Nun Sense

This just in from Maryland: 10 nuns will be becoming Catholic on Thursday.  The Episcopalian sisters from the Society of All Saints' Sisters of the Poor have spent seven years in discerning the step, and pointed to orthodoxy and unity as being the attractions to Catholicism.

The Lost Files: Tombs of the Kings

More accurately, a walk through the valley of the Tombs of the Kings, and then a visit to a Tomb of a Queen, specifically, the Temple-Tomb of Queen Hatshepsut.

Along the ravine where ancient pharaohs attempted to make their bodies disappear, so that their gilded splendor could escape grave robbers and be ready for the resurrection, you find little digs like this one:

Unfortunately for you, the interior of the many passages tunneled into the rocks have a vigorous no-photo policy, vigorous at least until a pound or two were to emerge . . . and you just weren’t worth it.  So the elaborate hieroglyphic script and vividly colored memorials will have to remain in my memory alone.

This remote valley was across the river from the contemporary town of Luxor where we were staying.  Father Severhino and I were able to drive with two parishioners up into the hills to find what had been hidden for centuries.

Our two guides had a different philosophy than Father Doan in Cairo had had.  While there, as he led us to the Cairo market, he cheerfully explained that the bombing there two weeks prior was a good sign, “Because a mortar never hits the same crater twice.”  Here in Luxor, our friends waited until after we had visited our next sight before describing in detail the massacre of several years before, when 63 tourists had been gunned down by terrorists.

Which would have explained the presence here as everywhere else of machinegun equipped guards.

Remote though it was:

Deir el-Bahri was begun over 4,000 years ago.

Mentuhotep II, whom I’m sure has always been of great interest to you, was actually the first to be buried here.  Hatshepsut, one of the longest reigning and most prosperous of female pharaohs, then expanded the site to hold her mausoleum.  Unfortunately, as I’m sure you remember, under Thutmose III and his son, her memory was attempted to be eradicated, so they did things like knock the faces off her statues.

These guys made it, though:

Here photos could be taken of the cool paintings and such:

With the requisite hieroglyphics.  Below of course you recognize the lower golden oval (cartouche) representing the aforementioned Thutmose III—apparently sometimes called by his loving people ‘stork-threebean-shovel-beetle guy’.

Keeping You Up to Date

For your insight and discernment:

1. Did you hear about the thief who stole a calendar? He got twelve months.
2. The calendar's days, though, are numbered.
3. And then there’s the math professor went crazy: he did a number on the blackboard.
4. Now, giving away dead batteries: they’re free of charge.
5. This just in: If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine!
6. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
7. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
8. The chicken crossing the road? Poultry in motion.

High Five

Abraham Heschel demonstrates that the launch point of celebration is found in Genesis with the introduction of the Sabbath: for the first time a component of this universe is consecrated and a moment in time is found for encountering God.

From this weekly return to communion with God emerges the entire calendar and the unfolding of time as a marking of God's engagement in our lives. Thus from the Sabbath you find the Jewish calendar blossoming into an abundance of feasts, with Passovers, Rosh Hashanas and Yom Kippurs.

Each of our lives is marked by the calendar, and as the years go by, birthdays, anniversaries and annual commemorations begin to chart the life that is developing. For the Church as well certain days have universal meaning, including the two days we have just witnessed, the 14th and 15th of August.

On August 14th, 1941, Father Maximilian Mary Kolbe breathed his last in a starvation bunker in Auschwitz after a camp doctor gave him a lethal injection. That date when he gave his life in place of another man was significant, as his passing in the evening placed him in the vigil of his most beloved lady, the Virgin whose Assumption into heaven is celebrated on the 15th of August.

These commemorations of Saint Maximillian and Mary's Assumption took on a new meaning for me five years ago, when in 2004 I was ordained a priest on the 14th and celebrated my Mass of Thanksgiving on the 15th of August.

Ever the pilgrim, I found myself five years later traveling on planes, trains, and an automobile, as well as a bus thrown in for good measure, as I journeyed from Italy to England. I celebrated Mass on my ordination anniversary in a small chapel just blocks from where Father Kolbe had celebrated his own first Mass in Rome over 90 years before. Having then soared on wings of steel I celebrated the Mass of the Assumption in England, arriving in a nation that in centuries past was renowned for its love of the Blessed Mother and shows glimmers of reawakening today.

These five years have raced by so quickly, but one theme continues to return to the forefront in all the many settings I have been: the fidelity of God manifested in the generosity of others, particularly the love of parishioners, family, and friends. God created the Sabbath as a meeting point between himself and those whom he loved, and as I look toward future anniversaries, I am glad most of all for those many meetings which lead into the fellowship of eternity.

Roman Return

It’s hard to describe how beautiful the evenings are here in Rome.

While the days are hot and heavy in these August doldrums, and the streets are empty except for map-bearing tourists, the golden sun in evening paints the city in warm tones that cause the centuries-old walls to glow.

I flew back into the city Monday, and while I leave again for several weeks of work on Greek and Hebrew soon, even a brief return to the city revivifies its beauty.

The last few weeks of whirlwind summer travel have brought woeful neglect to this blog, leaving me with many overdue posts yet to create.  The Lost Files catalog will have to be expanded, as photos from Egypt, Jordan, Amman, Petra, Galilee and many more still linger unviewed.  Likewise, the upcoming weeks of study in England promise to hold a sight or two worth noting.

And I think I came across a new joke about some angels . . .