Road Trip, Part I - New Orleans

St. Louis Cathedral - New Orleans

The reality of destruction that New Orleans, Southeast Texas and South Louisiana suffered in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita only hit home for me when we visited these areas today (June 13, 2007). On this feast of St. Anthony of Padua I saw some of the results of what happened, nearly two years ago. Trees still stand, stripped bare of their branches like stakes stuck into the ground for hundreds of miles. Homes still have tarps on their roofs to protect them from the elements throughout the damaged areas. You can still see the water lines on buildings in New Orleans that completely ruined them.

The area is swarmed with people who are working on buildings making repairs. It must be such a daunting thing to have to re-build so much.

Tonight we will sleep on the floor of a school. I won’t complain tonight that there is no shower or comfortable bed. I still am blessed with a solid roof over my head unlike some who have water leaking through their roofs and the tarps on top of those.

Holy Name Of Jesus Church - Loyola, New Orleans

Please say some special prayers for those who are still recovering from the hurricanes. It is too easy to forget about them when time passes.

St. Anthony pray for those still recovering for the hurricane victims!

UPDATE - The Jesuits who hosted us could not have said "no". Texas A&M has 14 Aggies in formation for their province out of 30. One of the Aggies came and talked to our students about his call into religious life, it was a good time and a hard floor!