Not the Day I Expected

Today was not the day I intended. I expected to get up, go to morning Mass, do a little reading and then walk to the Tate Modern and visit some of the Wren churches. What I did instead was even more delightful.

Last evening at supper the provincial of the British Province, Fr. Michael Holman, SJ, suggested that I might profit from talking with Fr. Tim Byron, SJ, chaplain at St. Ignatius, the Jesuit school in Enfield, a borough of London. I first met Michael when he “shadowed” Fr. Bob Welsh, SJ, former president of St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland when I was a regent there in the late 1980’s.

In any case, Michael followed up with me after dinner, asking if I would like for him to arrange a phone conversation. When I said yes, he immediately called Tim on his mobile. A brief conversation between us ensued – the upshot is I spent a few hours at the school today. I was so impressed by the commitment of the school community to Dodoma – faculty, staff, administration, students (and from what I understand, the parents, too). They’ve come up with tens of different ways to raise funds for the primary school and want to do the same for St. Peter Claver High School, the first institution at Our Lady Queen of Peace to open.

But more than just raising funds, they’ve integrated this concern for Dodoma into their curriculum – for instance, the study of geography and economics. I’d heard of the twinning from Sossy and know how much it means on the Dodoma end – it was heartening to see just how much it means on the Enfield end.

I had a delightful supper with Fr. Peter Gallagher, SJ, who teaches at Heythrop College. Peter taught a summer session of Koine Greek at the Weston School of Theology (now the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry) in Cambridge, Mass., before I started theology in 1990. It was good to visit with him, very good indeed.