Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 4:55 PM

On Inauguration Day, the border with Mexico was closed for migrants and refugees. Our shelter continued on for a few days, but ultimately had to close, along with the other shelters in El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M. We had moved here to El Paso to work with the migrants, but the opportunity to do that has really disappeared.

Meanwhile, the provincial administration has been desperately looking for friars -- particularly bilingual ones -- for Macon, Georgia.

The city of Macon has around 500 places of worship -- including a couple of synagogues and a mosque -- and only three of them are Catholic parishes. We presently have three friars in Macon, working at two of the three parishes. But, two of the friars are slated to move for other work, so the province was going to have to withdraw from the parishes in Macon -- until they heard that we were available.

There's a big parish downtown run by diocesan priests. We have the other two parishes.

One, where I'll be living, is a pretty typical mostly-white Catholic parish. The other one is more interesting. It's located in a black neighborhood. At the English Masses, however, the congregation is pretty mixed racially. This parish also has the only Mass in Spanish in Macon, so latinos come from all over the area. The church is packed for the Spanish Mass!

We are now busy packing and getting ready for the move, which should hopefully happen before the end of May.