Let Us Begin Again...

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #13 Church of the Holy Sepulcher Part II

2011-01-13T19:35:00.002+01:00

December 31, 2010 1:15 AM

Day #13 (strictly speaking)

We're nearly in the home stretch now. These people never sleep- the Greek nuns have literally taken all night to just mop a small ring-shaped corridor around this place. It's incredible. Everyone rang their bells at around 11:30 PM, the Greeks have incensed everything in this place twice since then. So have the Coptics and the Armenians, actually. They've been singing their Mass the last thirty minutes, I think. Even the Latin priests all got up and prayed Matins and Lauds this evening around midnight-ish for thirty or forty minutes. They chanted the whole thing in Latin.

I read and meditated upon the Easter Vigil readings for a while and prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries on Calvary. I think I'm going to wander around for a little while then try to almost finish out the night by reading the Gospel of Luke. We'll see what happens.

I've been doing fine thus far, but I'm fading. My mood is good, but the singing and the bright artificial lights are starting to get to me...

(Note: I did not have another journal entry until after I was back in Rome. The evening finished at 4:00 AM and they opened the doors to let us out and let the pilgrims waiting for entry into the church. There were several guys from our pilgrimage group, looking to get a little last minute prayer in there, so it was like the NAC changing of the guard. We went back, I showered, then we got a few hours of sleep, packed, went to Mass, and headed back to Rome. All went well enough- I was feeling a little sick and was totally sapped after the previous evening, but it was all 1000% worth it. Praise God!)

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #12b Church of the Holy Sepulcher Part I

2011-01-13T17:54:00.003+01:00

December 30, 2010 10:45 PM

Day #12

So I'm sitting in front of the Holy Sepulcher right now. We're locked in for the night. To continue from my last note, the rest of our time in Bethlehem was very blessed. Mass turned out just fine. I was very moved at the sign of peace, since up to that point I had been pretty irked by the preceding series of events. I tried very hard to offer that anger and annoyance to our Lord early in the Mass so that I might worthily participate and, lo and behold He took it.

We then ate a decent lunch and I made a ton of purchases. I bought numerous rosaries and Jerusalem crosses, which I touched to the stone of Calvary and to original wall of the Holy Sepulcher this evening, praying for each of the people who would receive them. They finally opened up the Nativity grotto and I was able to go down and pray there while the shop owner put together a beautiful crucifix for me (well, beautiful for something in its price range, anyway). I was able to spend some time praying there, which was incredibly moving.

We had also visited Ein Kerem, which is where Mary visited Elizabeth when she was pregnant with John. It was nice but nothing spectacular. They did have some beautiful Marian artwork; my favorite was one with Mary wrapping her mantle, with the help of some angels, around all the people praying for her intercession. Please wrap us all in your mantle, dear Mother!

So we returned to Jerusalem, had a sharing of graces after our pilgrimage, which was very rich and is always so edifying and encouraging, then we had a quick dinner and came here. We are almost half-way through the evening, now. (They imposed three rules on us when we got here. The first was that we couldn't light any candles and walk around with them. The third was that there was absolutely no sleeping during our time in the Sepulcher. I cannot remember the second, to be honest. It was probably something like 'leave the Orthodox alone.') Anyway, the evening began with the ritual door-closing ceremony, after which they kindly offered to give us a tour of some of the off-limits areas. We got to see the Armenian excavations to the foundations of the original Holy Sepulcher Church of Constantine. Then the Franciscans showed us their private chapels and the upper levels of the church. We also got to see their living quarters- one was riding a stationary bike just a level above the Holy Sepulcher, which we found hilarious. They actually used to even sleep in the rotunda a level up all around the Holy Sepulcher. How incredible would that be!

I then spent time praying at Calvary, followed by a Holy Hour in the Holy Sepulcher. No visions or ecstasies, but it was a good time of prayer. I was able to focus for most of it and really mean what I prayed, so praise God. The Orthodox just took the Sepulcher from us not long ago, but they've been pretty quiet thus far. We'll see what happens as the night progresses. +AMDG

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #12a Bethlehem

2011-01-13T17:47:00.002+01:00

December 30, 2010 11:00 AM

Day #12

Well, we should be having Mass right now, but another group is taking waaaay too long. We're here in Bethlehem, a hilly, dirty, overdeveloped little hovel of a town. The Church is surrounded by riot police right now because they chose this blessed day to clean the grotto of the Nativity, which of course has caused all the Christians to come to blows over who has the right to do the cleaning. AND since they are cleaning right now we are not permitted in to see the place of Jesus' birth. If you can't tell, this isn't the quiet, peaceful, prayerful place I expected. Well, whatever, such is life. I just hope we make it back to Jerusalem in time to get everything done before spending the night in the Holy Sepulcher. "Let us too go to die with Him." +AMDG

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #11b The Franciscans and the Praetorium

2011-01-11T21:32:00.003+01:00

December 29, 2010 6:15 PM

Day #11

So I wound up going to Pilate's place, St. Anne's Church where Mary was born, and the Pool of Bethesda. I also went to a procession in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with the Franciscans this evening. It was very beautiful- a ton of ancient hymns and chants. It also never made you so proud to pray in Latin, in the midst of all of the other rites and eastern orthodox in that Church. You quickly realize here in the Holy Land how necessary a strong ritual identity is. It makes you proud to be a Latin-rite Catholic. These Franciscans aren't your run-of-the-mill Franciscans, either. These are pretty hardcore by all appearances, the defenders of the Catholic tradition in the Holy Land.

Tomorrow we go to Bethlehem and to the site of the Visitation, then I need to quickly finish my shopping and get ready for a night in the Holy Sepulcher. +AMDG

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #11a Mass at the Sepulcher

2011-01-11T20:30:00.003+01:00

December 29, 2010 7:30 AM

Day #11

What an incredible morning- I would say these have quite possibly been a few of the best hours of my life. I was hit by grace like a bombshell this morning. We left the pilgrim house at 4:30 AM to celebrate Mass in Jesus' empty tomb. That was so humbling, to receive the sacramental Risen Lord from an altar maybe two feet above the slab from which He rose. I got to touch the original tomb rocks, which are hidden under an icon of our Lady.

After Mass I prayed a holy hour back up on Calvary. How much Jesus loved us! I was thinking of the love I sometimes feel for my family and closest friends and how much infinitely more Jesus loves each and every one of us, yet I thought that so strong a love would surely kill a man! But is that not exactly what happened? Is that not exactly what our Lord did? Did He not love us to the end? He did not need to die to redeem us, but He so desired out of love- He loved us so much that He died to show it, that, with His consent, it killed Him. Who are we to merit such a Redeemer, such a Lord, God, and friend?

That homily one of our priests gave discussed how we see so many instances in the Gospels of people just longing to be with Jesus, and how we, too, long to be with Him, yet how very much He longs to be with us, so much so that He gave us Himself in the Eucharist! Last night we had our holy hour at Gethsemane and a friend of mine who's pretty good with his Greek noted that the word used for 'stay with me' by Jesus in addressing the disciples in the Garden is almost always used by the disciples addressing Jesus, but here He is asking them to do the same. God longs for us to stay with Him- as He told us from the cross, 'I thirst.'

That time praying before our Lord in the Garden was very good. I realized just how beautiful that Church really is. I spent my time praying with Isaiah 40-42 and the Suffering Servant stuff from Isaiah 50-55ish. How beautiful and how obviously Christological it all was. It is easy for us to ask it in hindsight, but how could they not have seen this in Christ?! How could they not have understood the prophecy? How good our Lord is to us poor followers of little faith.

Later today we go to the Wailing Wall and St. Anne's Church. I also want to go to Pilate's place, the praetorium, and the 'Ecce Homo' Arch, and try to get back to the Dormition Abbey and St. Peter in Gallicantu.

