At the Dayton Catholic Homeschool Conference

As mentioned a few days ago, I was one of several speakers last Saturday at the Dayton Catholic Homeschool Conference at St. Peter Church in Huber Heights.

I enjoyed it immensely, although I was rather concerned, as the end of the week drew nigh, whether I'd run out of time to prepare my talks. As it happened, everything seemed to go well.

The day started with Mass, with Archbishop Dennis Schnurr as the principal celebrant. With the addition of a children's choir, many concelebrants and a lot of energetic folks, this was no ordinary Saturday morning Mass!

Then Father Earl Simone, pastor of St. Peter, had a nice breakfast for the Archbishop and the clergy; the main thing was so the Archbishop could get acquainted with the homeschool association; I was merely along for the ride, and enjoyed a pretty fancy breakfast!

Father Earl Fernandes, Academic Dean of Mount Saint Mary Seminary of the West (our archdiocesan seminary)--and a good friend from seminary--and I were trading friendly jibes over cups of coffee; insofar as my talk and his were at the same time, I hoped he wouldn't feel too badly about no one coming to his talk. Well, we were having some coffee when it dawned on us that maybe the Archbishop--who had left--was about to make his remarks, and it wouldn't do for us to miss that! We didn't, thankfully.

Anyway, I had two talks, which I'll post shortly. One was for parents, on equipping children with spiritual armor, and the other was for the teens, on social justice, and how we must be God's "not-so-secret agents" in pursuing social justice. I was so encouraged by the fathers who were present, and the teens. After the latter talk, I had one boy, who I think was about 16, very respectfully question part of my interpretation of the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man; good for him!