Easter Friday

I would like to ask the Adam's to contact me via my Yahoo address. Thank you.


 May God pour out HIS love on you! I want to thank you for your kind donations and to tell you that I went out immediately and purchased medicines, especially Coartem (Malaria medicine). I still need more of the malaria medicine because when the rainy season arrives (usually in late June or Early July)
At that time we look after so many people who are suffering from it...sometimes 30 a day. So I continue to beg for help from all. As I said the medicine is for the villagers...the children under 12 are sent to a small village hospital for medicine and the rest are taken care of right here in Nazareth Hermitage. A few years ago someone told me that this was not sustainable but we have been doing this for 10 years. Please continue your generosity for the sick poor.

I am trying to get used to the format for posting the blog but once I do I will be posting more pictures, some from my 14 day retreat at Christ in the Desert Abbey in New Mexico. When you see the photographs you will want to make a retreat yourself. Treat yourself to a spiritual renewal. The monks are so kind, the accommodations are comfortable and the meals real yummy. Try it, you will like it.









From the Jerusalem Catecheses

The anointing with the Holy Spirit

When we were baptized into Christ and clothed ourselves in him, we were transformed into the likeness of the Son of God. Having destined us to be his adopted sons, God gave us a likeness to Christ in his glory, and living as we do in communion with Christ, God’s anointed, we ourselves are rightly called “the anointed ones.” When he said: Do not touch my anointed ones, God was speaking of us.

  We became “the anointed ones” when we received the sign of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, everything took place in us by means of images, because we ourselves are images of Christ. Christ bathed in the river Jordan, imparting to its waters the fragrance of his divinity, and when he came up from them the Holy Spirit descended upon him, like resting upon like. So we also, after coming up from the sacred waters of baptism, were anointed with chrism, which signifies the Holy Spirit, by whom Christ was anointed and of whom blessed Isaiah prophesied in the name of the Lord: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor.

  Christ’s anointing was not by human hands, nor was it with ordinary oil. On the contrary, having destined him to be the Saviour of the whole world, the Father himself anointed him with the Holy Spirit. The words of Peter bear witness to this: Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit. And David the prophet proclaimed: Your throne, O God, shall endure for ever; your royal scepter is a sceptre of justice. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above all your fellows.

  The oil of gladness with which Christ was anointed was a spiritual oil; it was in fact the Holy Spirit himself, who is called the oil of gladness because he is the source of spiritual joy. But we too have been anointed with oil, and by this anointing we have entered into fellowship with Christ and have received a share in his life. Beware of thinking that this holy oil is simply ordinary oil and nothing else. After the invocation of the Spirit it is no longer ordinary oil but the gift of Christ, and by the presence of his divinity it becomes the instrument through which we receive the Holy Spirit. While symbolically, on our foreheads and senses, our bodies are anointed with this oil that we see, our souls are sanctified by the holy and life-giving Spirit.