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #10 The Room and the Rock

2011-01-11T17:25:00.002+01:00

December 28, 2010 3:00 PM

Day #10

This morning we had Mass at the Franciscan chapel abutting the Cenacle (which is now a mosque, remember). One of our priests gave an excellent homily about the Eucharist and God's desire to be with us. I broke away rather quickly from the group after Mass and went to visit the Dome of the Rock/ the Temple Mount/ Mount Moriah. It was nearly closed when we got there, so we didn't have long, but we got to look around and spend some time up there. They informed us that we would never be able to go inside and see the rock, but we got to see the rest of the place. It was more edifying than I thought it would be, especially after a talk given to us by a Legionary the night before which helped to pull all the places of salvation history together for us. I was walking in the place where Abraham was ready to offer up Isaac, his 'only begotten son.' Jesus probably would have been able to see that spot from Calvary, the Only-Begotten, the Lamb of Sacrifice offered up just as the Father had promised to Abraham that short distance away so many years prior.

I tried to go to the Dormition Abbey again to pray, but it was closing just as I arrived, so I ate lunch with some of the guys. I really enjoyed myself with them. They're a good group of God-fearing men. Afterward, two of us decided to try to make it over to Gethsemane, but it was closed, so we tried farther up the mount at Dominus Flevit, which was also closed. I didn't want to go all the way back when it was going to open in an hour, so I decided to pray a Holy Hour in the Jewish graveyard just across the way on the Mount of Olives. It was a huge sea of white tombstones, all marking people resting in the hope of the resurrection of the dead, yet without the full understanding of the hope which Christ brings. I prayed for all of them and I offered a Divine Mercy chaplet for all of us. Then I went back and am now here in Dominus Flevit (well, I was there at the time I wrote this...), overlooking the city of Jerusalem.

I ended up (rewriting tenses to prevent awkwardness) spending another hour there and at the Garden, went back and rehydrated and took a nap, then went back to the Garden of Gethsemane for a Holy Hour that night, which I discussed more in my next journal entry.

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #9 Calvary, Peter in Gallicantu, Dormition Abbey, and the Cenacle

2011-01-11T14:52:00.005+01:00

December 27, 2010 6:00 PM

Day #9

Today we rose early and had Mass at Calvary in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. After that we walked the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus supposedly took carrying the cross from the place of Pilate's judgment to the final stop on Calvary. I got to carry our cross briefly on the Way of the Cross, which was powerful. Then a little later we went to Peter in Gallicantu, where Peter betrayed Jesus and Jesus was held in a cistern awaiting trial in the grounds of what once was Caiaphas' House. We also visited the Church of the Dormition of Mary and the place of the Cenacle, supposedly. Those are the place where Mary is supposed to have been assumed and the upper room of the Last Supper, respectively. I think we can safely say that the Upper Room is no longer the same upper room that it was before, but it seems fairly undisputed that the current place was at least the same site of the original, from everything I can tell. The current Cenacle seemed sketchy to me because it is currently a small mosque, but I guess there is a long tradition on that spot, at least.

The place of the Dormition was beautiful. It managed to be more modern looking while still maintaining a relatively high level of beauty. I prayed the Glorious Mysteries of the rosary there with Our Lady and lit a candle or four for my mother. The place of Peter's Betrayal was very powerful. I spent some time praying in the dark cistern where Jesus probably would have been kept awaiting His trial- it was very busy down there but I hid under the set of stairs and so found some quiet time by myself with our Lord. I got trapped for a while by some charismatic Nigerians who were all speaking in tongues, but it just gave me some extra time to pray, as well. I had a very good day in prayer, so praise God. I guess I had enough material for a little meditation!

It was funny, though- a lot of guys really had dry pilgrimages, which is a good reminder of the fact that prayer isn't about feeling, it's about faith, love, and trust. The priest leading our pilgrimage even said at one point that if we weren't feeling what we wanted to be feeling at these places, that we ought to remember that Jesus' disciples probably weren't, either, and that we should take that with us to prayer. What a chaotic and disorienting week Holy Week was for them, moving from joy and expectation to total desolation and abandonment and betrayal. We shouldn't expect our prayer to feel moving all the time; we should stay with it whether it is or not, though. Prayer is a relationship, and it has its ups and downs like any, which help to purify the relationship and provide us with an opportunity to prove our dedication to one another. God's dedication is proven, but He desires opportunities to show it to us, anyway, and what a beautiful thought that is! It should move us to a greater desire in prayer. What a perfect school in God's gratuitous love Jerusalem is, where He came to die for us, proving His desire for each and every one of us!

P.S. Upon further reflection, I could write a great deal about each of these places, but I simply don't have the time now (nor did I do so in my original journal). If you want me to explain a place a little more in this post or others, please just feel free to ask!

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #8a Gethsemane and the Kidron Valley

2011-01-09T21:44:00.002+01:00

December 26, 2010 6:30 PM

Day #8

What a busy day! We began with Mass at Gethsemane over the rock where Jesus supposedly lay praying. We spent some time in a private section of the garden, too, which was great. The rest of the garden is normally just part of the church complex, but across the street is a nice private section of what little remains of the garden of olives. It was very peaceful and we were able to spend a little time praying there, like Jesus, being able to look up and actually see the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus was to be crucified.

We then went to 'Dominus Flevit,' a lookout with a little chapel which marks the spot in Jesus' arrival at Jerusalem on Palm Sunday where He wept over the residents of the city (see Luke 19:41 and Matthew 23:37-39). That was definitely my favorite view of the city. I plan on returning there.

We also visited the Grotto of Gethsemane, the supposed 'Tomb of Mary,' and the Chapel of the 'Ascension,' which were all rather uninspiring, to be honest. I'm of the mind to seriously doubt the last two, though I know St. Ignatius of Loyola was convinced of the Chapel of the Ascension and I could be persuaded, I suppose. Anyway, we then walked through the Kidron Valley like Jesus would have, stopping to visit Hezekiah's Water tunnel and the Pool of Siloam, which were kinda neat. Finally, we entered the Old City through the Zion Gate, very briefly stopped at the Holy Sepulcher, and grabbed lunch. Some of the other guys returned later for a tour of the Sepulcher, but I was pretty wiped out and figured that I would be returning there often, so I just rested.

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #7 Christmas, Journey to Jerusalem

2011-01-09T21:38:00.004+01:00

December 25, 2010 9:00 PM

Day #7

Midnight Mass last night was a great relief. I received extraordinary spiritual consolation, but life goes on. It was good to hear Fr. Hurley's homily this morning about finding Jesus in the ordinary and not necessarily in the extraordinary, because a little consolation is great while it lasts, but then it's back down the mountain to the mundane again, and we have to do what we can to remember that consolation and let it drive us to persevere in those more ordinary of days. ... ... ...

Today we had Mass to the sunrise and stopped at Qumran and Jericho and the Dead Sea on our way to Jerusalem. It was really nice getting to engage in some good camaraderie there. (You wouldn't believe how buoyant you really are on the Dead Sea. It's incredible. You float so well that you have great difficulty swimming on your stomach because your legs and arms are too far out of the water! The water is so salty, too, that you aren't allowed to put your head underwater without seeing immediate medical attention. I got a little water up my nose and it totally dried out and started to itch. We had a ton of fun there while it lasted.) ... ...

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #6 Capernaum Revisited and the Bay of Parables and the Waterfall

2011-01-09T15:59:00.002+01:00

December 24, 2010 6:00 PM

Day #6

So this evening begins Christmas. I just got off the phone with my family. One of my classmates let me use his iPhone, which was very kind.

Today we had Mass back in Capernaum. I spent a few hours there, taking in the town and reading the Gospel of Mark in the ruins of the Synagogue. I had never read it all the way through in one sitting before. It meant a lot more having seen so many of the places mentioned. I then walked back along the shore with another classmate, stopping to read the Gospel at the Bay of Parables and stopping also at the spring/waterfall. I got in and waded in the water around the spring. It was really cool getting to wade in the same spring in which the Apostles probably waded washing their fishing nets.

