FROM HOSPITAL, REHAB, AND INVOLUNTARY EXILE; TO SILVER JUBILEE, SACHEART RCIA, AND CHRISTMAS MASSES............

2012 brought steep climbs for many people in terms of the circumstances and realities faced during the course of this year.  Hurricanes, Mass Shootings, War, and threats of a Fiscal Cliff, among the most grievous of the events afflicting many persons, families, communities, and our Country, and the World during the past 366 Days of this Calendar Year.  For me it began in Mercy San Juan Hospital, battling a recurring infection, that the medical team finally determined was being caused by a contaminated antibiotic port surgically implanted in my under my right shoulder in September 2011.  Once it was removed and I completed the required antibiotic regimen, I have had no reoccurrence of infection anytime this year.  five and a half weeks in Mercy General Rehab doing physical therapy and progressing with walking with my prosthetic right leg, strengthened me sufficiently to be released by the doctors and therapists to return to the Our Lady of Lourdes parish rectory and begin to resume my priestly ministry, but the Bishop's Office decided otherwise and ordered me into Mercy McMahon Terrace retirement community / assisted care facility, for an indefinite involuntary exile which continues nine and a half months after it began on March 12th, being made to resign the pastorate of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish on May 15th, even after my coordinating doctor diagnosed me capable of doing parish pastoral ministry.  All of this unfolding and persisting in what has been my Silver Jubilee 25th Anniversary Year of Ordination to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ for the Diocese of Sacramento.  It has made this year the most unusual, and topsy turvy, year of my entire life, as the frustration of doing more than I am permitted to do has beset me like a fish out of water.  But thanks to the streamlined celebration of my Jubilee, and the magnanimous invitation of Msgr. Robert Walton, to join him, and Adult Faith Formation Director Rita Spillane, in assisting with the R.C.I.A., Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults ministry in Sacred Heart Parish, and the opportunity to concelebrate the Christmas Midnight Mass, and preach at it; then doing the same on Christmas Day with Msgr. Ed Kavanagh, my sidelined, under utilized, priestly ministry at present  - is being affirmed, appreciated, and valued, in a year when the powers that be have in the view of personal friends and former parishioners, chosen to warehouse me because I am in a wheelchair.  Despite the hardship 2012 has brought me, I am grateful for the priestly ministry I have been allowed to exercise intermittently and only partially, during this Jubilee year and to the persons who have supported and facilitated me fraternally, ministerially, and interpersonally.  I have tried through my blogging and social networking, to provide that kind of reassurance and support to others of you in my circle of friends and former parishioners.  Please God, whatever difficulties or crosses which have weighed on you during 2012 A.D., are lighterv and more tolerable on this 7th Day of Christmas, New Year's Eve - than they have been at other times this year.  Be strong.  Be brave.  Be courageous. Be not afraid.  No one else, no earthly thing, can diminish or deny you God's Love and the dignity, integrity, and equal opportunity, to live a purpose focused life, despite the illness, disease, or disability, through which you may have to experience it in breaking through the unenlightened  or underdeveloped responses others.  God Bless us all who have persevered during this year to celebrate Christmas and stand on the threshold of the New Year 2013............tdp