Foot-washer

 A Mystagogia, 2010  The most terrifying words ever spoken are these: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. You are going to die. Perhaps not tomorrow, perhaps not next year, but as sure as you were born, so too will you die. We all enter the wasteland, the place where death shows us fear in a handful of dust.   And the astonishing thing is that we take that handful of dust, mix it with oil, and mark upon our foreheads the symbol of an appalling murder. Like the woman who anointed Christ in Bethany, we are preparing ourselves for our own burial. We are walking with eyes open to Golgotha, the place of skulls, to be crucified.   We return from the dark place in the ground from which we sprang. God crafted the human from the mire and the muck of the earth, fingers deep in soil, shaping it like a clay putty doll. This manikin the Creator called ha-Adam—not a name, but a moniker meaning creature of the dust, mudman, dirtclod, ash heap.   The ...

Thanksgiving Prayer Service Reflection at Mercy Academy during an all school prayer service in the gym.  This is the first "lay reflection" I ever gave.   Offered on Nov 25, 2008. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112819-thanksgiving.cfm Good morning, Mercy, and an early Happy Thanksgiving to you.    I have had the great fortune over the last 7 years to celebrate Thanksgiving in many different places and in many different circumstances around the world.   In fact, looking back at this period in my life, I realized that I haven’t spent a turkey day in the same place two years in a row.   Some of my Thanksgivings past have been pretty glamorous, and I’ll start by sharing some of those with you: In 2001, I was on a train to the Artic Circle in Finland for a weekend of skiing, saunas, hiking in winter wonderlands, and visiting Santa Claus’ “real” home in the North Pole.   That’s right, I got to meet Santa, his reindeer, the elves… the works...

 

 This is an article I wrote about my experience surviving the Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004.  On another post, I (badly) shared the images from Bellarmine Magazine where it appeared.  There are two sections that are included here that did not make it into the print version.   Bellarmine alumni Ned Berghausen writes about his  experience in Thailand during and after the tsunami I was in southern Thailand on December 26 th when the tsunami hit.   I was staying on a small island called Ko Phi Phi east of Phuket. The island is only accessible by boat, and there’s no transportation on it beyond foot traffic.   Most of the development on Phi Phi is on a narrow isthmus, called Ton Sai, between two bays, which is where I was staying.   I had decided to spend Christmas on the beach, taking a vacation from my life in Bangladesh , where I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer.    I was traveling by myself.   The plan was to meet up...

The blueprint for Ned Berghausen's life was set early: St. Xavier graduate; a 2001 graduate of Bellarmine University with a degree in philosophy and a minor in theology; joining the Peace Corps after a year studying overseas because "it appealed to me to give something back." His Peace Corps assignment was in Bangladesh. Along the way he had written a 100-page paper on The Book of Job — the Old Testament poem that discusses faith and the suffering of innocent people. Berghausen, 24, was vacationing on Ko Phi Phi Island in southern Thailand on Dec.26 when the tsunami hurtled ashore. "I'm alive," he would write in an e-mail message to Louisville family. "I've seen unimaginable horror. ... I can't begin to tell you about it, but here's a try: Hundreds of dead people, utter devastation, rubble and ruin everywhere, people seriously injured, dying. Somehow I was unscathed. Not even touched. "...I spent 48 endless hours pulling people out of t...