The official blog of Rev. Francis X. Hezel, SJ

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Taka Alphons: A Heart That Keeps Beating
2
Learning to Pray
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The Holiday Book Signing
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Christmas 2015
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Guam As It Looks To Me Now
6
Paul Horgan: A Man of Quiet Dedication, A Friend of All
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Jobs and the Economy: It?s Only Going to Get Worse
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Island Soldier

Taka Alphons: A Heart That Keeps Beating

Less than a month ago, on January 18, we gathered in a church in Kaneohe, Hawaii, to be with Taka Alphons and Pat Billington as they solemnized their marriage after 30 years of life together. It was clearly a touching moment for them, with joy radiating from their faces, and for all of their friends who were there to cheer them on. We already knew that Taka and Pat would leave Hawaii two days later for California where Taka was scheduled to have a heart transplant.

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Learning to Pray

People sometimes think that religious things come easy to those of us who are priests and sisters. But the truth is that we have to learn how to pray. People may think that prayer, which can be so boring and dry for them, is a garden of delights for the ?pros??those whose name is prefixed by the title Father or Sister. But even those of us who have been trying to pray for many years would never claim this.

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The Holiday Book Signing

At a Christmas party thrown by the archdiocese on December 30, I was surprised when a number of people approached me holding copies of a booklet that had just been published and asked for my signature. It seems that the pastors and the heads of schools had received wrapped copies of the book at the party. For me the luncheon quickly turned into a book signing event.

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Guam As It Looks To Me Now

?Where America?s day begins,? is how they used to describe Guam years ago. That?s what I once thought, too, during my early visits to the island in the 1970s. Guam always seemed like a marvelous shopping mall to those of us coming from Chuuk, Pohnpei, Yap and less developed islands. We could find everything there we couldn?t access in the smaller islands?air-conditioned movie theaters, fast food places, good restaurants that offered the tomatoes and lettuce and other delights we yearned for back on our own islands.

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Paul Horgan: A Man of Quiet Dedication, A Friend of All

Paul spent much of his adult life in Yap doing parish ministry, but with so little fanfare that many Yapese wouldn?t have been able to tell you much more about him other than that he was a priest. He was quiet, something of a church mouse, unless he was riled. But if you made friends with him, you had a friend for life. For most of his life he smoked a pipe. Sometimes the only way you could tell he was around was the curl of pipe smoke from his room.

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