Another St. Michael's Conference begins! - Rector's Rambling for July 10, 2022

 

After a time away for a family holiday I am grateful to be back at St. John’s!

       But having said that, this week ahead is perhaps one of my busiest of the year (except for Holy Week/Easter) because this afternoon I head out to Manresa Retreat Center for the week for the St. Michael’s Conference for Youth.

This is now my 24th year on staff of this Conference here in the Midwest (I started while still Rector of St. Mary’s in Charleroi, PA, in addition to the 2 years on staff at the East Coast one.  It is a remarkable week of worship, learning, and fun-fellowship for the youth people as well as the staff, but pretty exhausting as well.  56 year old me has a hard time trying to keep up with the active 12 to 20 year old Confreres and younger staff.  When I started with this conference I was the young priest on staff...I am now the second oldest!

We definitely desire your prayers for the week, that God will bless the staff and young people as they spend the week together.  We have been bless with mostly drama and problem free conferences, but of course that is because we are covered in prayer, and under the patronage of St. Michael.

This year I will be teaching two of the classes.  Survey, which is required for all first year members.  This class is a 5 days of Christianity 101.  We start with “who is Jesus”, and then have classes on “sin, salvation and grace”, the major and minor sacraments, and the Bible.

The other class I am teaching is on the book St. Augustine’s Confessions, a fantastic book for all of us to read!  If you have not done so I encourage you to.

Our new office manager, Elizabeth Savage, will be in the office this week along with Harriett,  and in an emergency I can be reached in the afternoons.  We do stay at the retreat center for the week as a part of the formation of the community together.  As an eastsider, Bloomfield Hills seems like the other side of the world (at least the other side of Metro Detroit), but the grounds of the retreat center are lovely and facilities outstanding.

God willing next week we will get back to normal with our weekday worship schedule.