Exercise and rest are among the prescriptions Archbishop Eugene Marino, SSJ, is having to follow, according to his colleagues who have spoken briefly with him on the telephone.

Marianne MacNeill, one of his secretaries, said the archbishop telephoned her May 11 to work out a business matter and told her he was getting ready to go running. “He said we were all in his thoughts and prayers and that he missed everyone,” she said. Gerard O’Connor, his assistant, assured him that he was getting a stack of cards and well-wishes at his office.

Several secretaries are responding to the many people who have sent letters and notes to the archbishop’s office since he was announced as suffering from exhaustion and in danger of cardiac stress.

The most recent medical news passed on to Father Edward Dillon, vicar general, is that the archbishop’s blood pressure is stabilized, but still higher than doctors would like it to be. “They would like him to get back to his exercising,” Father Dillon said, and are adjusting blood pressure medication, but have not asked him to enter the hospital.

He is seeing doctors several times a week, Father Dillon said, and staying at the nearby retreat center where he is trying to adjust to a needed schedule of rest and quiet. Doctors are still unwilling to specify when it will be appropriate for the archbishop to resume his duties, Father Dillon said.