Lucky Thirteen!

Well, it's that time of year and we're doing all the usual San Cristóbal Christmasy stuff. Yesterday we packed our Love Baskets, packages of food which we distribute to the poor. Each package contains everything necessary for a Christmas dinner for a family. This year the bags contain: Canned vegetables; fruit juice; cooking oil; crema de maiz; elbow macaroni; lentils; 2 lbs of rice; mayo; flour; sugar; milk; eggs; one chicken; a christmas cake. Tomorrow we'll sing carols and distribute the packages. Here are some photos of the volunteers packing the bags.

Some of the stuff going into the packages



Volunteers





We packed 100 bags by the time we were finished.


It's also time to put up the Nacimiento. The past few years the nacimiento has taken over most of the space in la Capilla del Buen Pastor (Chapel of the Good Shepherd). They were incredible but it takes a lot of work to assemble and even more work to take the whole thing down, so we decided to be less extravagant this year. Here are some photos of the preparations. Tomorrow I'll post photos of the finished product.



Today is the thirteenth anniversary of my priesting. Thirteen years ago this evening members of St. Francis' Episcopal Church and St. Philip's Episcopal Church, both of San José, and the people of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley, California, came together at St. Mark's as the Rt. Rev. Richard Shimpfky, Bishop of the diocese of El Camino Real and many of my colleagues laid hands on me and I was ordained as a priest in Christ's holy catholic Church. It was a wonderful night. Many of my professors and classmates from C.D.S.P. participated, and the Rev. Dr. John Kater, Jr., preached. So today I spent the day doing priesty thangs. I preached and presided at our Healing Mass this morning at 7:30, and then assisted the Rt. Rev. Julio E. Murray, Bishop of Panamá as Profesora Constance Hayes, wife of the late Bishop Hayes (the Bishop who brought the Lovely Mona and I to Panamá) was laid to rest. Then I spent the afternoon finishing up stuff for Christmas Day and the first Sunday of Christmas and starting to plan a funeral for Tuesday next. I also practiced the Xmas carols for tomorrow. And tonight I'm having Chinese food, just like Jesus did.