No really deep spiritual insights today. Prayed with a number of passages from Mark. The demoniac Legion really shows us how comfortable we can become with our sins and ugliness and the sins and ugliness of those around us, even casting out the one who desires to bring healing to our loved ones or to us. It reminds me of one time, many moons ago, I was out eating in a restaurant and there were 3 or 4 college guys at the next table over, and I couldn't help but overhear their conversation, as loudly as they were talking. They were complaining about this new boyfriend that a girl they knew was dating. He was a real jerk, the kind that had persuaded her to stop doing drugs and get her life in order- I bet you know the type. How pitiable that they were upset by this! How like the Gerasenes, casting out Jesus for casting out demons from their friend. The demons, at least, were a known quantity for them. The power of God was not and they shied away from it. How very sad, and it made me wonder in what ways I and others do this, as well.

Anyway, it was beautiful praying with all the people whom Jesus praised or whom the Gospel mentioned that He looked upon with love. It was also interesting to note those that He rebuked. We'll have Midnight Mass tonight followed by Christmas carols and an early morning tomorrow. Come, Lord Jesus!

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #5b Swimming in the Sea of Galilee

2011-01-09T15:51:00.002+01:00

December 23, 2010 6:15 PM

Day #5 still

In the RSV, it reads, "Jesus went out to a lonely place to pray." How very appropriate for this morning! I stayed with our Lord in that for a while. This afternoon I went swimming in the Sea of Galilee with a few of the other guys. That was a wonderful experience. I was very moved by all the seashells, like the 'lilies of the field.' God creates works of art, never to be seen by man or even crushed underfoot without a second thought. How much more does He put into us and provide for us! We just spent some time in silence on the Sea, meditating and taking it all in. I collected some of the seashells for my mother on the way out. I hope they survive the two flights back home from here (so far they've made it through one of them!).

The rest of the day was very quiet. I wrote an email home this evening. We have a Holy Hour later tonight than another day in which to take in everything that we've done, to process it all. I will spend some time in Capernaum, I think, and maybe go to the Bay of Parables and the waterfall and pray there for a while.

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #5a Prayer in the Dark and More on Yesterday

2011-01-08T18:36:00.004+01:00

Day #5

December 23, 2010 8 AM

So the time in the Synagogue Church yesterday was very moving. I had never given it too much thought before, but it must have been buddies and friends of the family who tried to kill Jesus after His reading of Isaiah, since Nazareth was such a tiny village. He would have known all these people trying to kill Him. What feelings of betrayal and heartache that must have inspired in our Lord!

There was a beautiful stained-glass window in the Church of Joseph's workshop- it depicted him on his deathbed with Jesus blessing him and Mary holding him. It was very beautiful. May we all die such a good Christian death.

So I got up early this morning, around 4:15 AM, to go pray like Jesus in the spot where He supposedly went. It was a nightmare getting out there...

(funny story about that: I went to leave our compound and the gate was locked. Fair enough, so I went to the guard booth because I saw the light of a TV on in there. I was about to knock but I noticed that the guard, a big, burly Israeli guy, was in his tightey-whities brushing his teeth at the sink. I really didn't want to disturb that, so I started wandering along our perimeter looking for another way out.

I didn't have to look long before I found a door which, thankfully, was unlocked. I snuck through it and promptly stumbled into a large pile of brush in the dark. I fought my way out and wandered around, realizing that I was still in a fenced in compound, so I looked for a way back to the road. I wandered through olive trees for a while before finding a road. I had gotten so turned around that I thought it was the road I was trying to find. 'Miracle of miracles,' I thought, 'I have made it back out of the fence to the road somehow.' ... False... I kept following it and thought, 'gee, this doesn't look familiar,' until I realized after a few minutes that I was now on the property of the monastery next door.

I thought, 'great, we can get to the road from here, too, and I haven't been walking in entirely the wrong direction.' So I left the gate in the direction of the road, which was unlocked. Great. I forgot that the main gate of the facility would probably be closed. 4:30 AM logic at its finest. I stood there dumbfounded at the main gate, with their camera faced squarely at me, so somewhere there is footage in Israel of some stupid white boy trying to break OUT of a monastery. I figured, 'if I just follow this big gate along the main road, I'm sure I'll find a break or a spot where I can get over it.' Well, following it required me to wade through 20 or 30 yards of underbrush and thorn bushes, which was unpleasant.

Finally, I made it to the fence along the road road. No break in the fence in sight. I decided, 'screw it, I've made it this far, I'm jumping the darn thing.' Thankfully, there was no barbed wire, in spite of Israel's deep and profound love for the stuff. I threw my bag over the fence and shimmied up between the main brick gate and the iron fence that connected with it. Just as I was throwing myself over the fence, a semi passed by and caught me in their headlights. I was sure that they were going to call the monastery and someone was going to arrest me, but thankfully nothing happened. I made it over, checked my clothes and thanked the Lord that nothing was torn, and continued on my way.

I got to the cave, prayed for about 30 minutes there, and decided to pray a rosary. I reached in my pocket and realized that I had taken both room keys, and the way the house was set up you could not activate the electricity in your room without your room key, so my roommate was stuck in the dark when he woke up. I heaved a deep sigh, bemoaning the fact that I was not going to be able to watch the sun rise from atop the hill, and slowly made my way back to our complex. This time, at least, the front gate was unlocked, so I didn't have to go through quite the some adventure getting back in.)

... and I had a goodly amount of desolation in my prayer, but I resolved to dedicate and consecrate that time to God whatever may be, and so I did. I wanted to watch the sunrise from there... (I already wrote about that part of the story above)... I still got to watch the sunrise on the Sea of Galilee from our pilgrim house, which wasn't all bad. ... ... ...

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #4 Nazareth

2011-01-08T18:29:00.002+01:00

Day #4

December 22, 2010 9:00 PM

Just a quick recap of the day, since I plan to get up before dawn and go to a deserted place to pray to the Father. We left for Nazareth and had Mass at the Grotto of the Annunciation. 'Verbum Caro HIC Factum Est'- from the altar in the grotto- "The Word was made flesh HERE." It was just part of Mary and Joseph's house. We also saw Joseph's workshop, their Synagogue where Jesus read Isaiah and nearly got killed, and the well at which Mary would have drawn water. Afterward, we went to and climbed Mount Tabor, the Mountain of the Transfiguration. I had a good talk with a friend of mine on the bus ride back. I'll fill in other details and experiences tomorrow if I think of it.

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #3 Mount of Beatitudes

2011-01-08T18:08:00.004+01:00

Day #3

December 21, 2010 9:00 PM

I forgot to mention that many of us watched the sunset from above Eremos Cave yesterday over the Sea and Tiberius, was was so beautiful and peaceful. I've also watched the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee during my morning prayers these last two days, which was beautiful. Life seems a little slower here, like it should be. I think the way we do things in 21st century America is unhealthy.

Today we climbed the Mount of Beatitudes and had Mass at the top in the church built there. You see why Jesus chose that spot- it's a large expanse, very green, overlooking the mountains and the sea. It's peaceful, beautiful, recollective. We went back in the afternoon to walk the Stations of the Cross up the mountain. We were just doing our own, as there weren't any actual stations or markers along the trail.

It was a tough day for me today. My holy hour was miserable. God grant me peace and recollection... ...

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Day #2 Peter's Primacy and Capernaum

2011-01-08T17:54:00.002+01:00

Day #2

December 20th 9:30 PM

Today was pretty incredible. We began with Mass at the "Peter's Primacy," where Jesus asked Peter thrice if he loved Him. We were also then right at the 'Mensa Christi', where Jesus served them breakfast. We spent some time on the Sea of Galilee before moving on to Capernaum. Everything was so close! Everything we did today was on about a two mile stretch of road along the Sea of Galilee- it emphasized how everything really must have known Jesus.

Capernaum housed the ruins of the Synagogue where the Bread of Life Discourse was given, in addition to Peter's house and the house of the Centurion nearby. The tax booth of Levi/Matthew was probably nearby along the sea. Peter's house was also the house where the paralytic was brought in all likelihood. It was so moving to actually be in and pray in these places. I had been having a hard morning for some reason but by the end of our time in Capernaum I was fine. We also went to the Eremos Cave, where Jesus sometimes went to be alone and pray. There was a simply beautiful view there.

