FR. DWIGHT LONGENECKER

People are sometimes confusedby my accent.“Are you English?” they ask. Not with a name like mine! No indeed. I am a Yank through and through. I was brought up in Pennsylvania and went to college in South Carolina, but the English accent thing is because I overdosed on C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot and on a youthful dream, a touch of luck, a dash of chutzpah and a large dose of divine Providence I went to study at Oxford and live in England. For twenty-five years I lived in that beautiful, damp land. For twenty-five years I did not celebrate the American feast of Thanksgiving.

However, during my exile I did eat turkey at Christmas with the English. I cracked the Christmas cracker. I wore the paper crown. I ate soft brussels sprouts, drank the sweet sherry with Christmas cake. I saw them set the Christmas…