Mt. St. Mary’s, Greenmeadows. 4/10/71. Dear Mum & Dad, It’s been raining a lot recently. Last Wednesday we had a conge & it rained then too. Rob. Devlin came out of hospital yesterday. He had been in for a fortnight. He hurt his leg some time ago at rugby, & it needed operating on. It is good now. The Marist appointments are due to come out any day now, & then we will learn who the new Novice Master is. Normally the changes come out at Christmas time, but Fr. Hickey likes to have everything under control! We will also learn where the young Fathers will have their first appointments – Fr. Devlin, Fitz., etc. Did I tell you that Fr. Bonisch (who has taught Philosophy here for the last 17 years) is going away in November? He will be away on Sabbatical leave for 6 months, & will tour over America, Europe, etc. The recent Provincial Chapter decided that the Seminary Staff should go on Sabbatical leave every few years. They get out of touch with the attest thought of overseas while living in N.Z., so if they can go overseas they can study the latest trends. Fr. Scully went away yesterday. He will spend all of October preaching the Diocesan Fathers’ Retreats (four of them) at “Futuna”. Meanwhile, he has left us a lot of moral theology to study, including an exam next Saturday. Last Saturday I got the Sabbatine, & had to get up for 15 minutes in front of everyone & tell them what I’d learnt in the last week. It was a moral theology Sabb. & I had to speak about the Virtues in general. Fr. Scully was taking it. I did quite well. Last Monday I went with about a dozen others to the annual Marriage Guidance meeting in Napier. Bishop Reeves, the new Anglican Bishop of Waipu, spoke. Personally, for a bishop I didn’t think he said anything worth saying, although he has a very pleasant personality, etc. We had supper with him afterwards. Well, I think that that’s all the news. Love from Bruce |