Health, Exonerated Priest, 17 the Movie - recapturing the beginnings

Just a log of today's events.

I took an extra day off and it became timely because two kids came down with fever and cough.  I used 5 ampules for nebulizers until the 7 yr old's respiratory discomfort settled down to the point that he was able to sleep.  The 5 yr old had cough drops and fever meds.  The wife was keeping tract of what was given and when.  With 3 kids going to school and bringing back viral samples from 90 kids, my home has become a petri dish with cultures of bacteriae.  That is why we thank God for our health.

By noon, a friend from the religious order phoned and we caught up.  I found out that a priest friend, Xavier, was acquitted and exonerated of the nasty accusations against him.  Xavier used to be my big brother in the Future Aspirants Club back in 7th grade.  He entered the junior seminary the year after.  Decades later we'd meet again at a ministry workshop in VA.  I am so relieved that he can minister as a priest again. However, I am upset at those who leveled false accusations against him.  Those happened to be priests too; so when good people turn bad, they really take the cake.

Later, my wife finished early so she brought home DVDs.  We saw "17" - a romantic comedy about a relationship at the brink of divorce and how the man recaptured the original passion of their love by being transformed into a 17 year old.  He also learned a lot about his teenagers by going to the same school with them.  My spiritual director called this  "the vitality of the beginning" - the time when a charism is given to a founder.  That is why novices study the lives of the founder(s) and the history of the order.  For married couples, well for my wife and I, we reminisce those days as they come up in conversation.