Mid-Summer Notes - Day Trip

Mid-Summer greetings ! Just made an annual retreat up at St. Joseph's Abbey.

The Abbey can make for a wonderful destination as a family day trip. Beautiful grounds located in the rolling hills of Spencer, MA, less than an hour up I-84 from Tolland County.

Plan your visit on a Wednesday or Saturday and see the DVD presentation on the monastic life shown at 2:30 by one of the monks. The Abbey gift shop is worth the stop as well where you can browse before getting on the road again to head home.

As the school year winds down and vacations are in sight, we'll keep the book and film lists here for all those looking for material for your downtime / leisure time.

Book List

Film List

Installation of our new Pastor

We were blessed with a seasonably warm, beautiful sunny day this past Sunday for Fr. Christopher's installation as our new pastor, with Fr. James Carini acting as the Bishop's representative.
Our previous Fr. Christopher ( are there any more Christophers in the Pauline Order ?) was appointed as the new Executive Director of The John Paul II Foundation in Rome, ( we hope to have a link to their new website as it becomes available).

Also, featured in this Sunday's Hartford Courant ( March 21, '10) is an article / interview with M. William Phelps, the author of a recent book on Nathan Hale, featured on our book list. We have a little bio

here on him from a publisher's website.

We hope to have Mr. Phelps come to our book / film group in the future to discuss the Hale book with us, and possible do a book signing, - stay tuned for developments !

Coffee Sunday This Week - March 7th

Just a reminder to our visitors here, stop by and join our informal gathering at our Coffee Sundays, held after the 9:30 a.m. Mass.

Hopefully at some point we'll discuss the film "Henry Poole Is Here" ( and / or "A Man For All Seasons" ) and make a selection for our next book or film ( please see the previous post for links ).

February Gathering

It so happened that we had a guest missionary priest speaking at all the weekend Masses, telling us in particular about their mission work in Haiti and the overwhelming needs there - Cross International. (See photo).

There's also the Haitian Health Foundation, headquartered here in our own Diocese of Norwich, a wonderful ministry we all regularly support.

As we sat together after Mass in the Hall, it was acknowledged that organizations like these were the best to support because the donations get directly on the ground to those in need, having between 92 - 98 percent of funds collected going directly to services for the poor.

For our visitors, wanted to post links again to the book and film lists to look over. We're finishing our current book selection and will be seeing the film "Henry Poole is Here", - a surprise great little indi film sure to generate plenty of discussion.

We meet next week, Coffee Sunday

January is gone, only 11 months to Christmas, ... just kidding.

The 12 Days of Christmas & 2010

Hope everyone is having a blessed Christmas ! (which goes to Epiphany, Jan. 6th). For our visitors, wanted to post links to the book and film lists again to look over. With the snow season upon us there's more inside time, time to share a book or film with a spouse or other family members.


Finally, here's a past Christmas video reflection from Fr. Robert Barron, - still good ( 6 min.)

Merry Christmas !


P.S. Here's a video review of the currently popular book "The Shack".