At Versailles, Squinting with the Newly Weds

it's been a hectic week; after being in La Ferte sous Jouarre for Xavier's wedding we returned to Paris to continue our visit....we visited Notre Dame, braving the long lines to go inside -and pray- for all our intentions, especially for our sick friends...
We were not far from the Sacre Couer and that was another highlight for Aura....

On Tuesday 7th we made a day trip to Versailles to the New Weds, Xavier & Virginie

On Thursday we left for Lyon. a city we enjoyed immensely because it was less overwhelming than Paris and the area between the two rivers, Rhone and Saone, was very elegant -I love rivers
We took a short cruise up the Saone on Thursday evening...wonderful
Friday we took the bus tour and l'Open Tour as they say in French....stunning was the ride to the top of the Fourviere[?] Hill where stands the stunning Notre Dame...the old part of Lyon, founded by the Romans...Later with Xavier I remembered that St Irenaeus was one of the first bishops of Lyon....a wonderful preacher and teacher, a holy man....who pronounced the wonderful phrase -taken up again by Fr John Power in his books- "The Glory of God is man fully alive" [Gloria Dei homo vivens]

Someone like you

The melody I can't forget and want to sing

 "Cardinal DePaolis, will you wake up and smell the coffee!"

Sorry for not updating this; but I have also been writing on Facebook, as irishmexican43.
Back at work after the trip to Montreal, CAN, where Aura and I touristed and worked at the International Cultic Studies Association annual conference.

All is well in Annandale right now; work goes on, doctors' visits take their normal course for a 68 year old white Caucasian, and I try to stay abreast of my various 'hobbies', including outreach to former members of the Legion of Christ, -this mission, begun back in 1985, continues to be my 'second vocation' with all the pains and happiness it entails. It gives me great satisfaction to learn that I have helped others 'break the bonds' of slavery to cult like groups within the Catholic Church.
Recently, the happiness has been heightened as more and more people come out of the woodwork to freely express themselves about their experiences with the repressive Legion of Christ and its Regnum Christi Movement. Much is happening now as Cardinal DePaolis, the Apostolic Delegate, tries to reform both institutions but seems to have begun on the wrong foot and continues to make a hash of things. So that is why we 'dissidents' just don't shut up. He is tip toeing around a real elephant in the kitchen and making half assed efforts instead of getting to the root of the problem -a very poisoned leadership and operational system.
"Cardinal DePaolis, will you for Christ's sake wake up and smell the coffee!"

Off to Montreal, Canada, on Sat 30 June

Aura and I are taking part in the International Cultic Studies Association Annual Conference -Damage and Manipulation


Meeting with friends there also; we hope to tourist Montreal and environs and take a trip to Quebec; maybe pick up a bit of French or venture into speaking "quelques mots" -a few words, just in case you get me wrong with the mots piece.


Your humble servant will be presenting a paper together with Canadian, Peter Kingsland, on the Fruits of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi Movement, the fruits being the Good, the Bad, and the plain Ugly.

With Marita and Lalo's baby, May 2012

                                          Aura moved and her nose got squashed! Americans say "squished"!
Otherwise we had a great time playing with this wonderful baby, Lalin... "Little Eddie".

Visited my sister, Mary, in recovery, with her grandchildren

Dublin, Ireland, March 19th, 2012

"The witty man and his joke..."

I love language and phrases
that stay in the mind,
and magically come back.
Yeats is great;
I read his Lake
Isle of Innisfree frequently.
And I remembered that little phrase
above today,
and sough out the poem,
a masterpiece
that made
me whole.

The Fisherman

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Although I can see him still—

The freckled man who goes

To a gray place on a hill

In gray Connemara clothes

At dawn to cast his flies—

It's long since I began

To call up to the eyes

This wise and simple man.   

All day I'd looked in the face   

What I had hoped it would be   

To write for my own race   

And the reality:   

The living men that I hate,   

The dead man that I loved,   

The craven man in his seat,   

The insolent unreproved—

And no knave brought to book   

Who has won a drunken cheer—

The witty man and his joke   

Aimed at the commonest ear,   

The clever man who cries   

The catch cries of the clown,   

The beating down of the wise   

And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelve-month since

Suddenly I began,

In scorn of this audience,

Imagining a man,

And his sun-freckled face

And gray Connemara cloth,

Climbing up to a place

Where stone is dark with froth,

And the down turn of his wrist

When the flies drop in the stream—

A man who does not exist,   

A man who is but a dream;   

And cried, “Before I am old   

I shall have written him one   

Poem maybe as cold   

And passionate as the dawn.”

Source: Poetry (February 1916).