Legionaries

The Legionaries of Christ are a religious order of priests with a seminary in Cheshire, CT.  Once a month, on a Thursday, they host a 'Bethany evening' for clergy - a chance for prayer, reflection, dialogue, fraternity and, of course, a delicious meal.  Monday and Thursday evenings are usually busy with parish meetings of one sort or another here at St. Thomas, so I have never been able to attend on of their Bethany Evenings.

However, whether it was because of school vacation week or some other quirk of the schedule, I had no evening appointments yesterday.  And so I took advantage of this and drove the twenty minutes to their seminary.  About a dozen priests gathered, some I knew quite well and others I had never met before.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction always provides the wonderful opportunity to quiet myself before our Lord, to give HIM the chance to do the talking and ME the chance to listen more than I might normally do.  Our discussions centered around our Holy Father's latest book, and gave me the chance to hear viewpoints other than ones I might be familiar with.  
And dinner was truly scrumptous, served by some of the seminarians.  
THAT brought back memories of my time at St. Thomas Seminary when we would serve dinner to various groups attending functions there.

All in all, it was a nice evening, a good change of pace, with much less agita than I would have had sitting home watching the UConn men lose in overtime to Marquette!