Funny; it does not LOOK like a revolving door.
It is a good thing you all are good at this. We have another round of personnel changes here at the Holy House of Soubirous this month and it’s another one of those if-you-blink-you’ll-miss-it transitions.
This week Father Brillis, who showed up as a surprise in December, stepped back into the mystery from which he emerged and flew to Dubai, thence perhaps to somewhere in India. His sojourn in the United States expired, he returns to his home(s) the better for having known you. And, just like that, there’s room at the inn.
We had already taken on another lodger. Just after Memorial Day, Father Philip Tran of the Diocese of Beaumont (that’s in Texas, east of Houston almost in Louisiana) arrived just in time to begin the intensive summer courses for the program in Canon Law at Catholic University. If he can stand to live with me, he says he will be back for three more summers; the intervening three academic years (six semesters, fall and spring) he will continue to take courses remotely (now everybody knows how great THAT is) while running a thriving Texas parish.
Fr. Tran is actually from Miami, having grown up and gone to college there, and been ordained Priest for the Archdiocese of Miami. His parents are from Vietnam. But a few years ago he followed a priest he knew who was appointed Bishop of Beaumont, a diocese desperate for priests. That Bishop decided to send Father Tran to CUA to study less than two weeks before the first day of class.
Just as the quiet of Memorial Day Weekend settled over the campus here, I got a call from my old friend Father David Toups, whom some of you remember from when he was working at the USCCB. Well, now he is Bishop David Toups of – you guessed it -- Beaumont, and he called asking if I had a room for his man. Five days later I picked him up at the metro and moved him into the guest rooms.
Because Canon Law comes at you fast, just like “life” does in those ads, I have plugged Fr. Tran into the Mass rotation not much at all – though he has been “Father Mystery Guest” in the confessional a couple of time. If you have seen him, it probably was as he concelebrated one of the Sunday Masses, or the 6:30 AM weekday that is his new praxis. He has been very low key around here, so he could put his effort into coming up to speed on school. That ends now.
With Father Brillis gone, and Father Novajosky taking a jaunt with some of his buddies, including the lamentably departed Father Peter Santandreu, Father Tran is STEPPING UP this week to keep the fires of sanctification stoked and burning for you here in Four Corners. Welcome him!
If you think it makes your head spin with all the changes around here, imagine what it does for mine. Meanwhile say a prayer that God’s providence soon be revealed for the coming year, since the Archdiocese will send us nobody. That, however, is fine; many of the best priests we have enjoyed over the past eighteen years have come to us by other ways, and The Lord’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent. (Lamentations 3:22). Not every parish can survive this way, much less thrive this way. It is a good thing you all are good at this.
Monsignor Smith
