In the Vice-Province

(The above is a photo of a postcard I found at the back of the church in Schwarzenfeld; I haven’t branched out into aerial photography yet.)

I returned on Sunday evening from a visit to Holy Trinity Retreat, Schwarzenfeld, in the Vice-Province of the Five Wounds (Bavaria and Austria). I had gone there on the previous Monday with Father Patrick and Gareth, our student, to give a short course on Saint Paul of the Cross to those in formation. After a cheap and punctual Easy Jet direct flight from Edinburgh, we were met at the airport by Father Gregor, the Provincial, seen here packing our bags in a most scientific manner.

Below is what we saw when we arrived. A fuller photographic report will have to wait until later, as I am leaving for Rome tomorrow morning for a meeting about the Passionist preparations for the World Youth Day.

In the meantime, someone in the Vice-Province launched a new German Passionist Blog (called Passio-Blog) last Sunday; you can find it on the sidebar under Sites of Passionist Interest.

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Tomorrow

A day at Mount Argus, Dublin, for a Provincial Council meeting. I will leave here at about 6.30 a.m. and be back at about 11.00 p.m. Oh, the joys of modern travel! Saint Paul of the Cross wrote that we were not to use a horse without necessity; unfortunately he didn’t mention planes.

Below are some pictures of the library at Mount Argus which I haven’t posted before. For the first thirty years or so, the present library was used as the Choir (or community chapel) of the monastery; then, in the late 1880s (as far as I remember) the larger Choir adjoining the Church was built. In the 1930s, when the transepts and present sanctuary of the Church were being added, it was discovered that the wall separating the Choir from the Church was of rubble rather than dressed stone; this was taken as an indication that the larger choir was already planned when the Church was being built in the late 1870s. Saint Charles (Houben), Blessed Bernard Mary Silvestrelli and the servant of God Father Ignatius Spencer all celebrated Mass in the original Choir which is now the library.

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