A FRIENDLY, FRATERNAL AND FAMILY, VISIT FROM FATHER BILL KINANE AND THREE OF HIS NIECES..............

Now in the twenty sixth month of  being made to subsist in a personal purgatory of geriatrics without being one, under appreciated and warehoused to the extent that my persistence to proceed in priestly led me to prayerfully discern a proactive way forward by resuming my postgraduate education and studies for a Doctor  of Ministry degree  in Pastoral Care, which started last week; it is a wonderful opportunity when I am able to visit and interact with my brother priests.  During these two years plus in the daily twilight zone of a senior citizens center detached from the regularity as a 57 year old priest from residing in a rectory and being engaged in parish life it is a true joy when colleagues who continue  to truly care  about me as a fellow priest and as a person, reach out to visit me in affirmation of our fraternity and friendship.  A dozen of them have maintained that quality of contact, three of them coming to see me in recent weeks.  The latest being on Monday being Reverend Father Bill Kinane, who from September 26, 1988 - May 14, 1992, I served with he as Pastor and me as Associate Pastor at St. John the Baptist Parish in Folsom.  Monday Bill telephoned to tell me he wanted to come and see me with a niece visiting him from Ireland.  They arrived an hour later with another of his nieces who has lived in New York for twenty five years and one of his grand nieces.  His niece Alice now lives in Urlingford, County Kilkenny; the hometown of Msgr. Edward Kavanagh's family and the locality where my  seminary classmate Fr. Oliver Maher is the Parish Priest. It was a delightful conversation with the four  Kinane family members and the chance to meet Alice who owns 'Away With Flowers', in Urlingford  with whom I had only spoken to by phone during the past year,.  I am grateful to Bill Kinane  for thinking enough of me to include me in his nieces visit to Sacramento.  It affirms I am not forgotten or unappreciated by persons and priests like him who continue to honor the fraternity of priests..............fr.tdp