A busy month

This month I was able to attend the North Texas Orthodox Missions pre-Lenten retreat at Holy Trinity in Dallas. The speaker was Fr. Joseph Huneycutt and the topic was "Kindling Within Us the Spark of Divine Love." He will be giving the same talk at St. Vlad's in March (more on that here). It was a solid talk that was enjoyed by everyone and I recommend going to the SVS iteration.

Fr. Joseph's talk was followed by a talk on the OCMC efforts in Romania by Floyd Frantz, a missionary in Cluj. Of his many projects the one that was most amazing was that he took on the "hopeless case" of a home for people battling with alcohol. In truth, it was a place for alcoholics to go and die, and they did in a steady stream. No priests would visit except to bury them, no one offered them any classes on coping with their disease, and they were given up on by all of society.

He was able to start an Alcoholics Anonymous program, get priests to come and do healing services, and people were actually able to reenter society. This system has become a model for Romania and the catalyst to the creation of a course on dealing with people battling alcoholism given at the seminaries.

The next event was a talk given by Abbot Meletios on “Monasticism in the Contemporary Church” at St. Barbara's in Fort Worth. This was the first in a series of talks given by Fr. Meletios to the Diocese of the South's pastoral conference and the only one open to the public. In a sea of black some few of us non-clergy were blessed to hear him speak.

After the talk a lengthy Q&A session answered by Abbot Meletios, Metropolitan Jonah, and Abbot Gerasim on the topic of monasticism was held. It lasted for over an hour and was a good occasion for clergy, laity, and visitors to ask questions related to the topic. There was a lot of talk about the future of American monasticism, the role of a spiritual father, the hospitality of a monastery, and other similar topics.

The following day, Abbot Meletios gave a talk at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church entitled "Present in the Presence: Heart and Mind in the Practice of Prayer." It was a smaller group - comprised primarily of parishioners - but was equally well received.

Tomorrow I depart for St. Tikhon's Seminary to see a friend's ordination to the priesthood and make another mini-discernment trip. While I am at St. Tikhon's, my wife will be at the Nativity of our Lord Monastery east of us in Kemp, TX. Quite a busy month. If you have a moment, say a short prayer for my safe travel. I'll need it with my relative snow-ignorance and Texan weakness to the cold. Prayers for my wife as well, please. She'll be by herself with six children for a few days.