Donations: thank you!

A call from home just shared the news that three souls donated toward my college education in Rome: thank u, friends!

This was the best news all day as today I just felt sad the entire day. It was even impossible to fake smile while at school this morning. A kindly sister even asked if I was okay. Feeling low I just had to go to McDonalds and then take a walk in the sunshine of the Villa Borghese to enjoy the spring breeze and look for signs of spring.

The Lord in His kindness provides for each of us to enjoy the possibility of achieving our own perfection in a certain fullness of measure and also with some relative ease. Thank the Lord I am still here as a graduate student and that by grace Providence allowed me to hear that divine summons to Rome while in a blizzard in December of 2003.

There is no fiscal stimulus package for the graduate student abroad and it takes capital to get a college education. Ailing banks are not giving out much for student loans at this ill-chosen time and all is acerbated by the now world meltdown. All has inadvertently killed the tourist business in Rome. As kids we heard our grandparents speak of the spectre of '29 and now we have a small taste of it in '09.

Thank you, Christian souls. May you be rewarded a thousand fold in this world as in the next. You were prayed for today in the sunny Villa Borghese park on the edge of Rome's old Campo Marzio and I carry your intentions in my heart to the tombs of the Blessed Apostles. Let us pray!