Transportation...

Say hello to the new (to me...) set of wheels. The Kia was beginning to show her age, and we had a tearful farewell. I traded her in while I could still get a reasonable value for the trade-in (I put 130,000 miles on her during my tenure in Meade County alone - a pastor of two parishes outside of the city does a LOT of driving, let me assure you).

The new mode of transportation is an '06 Nissan Frontier. I had a topper put on her (yes, the truck is a female), and just today finished equipping the inside of the bed. I cut a piece of plywood to fit, carpeted it, and then made some built-in shelving for storage. Not bad for an amateur, if I do say so myself:



Check out the license plate, oh yeah!:

Sunday within the Octave of Christmas...

A short video of today's Mass. Stay tuned through the end of the video for the postlude of the Mass, as well as a look into the sacristy...

Mass for Christmas...

Here's a video of Mass for Christmas Day at St. Martin's. The Mass celebrated was the "Mass during the day," of which the gospel for the Mass is the prologue of John, usually the last gospel of the Mass. As usual, the choir did a wonderful job. This video is of the offertory, for which they sang a beautiful version of the "Ave Maria."

Fourth Sunday of Advent...

Mass today from St. Martin of Tours:

Christmas Break...

Finals are over; another semester is completed. I am now officially at the half-way mark with the JCL: 3 semesters down, 3 more to go. Made the 9 1/2 hour drive yesterday through the (thankfully) non-snowy mountains. Now I'm looking forward to three weeks at home. I've got the 12:30 Mass this Sunday (4th Advent) and Christmas day at St. Martin of Tours... in anticipation of the great music provided by the choir of St. Martin's, here's a video of my favorite carol:

The Final Latin Class...

OK, our final Latin class was this evening. Faithful followers of "The Ultramontanist" will know that my JCL class here at the Catholic University is a bit, shall we say, "different." We like to have a good time. Sometimes we're a little over the top. Anyway, we have fun doing it. The Canon Law program requires that we have three semesters of Latin (on top of however much you might have had before). This would seem at first to be a burden, but in fact it has been a wonderful class. Our professor has had a lot to do with that. So we couldn't let our final class pass by without marking the occasion appropriately. In classic JCL II fashion, we had to come up with something that was over the top. Surprise our professor by bringing cookies and drinks to class? Are you kidding!!! No, no, no. That wouldn't work at all. One of the guys had an inspiration: hire a Mariachi band to come to class unannounced! Now THAT'S more like it! Enjoy:

End of the Semester...

It's getting on to the end of the semester. The next two weeks will be going quick with papers coming due and final exams to prepare for. The weather is going to be turning nasty too. They are predicting a chance of snow here in the District over the weekend. Today was THE day, then, to get away for what will most likely be the last fishing outing of the year. No luck today, though. The river was up and running fast from the recent rains. Now I need to finish two papers and get ready for exams in a week and a half...



(This is the same spot where I caught that big brown trout last month. Maybe one of these days I'll actually have the camera on when I catch a fish...)