I walked back with three of the other guys along the Sea, hopping along rocks and cutting through reeds (and thorn bushes, and other obstacles. I had a total blast, like we were kids again, just being able to play around along the seashore. We got back just after it had gotten dark, which made the last stretch of rock climbing and thorn bush avoiding more interesting, to be sure). We saw the waterfall where they would have washed their fishing nets, which was surreal. It all really brought the Gospels to life. I had a ton of fun walking back-more than I've had in quite a while. (It really made the Gospel smack you in the face with its reality- you start asking yourself really down-to-earth, for lack of a better word, questions like "I wonder how often Jesus had to buy a new pair of sandals" or "How many nights do you think Jesus and Peter spent sitting on his back porch talking?")

It helped me to come to a greater appreciation for Scripture to be able to walk it. I can now picture things much better and understand how it all fit together and get just a slightly better sense of who the disciples were and who Jesus was and is. Praise be to God. I look forward to seeing this develop. ... ...

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2010: Introduction and Day #1

2011-01-08T17:41:00.004+01:00

This Christmas break I traveled to the Holy Land with 35 others from our college for roughly two weeks. I thought that the easiest way for me to post about it would be to draw from each of my entries from my journal, which I actually kept during the pilgrimage so that I could recall it later. Without further ado,

DAY #1

December 19th, 10 PM

(We left this morning at around 6:15 from the college for the airport. I had stayed up until 3 AM the night before finishing my Christmas cards, so I was pretty zonked. We got to the airport and everything was smooth. The flight was uneventful, but when we left the airport after our 3.5 hour flight I thought we were almost there. FALSE. Tel Aviv was a good... what, three hour drive, I think, from Galilee, so we then spent the equivalent of another plane flight driving there, which was ok, but unexpected. We got settled in late at our Pilgerhaus on the Sea of Galilee, celebrated Sunday Mass, then got unpacked, cleaned up, and I began journaling shortly before bed.)

Not too much to report tonight- we got settled in this evening. I am anticipating these next two weeks very much and feel open to whatever the Lord desires to say and do. I wonder how the Apostles must have felt right when they were called- trepidation, curiosity, excitement, peace? ... ...

(sorry, I don't have to share everything from my journal, now do I? I'll get the relevant stuff in here, though.)

The Consistory 2010

2011-01-06T10:59:00.003+01:00

Back in November we celebrated a consistory of the College of Cardinals. A consistory is an event in which the Pope creates new cardinals for the Church. Interestingly enough, contrary to common belief, those selected to become cardinals do not all have to be bishops, though in practice they most often are. We had 24 created last year, from all around the world. Two were Americans- Cardinal Burke from St. Louis who now works in Rome, and Cardinal Wuerl from Washington, DC. It was a very moving ceremony, emphasizing the need for unity within the Church, making our Church truly catholic, and the necessity of being close to the Holy Father. It really brought the catholicity, the universality of the Church to one's mind, seeing cardinals being made from Sri Lanka to the Congo, from Egypt to Poland, from Italy to Zambia to the United States. We truly are a much greater whole than we normally imagine, being accustomed only to the Church of Kalamazoo, or maybe even just to the Church of St. Monica Catholic parish or St. Joe Catholic parish.

It is an important guide for one's intercessory prayer, realizing that we really are closely united to those Catholics who do not get to take their faith for granted in countries like India or Egypt, where 21 were killed for attending Mass this New Year's Eve. It reinforces that same lesson I learned this summer, spending several weeks with the Coptic Catholics in Egypt. We truly are one body in Christ, though divided by race or language or culture or favorite restaurant or sports team.

We were blessed to be able to spend some time with Bishop Bradley, who came for the Consistory. He was old friends with now Cardinal Wuerl and came for him but turned it into a pastoral visit. We got to spend a good amount of time with him, which is always so encouraging and edifying. I pray that I may be such a fervent servant of our Lord when I am ordained.

I was chosen to read at the Consistory service itself, which was awesome. It was a little intimidating reading before the Holy Father and so many of the bishops and cardinals of the Church, but by the grace of God I managed to do it without stumbling on my words or passing out, which is good. If you wanted to see it, I'm sure my dad would be more than willing to show it to you- he recorded it and has shown it to virtually everyone that has stopped by our house since then, I bet. [:)

After the Consistory, we had a huge after-party at our College for the cardinals and their families and friends. Then things returned to normal, insofar as anything around here is 'normal.' More soon.

'It Has Been a While' and a Disclaimer for What Follows

2011-01-06T10:46:00.005+01:00

So I've finally decided to make a few more blog posts. I have held off these last months for a couple reasons. First and foremost, with the exception of one big event which I will cover, there really haven't been too many exciting events to report. Secondly, my camera is still broken, irreparably I think, so I have not been able to provide any nice pictures.

All that being said, I wanted to post a little about the last Consistory at the Vatican for the creation of the new cardinals, as well as put up several posts about my Christmas pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will have all of that up in short order. Once again, I have to apologize for the lack of pictures, but c'est la vie.

Flashback 6: The Shroud of Turin and the Saints and Shopping Centers of Milan

2010-09-02T11:54:00.008+02:00

So back toward the end of last semester, when the Shroud of Turin was unveiled for public veneration, a large group of us from the NAC left for our May travel weekend and took a train up to Milan and Turin on pilgrimage. It was a really awesome trip. There was, like in the retreat in Ars, a lot of fraternity which we don't get to share on the same level back in Rome. The visits to the Shroud, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Ambrose, and St. John Bosco's oratory were amazing. I have a particular devotion to St. Ambrose, so I was really excited to be able to visit him and spend some time in prayer with him.

Here we see the Duomo (Cathedral, essentially) in Milan. It's one of the largest in the world, and the whole piazza is one of the coolest I think I've ever visited. As you can see, there were just tons of people gathered there. We got to go down into the crypt to see St. Charles Borromeo, then we went up to the top to view the city from the parapets of the duomo.

Here is a rather morbid statue of St. Bartholomew, held to have been martyred by being flayed alive. If you notice, he is all muscle, holding his skin over his shoulder. This was inside the duomo.

The next few pictures are actually from the famous mall in Milan, one of the oldest and most famous in the world, I think. Notice the store name which really doesn't belong in the pictures... Prada, Louis Vuitton, McDonald's?

Now back to the Duomo. Here is the view from the top.

Next we went and paid our respects to St. Ambrose. He is buried in full bishop's regalia, along with two canonized deacons at his right and his left.

Moving on to Milan, this was the Church in which the Shroud was displayed. They had a really nice short presentation on the Shroud prior to your arrival at the Shroud itself. Once you got there, there were no flash pictures allowed, obviously, since they will effectively destroy the Shroud. The Shroud has actually aged a huge amount just in the last few decades just from exposure to natural and artificial light, so the area around the Shroud is slighter darker, as you can tell from the photo. The line was huge but it was totally worth it. We were even able to attend Sunday Mass in the Church, right in front of the Shroud! Those were such precious moments of silent prayer, before the Shroud bearing the marks of the wounds of our Lord. You could make out almost everything on it, too, down to the nail marks, the mark in the side, and the patch of marks from the crown.

Finally, here is a shot from the Oratory of St. John Bosco. I took a lot more pictures, but some of them have disappeared, unfortunately. He is buried within his church, as is St. Dominic Savio.

Another funny shot from my travels- I guess ANY window is an emergency exit according to this criterion...

Finally, at the end of our trip, you can see how close to the mountains we were. It was pretty awesome and weird all at the same time having no horizon in view, just mountains.

And so went my trip to Milan and Turin. It was pretty pricey, but it was well worth the expense, and I will remember it for a long time to come.

Lourdes, Summer 2010

2010-09-02T11:49:00.003+02:00

I have to start by apologizing; whereas I (and John) took numerous pictures in Egypt, I did not have a chance to get my camera fixed after it broke at the end of my time in Egypt, so I was not able to take any pictures in Lourdes. A few of my seminarian friends that I made in Lourdes posted a few on facebook, so perhaps I will load those in here. We will see.

