Well, after much thought and prayer over the last 20 minutes, I’ve decided to change the name back to “Confessions of a 21st Century Priest”.

But I wholeheartedly reserve the right to change my mind again over the weekend. After I work on my Homily a lot, and take care of some important business matters of course.

Ok, I changed the name of my blog again. From “Confessions”, to “The Confessional Chronicles”.

I don’t know about this.

But we all know that being an INFP means that I like to take time making prayerful decisions about these kinds of things (or everything for that matter.) I’ve written about this before. Drives ENTJ’s crazy.

I’ll probably change it again. Before I start a Facebook Page, I thought it should have a decent name. There’s no way on earth I would change the whole site to a new domain! But typing into the Setting Dialogue Box… that I can handle.

Hit me up with any thoughts. Ciao.

1. I’ve come full circle.

   And, I’ve changed the name of my blog again. Way back in the day, in 2002, I started a weblog called “Confessions of a Catholic Seminarian“. It was originally here.

   It was mildly popular until one day, with the pressures of formation, I decided I absolutely without a doubt could not have an anonymous blog.

   It was downhill from there.

   I realized everything I wrote would no doubt be reviewed by the formation committee. And they without a doubt had never heard of a blog back in 2002, and I felt doomed. Doomed I tell you. It was a horrible, dark feeling, and I did not like it.

   Then I accidentally erased everyone’s comments.

   It just wasn’t pretty.

2. Then in 2006, after recovering a bit from Katrina (which I have strangely never blogged about. Hmmm….) I started a blog here and called it “Confessions of a Catholic Priest”. It died a hideous death in the trenches of spiritual warfare. It’s part of a dark and horrible chapter of my life that I feel compelled to write about, and to share with someone. Anyone.

3. I’m very rude to you my readers, and I apologize. Why bother keeping a blog if there’s no content for readers and visitors?

4. Well, there are good reasons I tell you. And they would include

   • to practice writing
   • to help spread the Gospel
   • I’m not sure what other reasons are at the moment, but they’re there

   .

5. Blogging is obviously not my forte. That’s pretty obvious, and I’m sure you don’t need me to explain that to you.

6. Thank you for being here, I promise I’ll try harder to generate content.

   In fact, this is an exercise in content generation. Isn’t it fascinating?

7. It’s not? Oh.

8. I’m considering writing my autobiography and publishing it here in installments. I’ve kept threatening to fill out my ‘About’ section and have never gotten around to it. That or at least the story of my Priesthood.

   It’s been an incredible journey so far. An unbelievable one.

   In fact, at times it’s hard for me to believe.

9. I can’t stand when people use the word ‘Journey’ to describe things like the trajectory of their Priesthood. But it’s different when I use it. (MmHmmm.) I’m not into process theology either, but I can use the word ‘process’ with the best of them. It’s a process of understanding I’m in, within the journey that I’m on.

10. For whatever reason, I am not listed in the latest copy of “The Catholic Directory“.

    Heads are going to roll!

Well. That’s that.

The Madonna of the Roses, by William Bouguereau.

Very fitting, as tomorrow is the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

That, and my roses need a Patroness. “My love, is like a red, red rose…”

They could seriously use the help.

Madonna of the Roses, Pray for Us.

When I decided to take up photography, I was coming to terms with the fact that taking up cooking causes weight gain. However, the immediate result of having a camera was that I then took pictures of lots of food.

It’s a long story; it’s best left for another time.

Cleaning out old photos, I noticed a few stragglers I had meant to post but never got around to. And I hardly had time to post all 5,000 of them.

Here’s an auto that showed up on Easter Sunday; I was quite taken with it’s beauty and have about a thousand pictures of it.

Food is a lot easier to compose in a photo then is an antique car against the backdrop of a school building. I’ll have to consider that.

And here is the church steeple as twilight approaches. We have a very modern architecture here; and it works very well.

I took my shot at photographing a wedding, and decided to stick with playing the organ and, even better yet, presiding.

A beautiful statue of Mary was in the Sanctuary.

And for now, it’s off to sleep; only so much time in a day…

Which I have apparently done, is that Pope Benedict XVI asked Priests back in January ‘ought Ten to Get Online and Spread the Gospel.

Sigh. I almost completely forgot about posting on my blog; I’m not very good at it.

In fact, I asked around to a variety of people whether I should keep the site or not, and the overwhelming response was “Yes! Absolutely! Please, please, PLEASE do! We couldn’t live without your blog!” (Not.) But, the general response was to keep it and post more often.

And spread the Gospel.

