancing. All in all it was a wonderful day, even if a bit chilly (remember we are working our way into winter now). If I have a chance I will post a few pictures today or tomorrow. I was not at the horse games this year, so for you equine fans, I have to apologize as there are no new photos of the all the pretty horses. Celebrating Mother’s Day with our ‘spiritual mothers’ (the sisters here) took precedence for me.