Anyhow, my experience in Lourdes was a profound one. I stayed at a house with a number of other seminarians who were also volunteering in Lourdes, some for just a couple weeks like I was and others for five or six weeks. My apostolate was to the English-speaking pilgrims in particular, spending my time helping organize English language Masses, helping run the daily Eucharistic and Torchlight Rosary Processions, and leading pilgrims on the Way of the Cross and on the Way of Bernadette, a pilgrimage through the important places in her life in Lourdes. I was a little saddened that my plans to help out for a day at the baths for the sick fell through, but I was still able to minister to those sick pilgrims in other ways in my other apostolic works.

There were a lot of people of great faith there on pilgrimage and, or so I got the impression, there were people there just to be able to say that they went there, without any real deeply devotional underpinnings to their trips. It was good to be able to work with them all, though, and be an example of faith to some and, honestly, to let some be an example of faith to me. I liked leading the Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, the most. The stations they had in Lourdes were these life-sized, bronze masterpieces. They were spaced out along this stony path winding up a tree-covered hillside, which was a very peaceful place to pray, though the uneven stony path was a good reminder of the difficult way of our Lord on which we were meditating.

I got to spend a lot of time with the other seminarians in Lourdes. They were from around the world, so we had five or six 'house languages'. French was the primary one, but Italian, Spanish, English, and even a little German and Dutch were utilized in Morning and Evening Prayer and in our daily announcements and dinner table conversations. It was great getting to share our stories and hear what it has been like for the other seminarians growing up and discerning in their countries and particular cultural climates. There were a couple other American seminarians, as well as a few Dutch seminarians who all obviously spoke decent English, which was good. The priest who ran the house was a very kind and hardworking man who spoke mostly French and Italian.

Finally, before I left I made sure to do everything not just as a guide but also as a pilgrim. I prayed in the processions with the rest of the pilgrims, I attended the French Mass a few times, I went to the baths, and I got up very early in the morning a couple mornings and prayed my Holy Hour at the Grotto. If you have been to the Grotto at Notre Dame in South Bend, it's pretty close, actually. It really isn't a bad reproduction.

The experience at the baths is not easy to put into words. I was very impressed, first of all, by how much they tried to downplay the miraculous nature of the place. They weren't trying to sell anything, they were trying to bring people to Christ. They saw the waters as being a sign and sacramental, something which is not magical but which is a means God has chosen for distributing His grace. The waters are meant to recall our baptismal immersion and the waters of life flowing from our Lord in the Spirit. If we are physically healed, awesome, but the real healing power of the place is spiritual. Taking this in, I sat and prayed in line for an hour or two, offering up any and all sufferings, sins, failings, imperfections, and everything else in my life in need of healing. I finally got to the front and was ushered inside, where there are several separated rooms curtained off for some sense of privacy, I think. You go in and sit in a room with five (or seven, maybe) other guys/girls and one of the workers. Then they take you one at a time from that room into a bath immediately beyond, where they throw a large towel around you and have you walk into the water. The workers there, who were a couple very kind Irishmen, I think, for my visit, then lead you in prayer and gently, very briefly lean you back until you are almost entirely submerged, then they lift you back up and help you out, where you return to the last room, get dressed, and head out. They do so much for you because the water is only about 50 degrees, which is cold enough that my higher mental functions almost completely ceased, so it is very helpful for them to lead the prayer as I wasn't going to be doing that.

All I can really say is that there was a lot of grace poured out there. I was grinning like an idiot for, no exaggeration, probably the next four hours afterward, maybe more. Our Lord has deigned to work a lot of grace in that place through our Lady. I grew just a little bit that day and during my time in Lourdes as a whole. I found myself praying very hard for everyone else there, those with whom I worked and those to whom we ministered. I prayed hard for all the other people waiting there with me to enter the bath. I prayed hard for all my brother seminarians and all the priests I know. I prayed hard for my bishop and my family and friends and everyone back home. I offered up many who had been an influence on me during my life, as many as I could remember during my time in prayer. Lourdes is an incredible place to grow in appreciation of intercessory prayer, for our Lady herself intercedes mightily for us there. May she teach us all to be more like she is in her love of her Son, her obedience to her Son, and her concern for each one of us.

Egypt, Summer 2010: Thoughts on Christian Courage, Persecution, and Perseverance

2010-09-01T20:18:00.004+02:00

So I told most of the story of my time in Egypt in the last post, but I wanted to share just a couple thoughts about my time there. The Copts are a strong-hearted people, having now lived for what has realistically been probably more than a millennium of living as a minority in their own homeland, ever since the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. The Coptic people are the real descendants of the ancient Egyptians, possessing the bloodline and the (admittedly evolved) language of the pharaohs. The Coptic people converted to Christianity within the first century after Christ, becoming a stronghold of Christianity in the near east. We see the great monastic traditions of the Church as well as the theology of Alexandria rise up out of ancient Egypt, not to mention the fact that our own St. Augustine spent his episcopate not too far removed from ancient Egypt.

The deep Christian tradition present in their culture and in their way of life is particularly evident. One of the first things I noticed that I found unusual in the way that they lived out their faith was the fact that almost every Coptic I met had a cross tattooed on his or her wrist. I finally asked someone about this and they told me a story. In the past, the Islamic rulers would force the Christians to wear very heavy wooden or metal crosses around their necks, to identify, humiliate, and punish the Christian population, for these crosses were heavy enough that they caused deep bruising on the neck and collar. Later, the oppression became much less severe and overt, but the Copts still felt the need to be able to identify one another and to mark themselves as followers of Christ set apart from the majority of the population. It is a symbol of pride in their belief in Christ and, like the spitfires that they are, a thumbing of the nose at their oppressors. It marks them as Christians for life, which I discovered can mean a great deal in a country where the religious majority has very devious and not always so subtle ways of trying to get you to commit apostasy.

A Franciscan friar in Egypt was telling me how college faculty will sometimes try to prevent Christians from progressing in their studies. He has even seen cases where a Muslim man or woman will 'fall in love' with a Christian in college and get them to convert to Islam, only to leave them immediately afterward, because one cannot convert away from Islam in an Islamic country without great repercussions. The friar was telling me that certain religious orders which will go unnamed even have houses in places which will go unnamed where people can come to go through catechesis and be received back into the Church and receive the sacraments again, because doing so in public can cause a person, his family, and his loved ones to disappear. It's like the Catholic version of the witness protection program, and since witness in Greek is 'martyros', I guess that makes for a much closer analogy than I initially thought. The Christians just want to get along and live in peace with the Islamic population, and, to be fair, the large majority of the Islamic population wants no more than this, as well. That being said, there is still a not insignificant minority which desires the persecution or conversion of the Christians, and while the Christians want peace, they are not willing to compromise their faith to achieve that end. That would not be true peace but domination, and I discovered quickly that the Coptic people are not ones to be dominated easily. They are a strong people, and much of this strength has come from 1300+ years of living together in a tight, Christian community, as people in the world but not of the world, oppressed but not overcome.

In the midst of this kind of religious climate, which is not as overtly oppressive as it is in other Arab nations but is, nonetheless, still a toxic environment, it is a moving sight to see the Coptic Christians witnessing so boldly to their faith. All you have to do to tell a Christian apart from a Muslim in Egypt in most cases is look at the wrists. How many of us would have the courage to do that even in America, where we pride ourselves on our religious freedom? I know I would find it at least a little difficult, and I am planning on wearing clerics for the rest of my life, which is a rather bold and clear sign of the cross born in public also. Both the Coptic cross and priestly clerics do many of the same things- they both witness to Christ, offer support to fellow believers, and embolden us in our daily living out of the faith. It is harder to act in a manner unfitting for a Christian when you realize that at all times you are representative of Christ and that His cross is stitched into your very being, whether it's your wrist or your soul.

How much our Coptic brothers and sisters can teach us! Why are we afraid of living our faith publicly? What can people do to us here in America (or in Rome) that the Coptics don't feel five times as strongly in Egypt? Persecution shows us what our faith really means to us. Is it something worth dying for? Is He someone worth dying for? I would say so, and I pray that I would have the grace and strength to do so if the time ever came. If we would just support one another in our mutual faith as they do, I think we could find great strength in our Church. This is one of the things that is beautiful about the Steubenville youth conferences, that they really bring together a large number of kids who discover that they are not alone in their worship of God- far from it! My time in Egypt has given me much to ponder in my own spiritual life and in my own lived experience.

