I am taking a little time off – it has been a while. The transition from pastor in Tampa to parish priest in Triangle VA was rapid and quickly done. Prior to the move it had been about 2 years since I had any significant time off. My new pastor kindly agreed to a hiatus once I had settled in at the new parish. There is always a lot that accompanies transitions. As a nation, we are certainly learning that as the “dust settles” on a national election.
Today is Veteran’s Day – and happy holiday to all my fellow men and women who have served. Thank you for your service – and never forget. So it is perhaps apropos that I read an op-ed piece by a USMC Veteran, Elliott Ackerman (he is a former Marine and intelligence officer who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan). The article is entitled “My Fellow Veterans Reminded Me What This Election was about.” The summary tag line of the article is “Policies can’t guide us in the work of healing and forgiveness. Only a leader can do that.” Here is the article link.
Did you know that gratitude has been scientifically studied? In just the last 10 years, there have been hundreds of studies that have documented the social, physical, and psychological benefits of gratitude. The graphic and the following text all point to some of the benefits of practicing gratitude: 
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Part of the blessing being a parish priest is that you are invited into some of the most intimate moments of a family’s life. There is perhaps none more intimate and intense than the moments when illness passes through uncertain diagnosis, to one which blurs into the final days of a life. It is part of a life of ministry to be into a family whose loved one’s days are numbered. It is a privilege to journey with the family are they prepare for the loss that surely and steadily this way comes. In those times, Hope can seem more tentative, more distant; perhaps hovering on the edge of disappointment. 
In the course of celebrating Mass we come to the distribution of Communion – during these times of the coronavirus pandemic. At my parish many precautions are taken as part of the distribution of Holy Communion: sanitizing hands of the minister, wearing masks, standing behind a plexiglass shield with a hand pass through – and the Bishop has asked that all the faithful please receive in the hand and not on the tongue. Still we try to be accommodating as best we can. If someone want to receive on the tongue, I will ask them to receive in the hands, but if they insist, I simply ask them to wait until the end of the line so that they are the last to receive. They can then receive on the tongue, following which I am able to again sanitize my hands. 
This morning in the parish office, someone mentioned that “James Bond had passed away.” Given there were 26 movies over 58 years and more-than-one actor who played the character, there could well be some ambiguity about who had died. Depending on your generation and affinity for the Bond movies, one might come to a different initial assumption of the recently departed. Possible assumptions include Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby, Davide Niven, …but my mind went immediately to Sean Connery. He was an actor that was simply memorable. For my part, other memorable roles included Indiana Jones’ father, in 1989’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”; his Academy-Award-winning (best supporting actor) performance as Chicago cop Jim Malone in the 1987 film “The Untouchables,” and one of my favorites, William Forrester in the 2000 film “Finding Forrester.”
I don’t remember – it has been so long now – but somewhere, sometime ago, I began to start emails, letters, cards and the like with the same phrase: “May the grace and peace of Christ be with you.” It is an expression that begins many of St. Paul’s letters, in one form or another, e.g., Galatians 1:3. It is not a scripted beginning; there is a great deal of intention about it. There are times when I am in a hurry, responding to emails, that I am reminded at the end to return to the beginning and insert the greeting. It often leads to editing of the email if there is some part that does not have grace or peace about it. 
friarmusings 