Monday, June 21, 2010

Travels

Saturday June the 12th I was in Argentina to receive the first vows as a nun of Maria Minerva Santana Castro. She and her family are members of the parish of San Juan Bautista in the Dominican Republic. All went well and it was a very fine celebration and mass.
Unfortunately, during my return flight to the US someone stole my camera as I was in JFK Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Rochester, so I have no pictures yet of the event.
I have emailed one of the nuns who was at the ceremony and asked that she send me some pictures. When I receive them I will post them.
On Saturday the 19th of June I baptized my grand niece, Gabrielle Elizabeth Gaesser, in Church of the Assumption in Fairport, NY. Gabrielle is the newest member of the Gaesser clan. My brother and his wife, as you can see, are both ill and in wheelchairs. Amy is for the fourth time fighting for her life against breast and now bone cancer, and my brother Allan is trying to recover from multiple surgeries and a two-month stay in the hospital. Your prayers for both much appreciated.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Mother's Day in the DR


The last Sunday of May is always Mother's Day in the Dominican Republic. Mothers are the backbone of the family in the DR, so Mother's Day is a really big event. This, however, does not address the resulting difficulties of single parenthood. Unfortunately there are 1,400,000 single moms out of a total population of nine million people. I have no ready answers here. Our school in Don Juan has a fiesta on the preceding Friday to honor the moms of our school children. One photo is of the gathering and the other of children doing a folk dance.
The last Saturday of May we celebrated the closing of the Year of the Priesthood in the DR with a large mass in the Palace of Sports in Santo Domingo. All the nation's bishops, the Cardinal, and many priests, myself included, came together for this event which also involved nine ordinations from different dioceses of the DR.