Fr. Peter and Judy Davids’ 2018 Advent Update

As we live in the Advent tension between the awaited
celebration of the incarnation of our Lord and the awaited revelation of his
rule, we thought we would sum up our year under three headings:

1. Judy, while still dealing with post-infectious
cardiomyopathy, was able to take two significant trips: first, in May she
traveled with her sister-in-law and sister (pictured below left) to Maui for
the wedding of her nephew Jeremy Turner to his fiancé Kristen; then, in late
July she traveled alone to Canada to the homes of two of our children and was
able to have time with all of our children, their spouses, and our
grandchildren. Peter is jealous, but she did what we could afford and what one
of the families could assist in financing. Meanwhile Judy continues as a cell
group leader for the Brothers and Sisters of Charity Domestic group meeting in
St Clare Monastery where we live and she continues her spiritual direction and
pastoral counseling ministry based in the monastery. 

2. June 30 Peter retired from all positions in the
Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, which means that he has no
“official” job nor salary/pension, although he is very active as a supply
priest in the San Jacinto Deanery of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and
also for St John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. On Nov 23 he was in The
Netherlands for the thesis defense and graduation of a PhD candidate he had
been co-supervising remotely, which may have closed off his teaching career. He
continues as NT Editor of Word Biblical Commentary and on the editorial board
of the Bulletin of Biblical Research. Of course, he also has his own writing
projects. We are pictured above at Peter’s retirement celebration.

3. Finally, after our both managing to get to his
birthday celebration on July 1, Peter’s younger brother Robert succumbed to
cancer on July 30, while Peter was attending the Catholic Biblical Association
in Denver. Peter, as well as our son Ian, was able to fly to Washington DC for
the funeral (Judy was in Canada). That is a significant transition in the
history of the Davids men, for now one has joined the previous generation in
the presence of our Lord, and it is only the oldest two who remain here. 

Obviously, many other significant events took place this
year, but these, we felt, were the major pivotal points of the year. We wish
you a blessed Christmas celebration and good entry into the new civil year.

Above right is Robert Davids between his
two brothers Peter and John on his birthday

May you have a blessed
Advent, Christmas, and New Year

For our King and his
Kingdom,

  Judy and Peter

We remain at the same address as last
year:

6921 Cutten Parkway, Houston, Texas, 77069, USA

pdavids@icloud.com or jldavids@me.com for
personal email

713-314-7886 (Peter) or 832-398-9519 (Judy). 

Peter publishes occasional blogs on phdavids.com and we
try to keep our webpage (www.davidsnet.ws/biblical) more or less
up to date.