Had a wonderful day yesterday

In the morning, I went down to Federal Way and had a sort of brunchy lunch with a terrific young priest named Fr. Jacob Maurer.  He’s the real deal and he runs a blog called Followers of the Way.  We had a good long yak about everything under the sun from adventures in St. Blog’s to his life as a military brat to his trip to the Holy Land to the writing life and the challenges of being a parish priest. Great guy.  I really enjoyed the visit, and I was even able to snag hm for confession (since I’d missed my shot on Saturday).

Then it was off to the Militia Immaculata Washington Summer Camp that was being held just down the road at a Lakeview Christian Camp (near Wild Waves, you what knows the area).  I’m a huge fan of the MI folks (who are, despite the name, not a Catholic paramilitary organization training youth to prepare for the Great Cleansing Fire, but are instead a beautiful Marian apostolate started by St. Maximilian Kolbe and based at Marytown in Chicago).  They’ve done this camp for several years running and the kids and the staff are just fantastic people.  My family have been involved in various capacities over the years and we think the world of those guys, both at camp and back in Chicago.  Just being around them is a gigantic boost of hope for the Church.  They make you feel like a million bucks and they know how to both worship and how to have a good time.  They asked me to come down and give a little talk on evangelization, so I did.  But I was far more evangelized than they were, because the joy was like sunshine.  Fantastic group of youthly folk!  Thanks be to God for them through our Lord Jesus.

Plus, I got to shove my son Peter off a dock and into the lake.  So there’s that too.

Anyway, as a result, I got nothing done yesterday and this is a short week, so I will be busy playing catchup today.