With that in mind, here is today’s Gospel:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Stop judging, that you may not be judged.
For as you judge, so will you be judged,
and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye,
but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?
How can you say to your brother,
‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’
while the wooden beam is in your eye?
You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first;
then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”

And here are some recent observations on blogging and myself:

1. It can take up a lot of time, and one needs to get out and get more exercise if one is doing it.
2. I am not, and never have been, drawn to blog about the things that most other Catholic bloggers blog about, i.e. the latest Catholic news stories, or insightful posts about Papal documents, Vatican translations, or the Extraordinary Form vs. the Novus Ordo. I prefer to write about things that happen in my life in a stream of consciousness sort of way. Some like it, some don’t; take it or leave it.
3. Maybe I should rethink that.
4. But I just did, and I’m still not drawn to it, as others do it far better than I ever would or could.
5. I’ve had major periods of self-consciousness as a blogger because I had never anticipated the amount of scorn it would draw from fellow Priests.
6. I’m more or less over that. Sometimes people just don’t get along; cliques exist, and it’s not that big a deal; Priest’s are human, and that includes me with all of my own faults and insecurities. I’m not very important in the big scheme of things of God’s plan, or the Church’s plan. But I pray to do His will daily, and I try to do it, and that’s enough for me each day. It helps to keep life simple.
7. I don’t really read a lot of other Catholic blogs.
8. I do read a lot of news and information sources on what’s going on in the Church. So I assume anyone who finds my blog and reads it is on the internet and reads the same sources, and is already in the know. Plus, they are probably reading the bloggers who do such a great job of dissecting those things anyway.
9. Having a website allows me to share things with friends fairly easily, such as photos I can put up in temporary directories. Also, I can occasionally post photos from my life in my weblog, and work with improving my photography (which does need a lot of work, I freely admit. But if I never practice it, I’ll never improve.)
10. And, I think that about wraps that up. Thanks for joining me!

To live, to adventure, to understand the will of God…

Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.

Before I forget, I wanted to post this picture of a brick. I don’t know why, and it’s a total non sequitur, and has nothing to do with much of anything that’s been going on lately. It’s a completely random update.

It’s from a memorial walk in Natchez, Mississippi, in a public park right next to the Cathedral. I was visiting with a family friend who had brought me to see the Cathedral, though it was closed.

Aside from liking the name, and thinking that Stokes must have been quite a character, I found myself wondering who on earth he was. What a great name. You can imagine the stories, “That ol’ Stokes!”…

So I googled it and realized it’s actually two surnames. I think. So disappointing… to me at least.

On the bright side, the garden is nearing a state of completion, although the cement pond has sprung a virulent leak. Also, I’m settling in and am almost living a box free life. (This is a good development.) The next project is my office.

Also, praying the Holy Spirit Novena again, which I had posted in January. Wonderful prayer. Here’s to a grand Feast of Pentecost.

Because people continually ask this, and because I typed up a long response to an e-mail the other day, here, for some future Googler’s delight, is a brief synopsis of the three Catholic Churches close to the main hotels and action down in the CBD and the French Quarter.

There are three places down in that area, all of which are great for Mass.

Immaculate Conception Church

“Jesuit on Baronne”, as we say here (it’s actually Immaculate Conception Church), can be found on Baronne Street, and also has a home on the web.

They are (obviously) Jesuit, and across from the Roosevelt, which is a great place to grab coffee or brunch after Mass. The Mass is ordinary form. The preaching is more often than not, wonderful. I only add ‘more often than not’ as it might be an off day when you go and .. you know how it goes… You’ll be blaming me for the rest of your life! The current Pastor is a friend I grew up with, Fr. Stephen Sauer and is a great Priest. They have a vibrant outreach to the community in regard to the Church’s teachings on helping the poor.

Through a fluke in timing I’ve been able to help out here recently with their music needs, playing piano and organ. The Steinway is a work of art, and the organ is a lovely late model Pheonix. It’s been a sheer pleasure.

St. Patrick’s Church

Closer to the river is St. Patrick’s, which I love and go to from time to time when I am able (which is obviously not often.)

The Church is located on Camp Street.

The Mass is more traditional as it is celebrated ad orientem. The extraordinary form is celebrated twice on weekends, with Eucharistic Adoration also on Sunday afternoons. The Pastor is one of my favorite seminary professors, and a wonderful Priest, Fr. Stan Klores. You’ll usually see him walking around in a cassock prior to Mass if he is not the Priest saying the Mass.

Some of my friends cherish the 9:30am Extraordinary Form High Mass ~~~ others cherish the 5:30pm vigil which has no music and which is pretty quick. Something for everyone.

Also impressive is the St. Patrick’s You Tube Channel, which offers a glimpse into liturgical life there…

And last but never least, they have a spectacular new organ, Opus 53 of Patrick Murphy.

Can you tell I was an organist prior to ordination?

The Cathedral

Then of course, there’s The Cathedral Basillica of St. Louis, King of France. (We say that all the time.) I love going when I can because it’s down on Jackson Square, and is the iconic symbol of New Orleans. The Archbishop says Mass on Sundays at 11, the vigil is usually (lately) said by Fr. William Maestri, who gives a good Homily.

There is an internist position for the organist, whereby a spectacular organ student from Paris comes to play Masses and give recitals on the recently restored organ, which was newly installed a year before Katrina and then had a few years of recovery and tlc after wind driven rains poured over it and the plaster above it for hours.

It’s always a bit alway exciting if you like organ music, and if the organist is playing.They are right down on Jackson Square, you can’t miss it.

There are some other notable Churches in the area, but are farther away walks. One is Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is home to the National Shrine of St. Jude. I’m not as familiar with it as I should be, though I have visited several times, it is just outside the French Quarter.

I hope this helps you enjoy your trip to New Orleans a bit more. If you have any question, or if you want to take me to Galatoire’s while you’re here, feel free to e-mail me!

Pax Christi,
Fr. KA

For the record, Barbara Lottinger Allen, author of the Big Red Book. Just documenting the site while it is organized there…

And a site which I find curious…