Posts with the tag “saint-francis”

Yesterday, Saturday afternoon, I went with three friends to a performance by the Oregon Repertory Singers. One of our four is a Tenor in that group. After the concert, we four went to an Italian dinner, where we talked about what we had heard and felt, which interestingly (and I think significantly) ended up becoming a conversation about the nature of Heaven. For some reason, as I looked out from my seat toward Tom the Tenor standing at the center of the top row, I remembered a poignant poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) called “Sympathy”, whose last stanza reads: I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings  Read More

During my late 20s, I studied at Regis College (Jesuit) at the University of Toronto, for my Master of Divinity degree. In the fall Term of my second year, I begged Fr. Michael McMahon Sheenan, CSB to break a few rules (for a holy cause of course) and to let me into his Seminar. He made it happen, even though I had not been formally admitted as a student at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (PIMS)...  Read More