We finally moved back into our House of Studies in New Orleans on January 5th, after four months of living in exile, one at Marylake and the other three at our Nuns in Covington. The first week was tough. We had electricity, but no gas. That meant cold showers, which didn’t seem to bother Brother Joseph Le. Our Fr. Provincial, however, drove over to his parents home in Harrah to take a shower. Recall that we had to ditch both refrigerator and freezer in our first visit to the house after the hurricane hit. Brother Joseph Le’s status as a Katrina refugee is questionable since he moved out just before Katrina to make a six month "second novitiate" in our monastery in Oklahoma City in preparation for his solemn profession which took place in San Antonio on the Feast of the Holy Family. Here are a couple of on-the-scene reports.

Greetings from New Orleans. Joseph Le and I moved back into our house here last Thursday [the 5th], and I've been pre-occupied with trying to get things up and running. We will not have the natural gas turned back on until Wednesday, so we are still without heat, hot water, a stove and a clothes dryer. Over the weekend, I resumed the work of switching room and office, combined with sorting through four months of accumulated papers/mail, etc. What a mess! On the cold days, I confined myself to one room, which I warmed with a portable heater. The rest of the house was really cold!

–Fr. Gregory 09-Jan-06

Things here are slowly getting back to normal. Our new refrigerator and freezer are being delivered today [Monday], so we will now have "all the conveniences of modern life" once again!

–Fr. Gregory 23-Jan-06

We have frig and deepfreezer now, along with all the utilities, phones and internet. Big seminary [photo] next door to us does not have phones. The city is coming back in some parts; in others it is like post war zones. What disaster. At the day of recollection last Saturday at a New Orleans parish, I had to give time to people to emote in public before getting to the subject of bring the Beatitudes to this post-Katrina/Rita period. They responsed well. Even men shed tears when speaking. They have really been through a lot of loss, big time loss. I feel we Carmelites are among the fortunate ones. I also felt I had little to bring in terms of experience to people who suffered so much.

–Fr. Sam 26-Jan-06