Happy Birthday Beth!!!!! I hope you had a great night celebrating your birthday... you are an awesome friend, and probably the most loyal blog reader too :-) Hope you like these pictures, and I'll see you soon!
Beth's sister Stephanie and her brother Robbie surprised her and came in for her b-day!
Gina, Beth and Mandy
Lou, Mike, Erin and Laura
Reno, Colleen and Leslie
Rebekah, Reno and little Gianna Ferri
Matt, Katie, Gina and me"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?" – Donald Miller in Through Painted Deserts
I cannot even begin to describe what life here has been like, and I don't think I should really try in such limited internet time... but I am in awe of the goodness of it all. My constant wrestling with the Spanish language... the beauty of the heights of the mountains... celebrating mass with the mountain community in Buena Vista... swimming in the posas... these moments of grace remind me of my smallness, that this existence is not my own. I have already been challenged in so many ways, and I know there is so much more yet to come... yet I also feel God's grace being poured out on me, and I know that it is only through Him- seriously- that I can do anything this summer.
This is a photo of six truly amazing people who were in town for the Haiti conference this weekend: Nancy Anderson, Fr. Tom Streit, Dr. Madsen Beau deRochars, Theresa Patterson, Fran Rajotte and Chip Wirth. I just wanted to take a minute and introduce them to all of you...Goodnight!"... the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)
Fr. Tom Doyle, C.S.C. - ND ‘89
Seniors’ Last Trip to Grotto 2001
... Presuming that you and I have a few things in common, the Grotto is probably the place you have sought shelter in times of need. The Grotto is sacred ground because it actually invites what most public spaces don’t allow: the Grotto permits you to be weak and vulnerable. Its ground is sacred because it’s covered with the tears that you didn’t have permission to shed in another place. Its stone cavern echos sigh and prayers for yourself and your loved ones. In the absence of your biological mothers, at the Grotto, you have found a surrogate mother who is just as tender and familiar as your own.On this poignant night, let me suggest to you that the Grotto is the setting for the least conventional learning, and most important wisdom, of your last four years. It is the place where we are permitted to be WEAK. We come when we recognize the limits of being human. . .when life asks more than we can naturally provide ourselves. When our minds and bodies and spirits have been heroically stretched - sometimes to the point of near breaking - we go to the Grotto, alone and with others, to face that frightening reality. We approach the Grotto, fall to our knees as beggars before the Mystery that created us. And it is a good thing. Because being there reinforces - that the essence of being human isn’t to be alone - but rather in relationship - with others and God.
Over the years, the Grotto has given us a place and permission to be fully human, which includes being limited, being needy, being weak. . . The Grotto invites what we so often want to deny or obscure. It is unlike almost every other place because it shatters the world’s image of success. That to be a success we must always and everywhere be strong!
Here on the threshold of Graduation, there is little doubt that you will be strong enough to succeed in every conceivable way. But, our last trip to the Grotto begs an equally important question: Will you be WEAK enough to carry a Notre Dame degree?
Have you learned at the Grotto and at Notre Dame, that:
•to be rich, you must have the experience of begging.
•to be a healer, you must walk among the broken.
•to be a teacher, you must acknowledge there is much you do not know.
•to be a leader, you must have fallen in another’s line.
•To tap into the full strength and power of who you are, you must permit yourself to be weak.Power and Weakness: Not one but both.
• It is the paradox of Christ on the cross.
• It is what St. Paul wrote about when he said, “power is made perfect in weakness.”
• It is what Chesteron described when he defined Christianity as, “the superhuman paradox (where) two opposite passions. . .blaze beside each other.”
• It is what we sing of in the Alma Mater when we name Mary as both TENDER and STRONG.The fullness of your Notre Dame degree will be unleashed on the world when you claim your power, admit your frailty and live as one more Christian paradox in the world.
So my friends:
• Stand proudly and lean on one another.
• Raise a triumphant fist in the air and hold the hand of a friend.
• Shout with joy and shed your tears.
• Tolerate no injustice and reconcile always.
• Wait in silence and proclaim boldly “I love you.”
• Claim your power and embrace your weakness.
• Be strong - be tender - be true.
Tonight we made the first snow cones, and I loved every minute of it. If you are in South Bend make sure to stop by so I can make you one!!!
doing good on earth. I will let fall from heaven a shower of roses" so you can imagine how much I smiled today when my friend Evelyn gave me a gift of flowers for being one of her confirmation sponsors... yellow roses! Once again the "little flower" has touched my life with her love and her prayers. Thank you Evelyn, and thank you St. Therese!!I have been wanting to share photos from Haiti, and Dr. Rachel English just sent me hers. Thank you Rachel! This first photo is of Dr. Madsen. (Just click on the photo below to see the whole album...)
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Today might possibly be the greatest day of my brothers' and dad's life. (Well, only after being almost the worst... which is saying a lot if you're a Brown's fan.) But the Browns did it and (in dramatic fashion that I thought was going to give my brother Jeff a heart attack) drafted Brady Quinn. For kids who grew up trading blue & gold on Saturday for orange & brown on Sunday, and who knew "Bernie, Bernie" and the Notre Dame Victory March before we knew our ABC's, this is a huge deal.
The day got off to a rough start, but all's well that ends well in the land of 
the Irish Brownies. Jeff won't be quitting the
"With simplicity and equilibrium she harmonized the demands of mother, wife, doctor and her passion for life."Gianna made a heroic choice, but it was something her family members and friends testified she prepared for every day of her life. Her heroic virtue, genuine holiness of life, selflessness, and quiet joy remind all of us that God entrusts us with a personal vocation. Each and every day presents us with choices that have the power to prepare us to take heroic action whenever it will be called for. We can do that, however, only if we surrender ourselves and what we desire to God and His will for us.
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