Egypt, Summer 2010: Photos and Comments

2010-09-01T08:44:00.032+02:00

So, given that I spent five weeks in Egypt, I simply will not be able to discuss everything I did, nor could I possibly download all the pictures I have. I would love to talk about it in person with anyone, but I think I will content myself with writing captions for the pictures I have posted and with sharing a couple cogent thoughts and experiences. This post will be the one in which I discuss my photos, though I'm still missing the ones that my friend John took. I will post and caption those as they come in and discuss my experience in general in the next post.

We begin with John's and my arrival in the Cairo airport. It was a very difficult procedure acquiring an Egyptian visa- we had to fork over fifteen american dollars after our arrival in Cairo- no paperwork, no appointment at the consulate, nada. It was rather humorous how easy it was, actually. This was the customs form we had to fill out- don't ask me what Nefertiti's head has to do with anything, because I'm still clueless.

Our first weekend, all the teachers except one went on a trip to Old Cairo, or Coptic Cairo, where we visited a famous mosque and, supposedly, both the synagogue built over roughly the place Moses was drawn from the Nile, and the Church built over one of the places where the Holy Family took refuge in Egypt. It was pretty cool.

Notice, too, how the women had to wear full body cover in the mosque- they thought it made them look like neon Ewoks or Jawas. I would tend to agree...

Here's the well behind the synagogue located at the spot where Moses was rescued by pharaoh's daughter, or so the story goes.

The Coptic Church has a huge devotion to St. George which I never quite got completely explained to me. Even one of the train stops in Muslim Cairo is 'Mar Girgis', which is Copt for 'Saint George'. (Notice that they also liked odd, neon saint's portraits a lot, too)

This is actually a church, not a mosque, though I guess the cross kinda gives that away. It abuts a Coptic orthodox monastery, if I recall.

Here is the first of many pictures to come of Egyptian traffic at its best. We see not just double parked cars or even the odd offense of triple parking, but quadruple parking on a huge scale. This is only the tip of the iceberg... *sigh*

You can also take note of how very much Egypt is a 'developing' country- Cairo was under construction everywhere.

Here I am on the Nile.

Here's a shot of the Nile 'corniche', the fertile, commercial strip in Cairo immediately around the Nile. I took this shot from the van on our way out to Giza to see the pyramids, so I was probably already coated in a thick layer of SPF 45.

Ah, there we are.

They don't really look all that big, do they???

Perhaps a little perspective would help...

Yep, I'm definitely standing on the biggest of the Great Pyramids. Notice John and I totally went Lawrence of Arabia for this one. It seemed only right and just, and I found it to be particularly effective at protecting against the sun, despite how it looks. You'll see John's looks a little more like a do-rag (or however you spell that).

Here are my companions and our Coptic orthodox tour guide (the one in the Heineken cap).

Fret not- I do actually have more pictures from this vantage point, but they are in John's possession at the moment, so I can't post them yet, but I plan on getting them up here...

Here is the enigmatic Sphinx, guardian of the second of the Great Pyramids.

K, Egyptian traffic again. This picture cannot begin to express how nervous this guy made us...

Here is a picture from Khan el-Kalili, a famous bazaar in Cairo. We wandered it and played terribly aloof, lest we get swamped by vendors.

These next few shots are all from our first weekend excursion, an evening felucca (sailboat) ride down the Nile.

Now we move to the Mohammed Ali mosque in the Citadel in Cairo, which used to be the stronghold of Salahadin back in the 12th century.

Then on to the mosque where the Shah of Iran, as well as King Farouk of Egypt, was laid to rest. Here is the tomb of the Shah.

Here are some random pictures from an excursion.

Next, we went to an Egyptian cultural center, where they had a free performance by a group of musicians and 'whirling dervishes', which was pretty fun to watch. We sat with an eclectic group in the middle; we had some American Navy language students, a German father and his son, a group of Asian women, and a cat, among other people sitting around the area in the center.

The last weekend after we finished classes, we went to a Cairo theme park with the guys. It was a lot of fun, but the ride there was hairy, as you might be able to tell from the picture. After our time there, I left immediately for Fayoum, Egypt with two of the seminarians from there. I stayed with one of them and his family in the city proper in their apartment. They were incredibly hospitable and kind. I had a wonderful time there.

Here are a few photos from my seminarian friend's Coptic Catholic parish in Fayoum.

Here I am watching the World Cup Finals with Fady and some of the parishioners in the rectory.

Now to their apartment, which seemed to be pretty nice compared to many of the other residences in Fayoum.

Fady's and My Room

The view from one of their windows.

... and here is Fayoum proper. Notice in the second picture the public transportation system.

That van is the public bus system. Well, ok, many such doorless vans are the public bus system.

Here was a nearby Coptic orthodox monastery we visited. They had a local saint who was rather popular; you can see him in the second picture.

Notice all the fans...

This one is a little random, but if you ever wanted to see an anime Jesus, here's your chance. I noticed that they had an anime comic strip of the Gospels in the bookstore in the monastery, written in Arabic. The comic strip, of course, thus progressed from the back to the front.

Fady's mom made a huge lunch for the parish priest, two visiting Franciscans, and for me. Like any good mother, she practically resorted to violence to get us to finish it all, or as much as we could stomach, to the point that we started sneaking our food onto other people's plates and picked at the same piece of meat for 10 minutes at the end until she was satisfied. It was really quite excellent food, but there was just too darn much of it.

She also buys glasses with her son, just like any mother. Notice the very trendy Islamic garb donned by the young woman working the counter. Western influence inevitably sneaks in here and there.

Next, we went to visit Matta, the other seminarian who lives in Fayoum, though he strictly speaking lives in a neighboring village. Here we are in his house, then in his village. I don't have pictures of it, but his mother fed us until we nearly passed out, also. No one can fault the Egyptians for lack of hospitality.

Finally, I had to say my goodbyes to Fady's family and head back to Cairo.

After I got back, John and I ate a big, American dinner at a local American style diner. The next morning we left for Sinai. My camera broke toward the end of my time in Fayoum, so I couldn't get any pictures from Sinai, but hopefully I can get some up from John. Here are the pictures I took of my room at the seminary in Cairo my last day there.

That's about it. It was a wonderful and moving experience, and I would love to tell you all about it when I return. If I get a chance I will try to post the rest of the pictures and give a little background on them. God bless you all.

The End of Year One in Rome: Part II: My Reflection

2010-08-16T13:58:00.007+02:00

I think I can say, along with probably all of my classmates, that this was a year of great growth for me, spiritually and humanly (if such a word exists- if it didn't before, it does now, so there). Rome, for better or for worse, is an extremely formative city, and I say 'for better or for worse' quite deliberately. Rome will form you or deform you, depending upon what you do with it. You can grow in holiness, virtue, people skills, intellectual breadth, and more, but you can also grow in bitterness, complacency, feelings of entitlement, and other very negative traits all too easily if you do not watch yourself and stay honest with your spiritual director.

I've certainly felt homesick at times and Italian sick (as in, sick of the language and the cultural... eccentricities and being a stranger in a strange land) at others. I've had days where I have been extremely frustrated with a couple of my classes, both in form and content. I've wanted to bang my head into my desk until I blacked out more than a couple times. Seminary life itself is a remarkable and artificial thing, designed to test and stress as it forms.

The lack of families, our own and others, as well as the lack of women and, of all things, the lack of parish life wears on all of us after a while. It brings us great delight to see our choir director have to run off after his toddler as she attempts to escape his grasp at college banquets or other events, ducking under tables and running off down the corridor. There is something beautiful and messy at the same time- something real, I suppose, to such an interaction that some of our formation can lack. It is not really a complaint so much as a statement of fact- I do not know if seminary life could be other than it is and still do its job. It's why the college tries so hard to have us organize social events in house- sporting events and parties and talent shows to name a few. They also strongly urge us to get out and travel when we get a chance, even requiring us to travel during Christmas and Easter and summer breaks.

