The Year That Was and the Year That Will Be

2007 has been quite a year for the Catherine of Siena Institute: 78 live events in total - including 46 Called & Gifted workshops, 5 parish missions, 9 one-of-a-kind presentations; 12 gifts-related training events, and 2 Making Disciples seminars.

December 31 will mark the end of our first year of blogging here at ID. You have paid us over 90,000 visits this year. While that is nothing compared to the big boys and girls (before she cut back to spend more time writing, Amy Welborn probably had that many visitors in a month!), we're happy.

We have written our 1300 posts this year in and around those 78 events and the 500 plane flights required to get our many wonderful teachers to those events, between answering the thousands of phone calls and e-mails from all over the world, publishing and shipping out thousands of formation books and cds, and responding to hundreds of donors whose continual generosity enables us to do all the rest. Oh yeah, and then there's the continuous research and writing necessary to keep producing new lay formation resources. God has blessed and sustained us in the midst of the never ending demands.

It makes for erratic but interesting blogging and I wanted to say "thank you, thank you!" to all who have dropped by this year and especially to those of you who have commented and added to the richness of the conversation. And thanks to Fr. Mike, Kathleen, the other Sherry, Keith, Br. Matthew, Bernadette, JACK and all who have posted on ID this year.

2008 is shaping up to be even busier: so far we have 50 events on the Institute calendar and the year hasn't begun: 30 Called & Gifted workshops, 9 parish missions (Fr. Mike is the mission king!), 4 special events (including some very exceptional gigs like World Youth Day!) and 5 Making Disciples seminars.

But we are also looking forward to another year of blogging on Intentional Disciples. A Happy and Blessed New Year to you all!