Deacon Greg Kandra has a seemingly endless supply of inspiring, funny, and/or deeply spiritual videos to post on his blog The Deacon’s Bench. Here’s one he posted yesterday about a parish that’s using its prime location to great effect in evangelizing:
We’re back! Our week at Notre Dame was fantastic, but there’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed.
We had an uneventful trip home, praise God. On Sunday we drove through Helena, Montana to celebrate Mass at the cathedral there. I had never been there, and I was awestruck by the amount of marble and stained glass. Helena is not exactly on the way to anywhere, but if you ever get the chance, stop in and take a tour of the cathedral.
I’m currently uploading all of my pictures to Flickr, and I’ll link to them when I’m finished (What?–You didn’t think you’d get out of seeing my vacation pictures did you? At least you don’t have to think of a flimsy excuse to avoid coming over to my house to watch the slide show).
About ten days ago I wrote about a former student who had been ordained a deacon. Yesterday I saw him again, but the circumstance were far from joyful. He was the assisting deacon at a funeral mass I attended.
The funeral was for my friend’s husband, who passed away at the age of 49 from cancer. He found out he had cancer about ten months ago, shortly after he found out they were expecting their third child. Their daughter was born a few weeks before he died.
I’ve been teaching in Catholic schools for almost seventeen years, and today was a first for me: one of my former students was ordained to the diaconate. I’ve had former students become teachers, writers, politicians and nurses, but Matt’s the first one to be ordained.
I teared up more than once as I sat in the church watching him respond to the bishop’s questions: