"So why do you think people find the choice you've made to be such a novelty, even a kind of scandal?"
"I think, it's because this is a hidden life," Brother John Braught says, "Many people don't even know that monks still exist." He continues, "People don't know what it is, or what happens here. So there's a kind of monk mystique behind the enclosure." Tall and made more so by the length of his black habit, Br. John Braught is one of three Society of Saint John (SSJE) brothers who've agreed to speak with me for forty minutes each on this chilly Maundy Thursday of Holy Week.
BOSTON – The Massachusetts House of Representatives unanimously passed a $39.6 billion fiscal 2017 budget bill Wednesday afternoon, shipping its spending plan to the Senate where a debate is planned in May to shape its vision of what state outlays should look like beginning July 1.
The budget bill was approved after two-plus days of deliberations marked by light and sporadic debate, with most of the decisions made in a House ante-room where lawmakers were instructed to go and talk to Ways and Means Chairman Brian Dempsey about their hundreds of amendments.