What's more, the uphills in the spiritual life only get steeper the higher you climb. That being so, your legs get stronger and God's assistance grows even stronger, so that a man on his way to the priesthood can be assured of two things: he does not possess the strength in himself to persist, and that God will be all the strength He needs and far more than he can ever imagine. For every hour of frustration and exhaustion this year I enjoyed five of joy. For all the difficulties in seminary, there are so very many joys and extraordinary experiences. I have made close friends that I pray I will keep for the rest of my life. I have seen and done things I never would have dreamed of doing only a year ago. As tough as this year has been, the graces have far outweighed the trials- the fruits of the harvest have been well worth the sweat of the sowing- and it has, praise God, by His grace been making me into the man He calls me to be. May it please God that it continue to do so and I continue to do so.

I feel myself being drawn even more strongly toward pastoral ministry, toward fatherhood in a spiritual sense, desiring ever more to lead the people of God home to Him. As I have spent time abroad, my vision of the people of God has grown, having born witness both to the unique trials and the great strength of heart of the Churches in other countries, from the Latin rite Italians to the Coptic rite Egyptians, from the Netherlands to the Pyrenees. I have grown in my concern for all of them, though at the same time I have grown ever more desirous of being with my people back in little ol' Kalamazoo. My travels have been incredible and I do not take them for granted for a moment, but I still feel my heart drawn back to my own diocese.

In all this and in all my studies in Rome, it has been so edifying for me seeing my brethren exhibit that pull- that divine draw to save souls- back to their own people, especially when they go back to far greater problems and crosses than I can even imagine in my time thus far at home, yet they go willingly, longingly, and purposefully, to give their lives as lights in a dark place, to offer the Truth and Love that is our Lord Jesus Christ to those who, whether they know it or not, long and yearn for Him with all that is within them.

May I ever grow in zeal for God's will and love for all whom I will serve. To end, I wanted to post a short paragraph from Edmund Campion, an English Jesuit martyred by Elizabeth, that I read last week which really clarified our reason for being over here, at least for me. He was writing an apologia for himself and for the seminarians who would return as priests to certain death in the violently Protestant British Isles of the 16th century. We may not share the exact same circumstances, but we might yet share the same drive and sentiment as those who have gone before.

"I doubt not but you, her Highness' Council, being of such wisdom and discreet in cases most important, when you shall have heard these questions of religion opened faithfully, which many times by our adversaries are huddled up and confounded, will see upon what substantial grounds our Catholic Faith is built, how feeble that side is which by sway of the time prevails against us, and so at last for your own souls, and for many thousand souls that depend upon your governance, will discountenance error when it is [uncovered], and hearken to those who would spend their best blood in their bodies for your salvation. Many innocent hands are lifted up to Heaven for you daily by those English students, whose posterity shall never die, which beyond seas, gathering virtue and sufficient knowledge for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, but either to win you Heaven, or to die upon your pikes."

The End of Year One in Rome: Part I: The Events

2010-08-16T13:40:00.005+02:00

There is so very much about which I could write here at the end of my first year in bella Roma. This was certainly a difficult experience, one of the most difficult to date, but also, as such things go, one of the most rewarding. I had a whole month of late nights at the end of the semester for various reasons. I had numerous guests in town, on at least four occasions I can recall, including the visit of our beloved Bishop Bradley, Father John, and a few of my seminarians brothers from Kalamazoo. It is wonderful welcoming guests and being able to show what humble hospitality we can, but hospitality is a very time consuming act.

I also had a large paper to write and an exam to pass for my acceptance as a Scavi tour guide. I spent one extremely late night on that one, but it turned out just fine. I do have to brush up on the material again after a summer away and give a couple tours with another guide before I am officially commissioned, I think, which is very exciting. What an incredible apostolate, to be able to lead pilgrims to the resting place of the Fisherman!

Finally, of course, I had to prepare for exams. Normally, we are given one reading week and four weeks of exams in the spring semester, but I had to condense it to three reading days and 8 days of exams, which was brutal, but I came out of it in fairly good shape, all things considered. I'll break this up into two posts to make it a little more readable, so TO BE CONTINUED...

The Holy Cure of Ars

2010-08-16T13:27:00.007+02:00

During the Easter octave, the men in our house were offered, on a first come, first serve basis, the opportunity to go on a retreat in Ars as the Year of the Priest was closing. It was a little pricey but I jumped at the opportunity. I approached the trip with a little skepticism and trepidation, for I feared that Ars would be thoroughly commercialized- a tourist trap for pilgrims. The quiet, peaceful French country town was a far cry from what I had been expecting. Truly the Holy Cure even in death still intercedes for and offers a good witness to this small town, for the strong faith life there was evident. Afternoon adoration was extremely well attended, and a nun with a simply angelic voice led children in hymns for a portion of the time. Young and old, lay and religious were all present in adoration every afternoon.

I was able to spend some good time in prayer with Our Lord and the Holy Cure there, and was truly inspired and humbled by what I saw and experienced there. The retreat was very good in a number of ways. It was sufficiently prayerful while still leaving plenty of time for fellowship, which was much appreciated. Our retreat leader saw it as a sort of 'retreat lite', a far cry from the seven day silent retreat of the fall. It's one thing to socialize at the college, but it's quite another to do so on our off-time. I got to spend some really good time with some of the guys with whom I did not regularly cross paths. Two of them taught me cribbage one night, and I naturally dominated on my first attempt. The last night we had a bonfire behind the French seminary, and we stood around, shared our stories and waxed philosophical (and theological) as some of us, quite naturally when waxing philosophical, partook of some spirits and cigars.

The trip was great in just providing some time for much needed rest, as well as both for reinvigorating us individually in our drive for sanctity and the pursuit of our call, as well as building us up fraternally as men encouraging one another in their desire to serve as priests of the Most High. It was wonderful to be able to get to Ars before the end of the Year of the Priest. I prayed most fervently for our bishop and priests, as well as for all our seminarians and those considering the priestly or religious life. I took numerous pictures during my time there, so I hope you enjoy them.

Here is the seminary where we stayed.

This is St. John Vianney's bedroom. Notice the large collection of books in the next picture- he may have been poor, but he considered study to be of great importance.

Here is the entrance to the Church. This part was built by St. John Vianney, while the dome in the back was a later addition.

On the left is the confessional in which Vianney heard confessions.

Here is the man himself, and us praying (or getting our pictures taken) with him.

Here is a statue commemorating John Vianney's famous arrival in Lourdes. It was a foggy day and he got a bit lost. Seeing a young shepherd boy, he told him, "if you show me the way to Ars, I will show you the way to heaven."

Finally, here we are, gathered around our bonfire behind the seminary at dusk.

We took a day trip to Paray-le-Monial, the site of the apparition of the Sacred Heart to St. Mary Margaret Alacoque. Here we are, approaching the small town, along with a picture of her tomb and one of the mosaics of the Sacred Heart in town.

Tom's Triumphant Return

2010-08-16T13:26:00.004+02:00

So I have, at long last, returned from my summer apostolates. I finished up my exams very early- more than two weeks early, so that I could leave in mid-June to teach English in Cairo, Egypt to two dozen Coptic Catholic seminarians. After 4.5 weeks, I went home with one of the seminarians and spend a fews days in his village, after which John Lovitsch, the other seminarian with whom I was traveling, and I went and climbed Mount Sinai and saw the burning bush! We then returned to participate in early orientation for the newly-arrived first-year seminarians. After that concluded, I departed for Lourdes, France for two weeks, from which I returned late, late Tuesday night of last week. It was an incredible experience, to say the least.

