Thursday, July 12

Hello again.

This morning started off with the first of the lectures from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. For those who don't know who he is, he is the Editor and founder of First Things as well as a major voice in engaging the world of ideas in the public square. Anyways, today he talked about "Evangelium Vitae". I was expecting an exegesis on the encyclical, but it was more like a homily on the culture of life. It was good though, and it gave me the opportunity to listen more then to have to take notes which was really nice for a change.

In the second lecture Fr. Maciej gave a lecture on the Church's view of economy and the history of it. Again, he was a bit tough to understand, but his content was good, whatever was on the slides. I asked him about the section in Centissimus Annus with regards to Capitalism. He stated that there is a necessary reading of it as "especially" (JP II is talking to new Democracies). Especially, however, does not mean only, but that it is presumed that capitalism, in the positive sense that JP II defines it as, is a proper way of going about achieving economic ends. There was much more, but that was an interesting point I found.

After that was lunch which had to be quick so I grabbed a slice of pizza. We then went for the JP II "Death March" by George Weigel. It is the death march because it is a lot of walking all over the place. It was a nice walk and got to see some of the places that JP II was at through out his life.

After that I went back to the priory and read some more of "Theology and History" by Von Balthasaar. Then there was Mass and dinner. Dinner tonight was DELICIOUS, there was a great cheese sauce on the chicken which was just out of this world. There were a lot of great discussions about the nature of war and the role of economics in helping create greater access to health care.

After that I went and made some phone calls to people and then headed to the chapel for adoration which was wonderful. We followed that with Compline from the old breviary and was all in Latin, and we sung it all, and it was in the stalls where the brothers pray, so it was all in all great actually.

After that we went for a drink and stayed out until 1:30am (we can stay out past curfew when we're with George's assistant I think...:) ). We had many great discussions there as well.

All in all another great day, what can be expected though? And now begins the home stretch as there is now but one week left in the course...*sigh*.

Hope all is well with everyone and I would love to hear from you all!

God bless!

Harrison