Peru, 2016

Anyone who knows me, knows that I tend to spend vacation time visiting and praying in foreign missions. Either that or hiking, which brings up entirely different issues that we won’t go into right now.

This year was no different. One of our Parishioners is discerning a vocation to religious life in the Family of Jesus the Healer.

Life in the Jungle

My life is forever transformed by spending time with them in prayer, and in experiencing their devotion to the Church, to the imitation of Christ, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to the entire wealth of spiritual knowledge and practice of the Faith. They’re a young order, but honest, open, and seeking what is most True.

Altiplano

The mountains of Peru they are not. I was able to spend a week, in retreat, in a Dominican Priory in Cuzco, which led to a whole new series of adventures, and took a day to travel to Puno to see Lake Titicaca. The entrance fee to Bolivia, right next door to Puno which is where I was, for US citizens is $135, unless you just walk across without telling anyone. I avoided the shakedown and the shenanigans, and decided to save all of that for a separate trip.

(I did see Lake Titicaca, and actually stepped foot into it… too cold to swim. Fascinating place, and while there my mind stopped translating signs and billboards, and just undestood them for what they said, in Spanish.)

Puerto Maldonado

Puerto Maldonado, where they live, is a part of the jungles of Peru, bordering Brazil and Bolivia. There, illegal gold ming is becoming a thing… Human trafficking is becoming a thing, to satisfy the earthly hungers of those involved in the gold mining. Issues, man. They have issues in Puerto Maldonado, beautifully hidden behind the growing facade of selva tourism.

Brother Maximillian

Brother Maximillian of the Immaculate, is a vocation from our Parish, discerning life with this community. He’s in good hands, and they have a gem in the rough, being refined as such things are, and as such persons are.

Travel is not my strong point, when it comes to rest… I hope to post more about is in the next several weeks. But, we all know how that goes! See you soon enough.

The Rev. Kenneth Allen