Summer Fun

Our Holydays camp continues each week - and on Tuesdays I bake cookies with the campers (4 times actually & there are 5 batches in total!) 
Here is the first batch of cookies from this week.

This morning 40 Pilgrims from Holy Family, and St. Benedict's headed off to Franciscan University in Stuebenville, Ohio for the "Defending the faith Conference".  Many of them went to the Charismatic Retreat a year ago in June (2012), and participated in the Life in the Spirit Seminar last Fall.  We keep them in our prayers these days...

This week also marks World Youth Day in Brazil! Rio de Janeiro is hosting a series of important events in the next few years - World Youth Day, World Cup Soccer, and the Summer Olympics in 2016.  This week has already had a series of marvelous gatherings and for Pope Francis the trip so far has  has brought a little bit of everything: crowds so pumped up for the pope they created security nightmares, Francis at his pastoral best at the Marian shrine of Aparecida, and a powerful message of solidarity with the poor in a Rio slum.
All that would be enough to make the outing memorable, and yet the main event hasn't even happened. Pope Francis will participate in the traditional Via Crucis procession for World Youth Day on Friday night (from Copacabana Beach!).  He will also attend an evening vigil Saturday, and celebrate the open-air Mass for what's expected to be as many as 2 million people Sunday.  You can watch everything live on Salt and Light (Rogers cable 240 here in Bolton).