Steve Oldham, Prep teacher, and I accompanied seven rising seniors from Saint Joseph's Prep on a service trip to Camden. The students were willing and generous and spent the week visiting with the homeless, the disabled, the elderly and people with HIV. They learned a lot about the poverty and lack of opportunity that are a plague in Camden.

Below is my recent reflection on discipleship when preaching on the sixth chapter of Mark where Jesus encourages his disciples to take some time in prayer and reflection away from the crowds of people that seem always to impose themselves:

"My last year of work with a variety of young men of high school age, many of them talented and privileged, underlined what has been my general experience in the past. Young people want to show off their goodness. But many have been sheltered and need to be shepherded in other directions, especially into relationships with those in need. They will respond to these relationships with more compassion than cynicism. They will respond to these relationships with more love than indifference.

In the last century we did much that calls for repentance. But we had celebrated leaders that told us the truth in their preaching and in their lives. The list of great saints, in civil and in church society, often in both, is a litany that leads me to look on the last century as a time of great prophetic work. But we need to ask the question about their heritage in the present century and about their disciples: where are the disciples of Dr. King and Dorothy Day today? Where are the disciples of Mother Theresa and John the XXIII today? Where are the disciples of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi today?

I think that they are everywhere; whether their work is ecumenical or environmental, whether their work is peacemaking or social economics, we pray that they will hear an invitation from the Lord to take a break and to learn from him about compassion for people and trust in the Father."

Here I am with my Prep classmate, Ed Trainer, and his wife, Marilyn. Ed went on to Saint Joseph's University and, after graduation, took part in the leadership of alumni organizations for many years. He received the Hogan Award from the Alumni Association at SJU in the presence of many admirers including his four children and his grandchildren. Ed spoke about Father Hogan, the orator, who used to preach the Seven Last Words of Good Friday at the Church of the Gesu. It was SRO with speakers in the street.

Ed also said that he learned from his parents to always say "Yes, Father" whenever a Jesuit asks for help. I told him that the present generation of Prep boys has a variation on this: "No problem, Father."

Day by day in downtown Philadelphia it is difficult to pay any attention to the sky. But while on retreat in Wernersville I do not tire of the sunrises and sunsets, some of them spectacular. This month of June,2009, Venus was the brilliant morning star with Mars as a steady sidekick.

While going through the retreat I read some of Karl Rahner's anthropology. He speaks of human nature as essentially open to the mystery of God. This openness allows God to assume human nature and perfect it in the life of the Lord Jesus. We humans all have such natures and the possibility of allowing something similar to happen to us, of giving ourselves in love; the beatific vision is our final state.

Our mission at the Prep is surely not chiefly academic and social. We must first find the strategies to help our young men understand the meaning and the end of their human natures.

Jeanne and Ed Watko celebrated their 60th anniversary this June. Their daughter Jeanne Marie (Patrick) arranged for me to have Mass in her home for the whole family, five children with their spouses and the grandchildren. The family filled the occasion with joy.

Michael Gomez, Stubbs and I enjoy a Citizens' Bank gift, a private suite to watch the Phillies play the Toronto Jays. We had the pleasant duty of being there with some of the Prep baseball players. Unfortunately neither of our star pitchers was eligible to help out on the field and the Phils lost.

I saw a blunder that I never saw before. Toronto player gets a walk and realizes that noone is paying attention to him...he steals second without any difficulty!

More later about Dr. Byron McCook and the party on the main deck of the Moshulu to celebrate his doctorate in educational leadership.

Sister Francis Joseph, R.A. (Religious of Assumption) celebrates her 90th birthday with a party in the garden of Saint Francis of de Sales Church. Sr. Francis has had her picture taken with Popes while she worked with groups of religious in Rome. She tells tales of dinners with Pope John Paul and Father Pedro Arrupe. Here she enjoys a photo with students from West Philadelphia Catholic High School including Jose Babba and two of his friends.