Light Show in the Clouds

It has been an exceptionally busy week with the beginning of Lent. But there was still time to play!

I had never made the ashes for Ash Wednesday before…until this past week! The ash comes from teh burning of the old blessed palms of last Palm Sunday of the Lord's PassionWith the help of Fr. Gerard (and our parishioners) we collected three grocery bags full of dried palms. (And other garbage…why do people put in all they can't throw out? We had old bread rolls and a bunch of sticks, too!) I thought we had too many palms but it all burns up and just leaves a bit of ash! Here is a photo of me with a burning pile of palms (1). We set the blaze in a wheelbarrow. The fire got so hot that the front tire, that touched the metal of the wheelbarrow, started to smoke! To be honest, I was a little nervous when the wind had picked up while we were doing this and burning ashes started flying. Thankfully we had had a lot of rain before and the plants were well soaked. Still, I had worries of another burned up friary! (I could see the police arresting me as a serial arsonist friar!)

We have had rain and rain and more rain since the last summer heat wave. A couple weeks back, in the transition period between the fiery end of summer and the start of wet fall, we had a spectacular sunset! The clouds in the east became a huge canvas for the setting sun. These photos (2-17) were all taken in one evening. I kept snappung as the sky just kept changing. After the sun had finally set, the contrast was even more stark. Just look at how the clouds transformed from warm orange (14-15) to the cooler blues and purples (16-17). This all happened in a matter of minutes. Wow!!! Even more powerful was teh scope: the whole expanse of heaven kept changing. You really had to be here to get the full effect, but you get some idea from these photos. God is good!

These are some flowers around the school (18-20). The last couple of images are details of a tree that blooms bright purple flowers all over: Very pretty.

We had a good bye party for Fr. Robert who heads back to the States for much needed rest for a couple of months. He has been here in Australia for 2 years without any real break. Parishioner Soo (21) claims she's not a baker, yet made this awesome riccota cheesecake (22). Here is a shot of the whole group (23), the friars pose closest to the camera. Fr. Robert is sitting to my left.