Here We Go Again II

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.

Here We Go Again

  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.

Randomness

une salade

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.

olde carre

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.

steeple

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

a wedding

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

Mary

A beautiful statue of Mary was in the Sanctuary.

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

Lest I Forget

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.

The Rev. Kenneth Allen