Reconciliacion y Perdon en la Familia

That was the theme of last night's speaker, reconciliation and forgiveness in the family. It was a fundraiser dinner for the Catholic church with an amazing chicken, rice, beans, and tortillas dinner followed by the priest from Santa Rosa de Copan (about 2 hours away). I was very excited about the priest speaking from the second that I saw him because he probably has one of the coolest beards that I've seen in a long time. So I thought, "well, if this is boring I can stare at the movement of his beard." It's simple, but that's the life of Copan.:)
Anyways, beard aside, this guy was the best speaker that I have heard in a long time! He involved the crowd a lot in saying things such as, "I desire to desire to forgive." I think that was from Ignatius of Loyola. Or his own creations of phrases such as demonstrating how ridiculous it is to say who holds resentment so we all said, "I am resentful. You are resentful. He is resentful. She is resentful. We are resentful. They are resentful." To add to the demonstration we got to point at I, you, he/she, we, and they. Ok, that was not the most eventful part of the evening, but it did stand out in my mind cause it was fun to point at somebody and tell them, "you are resentful!"
He talked about all sorts of issues related to forgiveness and how much better it is to forgive than to resent with regards to the friendship, your physical being, your mental being, your friendship with others, your faith, everything. My favorite part was him telling the story of his family. Isn't that always the best part? The speaker gives an example from their life and you just assume he's not making it up for emotional heart strings purposes.:) He entered the priesthood after studying psychology in college and so on top of being a priest he's a psychologist. That's like getting a communications degree and then becoming a pastor.:) Ok, so the priest's dad never wanted him to go into ministry and made that very clear to the point of not talking to him once he began studying for it. It was a pretty hurtful thing for him, his dad had several various women and was just a fairly destructive sounding person in their family. Anyways, it comes around to him in the process of dieing from cancer one August. His family took care of him while he was only weeks away from passing away. The priest's father got to the point in his illness that he could no longer swallow and so he went over to his dad and said, "You're not doing so well dad. Would you like to have your last rites?" His dad accepted and he said that it was one of the most reconciling/forgiving things that he has done to be able to send his father off and have his father finally accept him. If that didn't sound good then there are three options for why it was an anti-climatic story. 1) It sounds better in Spanish. 2) I translated it poorly. 3) You had to be there. I thought it was a cool story though.:)
Anyways, I'm going to get back to painting my new apartment. Yes, once again, I've moved...three apartment in one year. I can't keep this up forever!