I apologize, as I seem to have to do regularly, for being gone for so long. The serious amount of work I had to do to be able to depart so early in conjunction with the business of the summer has kept me blog-free for quite some time. Now, though, I finally have a few weeks off in which I can kick up my feet and catch up on blog posts. I will be gone until Saturday, but after that I'll be near my computer. Unfortunately, my camera bit the dust- almost literally- right at the end of my time in Egypt- I think the excessive quantities of dust and grit in conjunction with the incredible heat destroyed the mechanism for opening and closing the shutter and lens. Thus, I have no pictures from Lourdes or our trip to Mount Sinai, though my friend John will get me pictures from Sinai when he can. Be assured of all my prayers- I prayed fervently for all my friends, family, those entrusted to my prayers, and those in need of my prayers during this summer, especially in Lourdes and on Mount Sinai.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-18T08:11:00.003+02:00

Happy Easter to all! I pray it has been a time of joy and renewal for everyone. After my rather significant work-induced hiatus, I'm going to try to get this blog a little more updated. Thankfully, things have been relatively calmer this second semester here in Rome.

During Lent we had the blessed opportunity to take part in the ancient Roman tradition of station churches. Each day in Lent, there is a different church designated as a pilgrimage destination with Masses celebrated there throughout the day. We would leave the college between 5:45 and 6:25 AM to walk to the church of the day, at which Mass would be celebrated at 7:00 AM. It was very beautiful getting to experience so much Roman history in the various churches. This was also a very good experience for developing a better knowledge of how to get around in Rome. Now when people come and visit I can actually point them in the direction of the Coliseum and get them there on foot rather than just giving them the number of the bus to take. One of the perks about the station Masses which the most guys loved had to be the breakfast afterward. If we went to the station Mass, we were permitted to eat breakfast at our sister college for student priests, the Casa Santa Maria. They had real eggs, soft bread, everything an American could want except meat, which is virtually impossible to find for breakfast in Europe, anyway.

I do not have any pictures from the station churches, but I do have pictures I will post from my trip after Easter and from our Roman blizzard of 2010. Stay tuned for these as well as more info about Easter itself and our annual Rector's Dinner fundraising event we had this week. More soon.

The Roman Blizzard of 2010

2010-04-17T07:08:00.006+02:00

So here are the pictures from the great Roman Blizzard of 2010, which hit us on February 12. According to the workers here at the college, it was the largest snowstorm Rome had seen in 25 years. It progresses relatively chronologically, except for the last two, which are my favorites. I awoke in the morning perplexed, because I saw out my window what looked like incredibly large rain drops. I had been in Rome long enough that snow didn't even register in my mind as a possibility. It quickly progressed throughout the day, then was over before lunch. It was a real treat, as I had been going through snow withdrawal by that point during the winter. Unfortunately for many of the guys in the house, this was a travel weekend, so two thirds of the house didn't get to see the rare Roman snowfall. I was very happy I decided to take the weekend off. Enjoy the pictures.

Here is the enormous snow goalie that some of the guys in the house made.

Just as quickly as it came, the snow was over. Here we are, returning from our exciting snowball fight in St. Peter's Square.

Now my favorite two pictures- very different views of a snow covered St. Peter's Basilica.

Now Back to the Present

2010-01-24T15:34:00.005+01:00

Praise God, I think I got it all up there for you. There are still a couple little things I didn't post, like my visit to the Venerable English College around Thanksgiving and the Urbe et Orbi Christmas address the Pope gives, but all the big stuff should be caught up now. Don't feel obliged to read it all at once- I just posted a whole lot of stuff, but it's all well past, anyway, so it's not like it becomes less timely if you don't ready it promptly. I'm glad I finally got it all up here now, though.

This week we had another priest from the diocese in town, Father Brian Stanley. He was in town for a military chaplaincy conference, so we got to spend some good time with him. It was really great catching up with him; I didn't have too many role models growing up, and Father Stanley was definitely one of the bigger priestly influences in my life for the short time we had him at St. Monica. It was nice having a relatively young priest to look up to while in middle school, even if only for a short time.

Alright, please everyone pray for those in Haiti, please pray for all those in positions of authority, in our Church and in our country, especially for Bishop Bradley and Pope Benedict, for President Obama and our House and Senate representatives, please pray for all those in most need of our prayers, and, if you have any time or prayer left in you, please pray for all of us over here and please pray for me. We have now entered exam season, and there is much studying which needs to occur between now and the time of my exams if I want to represent Kalamazoo well. I'm not looking for a summa cum laude over here, but good enough grades to move on to my theological grad studies would be nice. [:) I'm probably not going to be online much, if at all, for the next couple weeks, but I would definitely appreciate all your prayers. I will continue to keep all of you in mine. May God richly bless you all, and, as we grow closer to our Lord in our preparations for exams over here and you grow closer to our Lord in all your struggles over there, may God bless up with

The light of His wisdom and insight...

and the quiet peace of heart only He can bring

Amen.

Flashback 5: Alumni Reunions and The Papal Audience

2010-01-24T15:19:00.008+01:00

In honor of the 150th anniversary of our college, we had the distinct pleasure of being able to attend a private papal audience in the very room out of which a newly-elected Pope comes when he is chosen by the college of cardinals. It was very moving being so closely present with him. The Holy Father gave a short talk to us and greeted all of us. Most of us got to shake hands with him and kiss his ring, myself included. He was his usual determined, thoughtful, and peaceful self, but he seemed very tired. I don't know if he was ill that morning or if age really is finally starting to catch up to him, but we all noticed it- everyone was commenting on how his energy level seemed a bit low. It was great to get to see him and it was also very nice to get to see and meet some of the visiting bishops and archbishops, as well. Archbishop Dolan was there, and he even paid for drinks and snacks for everyone in our college lounge in the evening. We were most appreciative.

In spite of all the chaos, the spirits in the house really were high during our alumni week. Fathers Richardson and Grondz came into town and we got to spend some good time with them. They cooked dinner for us a couple times and we caught up on how things were for them both and for the diocese. It was a great week for all of us, I think. They seemed to be glad to catch up with old classmates and to just spend a little time in the Eternal City once again.

Here are some of my pictures from the papal audience. Some of them didn't turn out that well, and I didn't dare make myself too obvious for too long, snapping pictures like some dopey tourist. Cardinals and Popes probably don't like being treated like rare zoo animals or national monuments. Though it happens often enough, I prefer not to be marked as having added to it, so if some of the pictures aren't as good as usual, it was probably because they were done as quickly and as inconspicuously as I could make them.

Here was the hall in which we met the Holy Father

I liked the white bow-tie look of the papal MCs (or whatever job they happened to hold)

Here was our rector with all the bishops, archbishops, and cardinals.

This was cool- here is the very window out of which the Pope exits to greet people after his election!

It's a bad picture, but you can kinda see the colonnade outside, to give some perspective of where we were.

This was the window out the other side. Again, another poor picture, but you can kinda make out the image of the Paraclete from over the altar of the chair, revealing that the windows on the right side of the room actually looked out on the inside of St. Peter's Basilica! How cool is that?! I would have gone to the other side to snap this photo, but the Pope was just about to arrive and the guards appeared slightly edgy and I didn't want to die.

Il Papa!

Here is Monsignor Checchio, giving an address to the Pope on behalf of the college.

This was one of the works of art adorning the room outside- we were moving, so I couldn't really spend more time in there and capture it all. It is a nice depiction of the Battle of Lepanto, I think.

May the Lord bless our Pope with all the wisdom and guidance, strength and courage he needs to carry out his task as chief shepherd of the Church until the day our Lord calls him home.

Flashback 4: Thanksgiving and New Man Weekend

2010-01-24T14:05:00.006+01:00

Back in November (gosh I forgot how far behind I had gotten on these blog posts) we celebrated our first Thanksgiving away from the states for many of us (it was my second, as my first had been during my semester studying in Austria during my time at Steubenville). We made a very big deal out of the weekend, especially for New Men. This was, I think, both to really help solidify the camaraderie in the house and amongst the first-years, as well as to keep us too busy to be homesick. We took the day off from school, slept in, and had a big breakfast on each hall. Our hall deacon had many of us help him prepare eggs and bacon, a rare commodity in Rome, I can assure you, as well as some banana smoothies. We had an enormous Thanksgiving dinner after our college Mass. They broke us up according to states, so we had a joint table as Michigan with another state which I can't remember right now. Ambassador Diaz delivered a speech from President Obama for Thanksgiving. Many bishops and cardinals were present as well- pretty much all the American ones get adopted at Thanksgiving. It was an outstanding time. Finally, in a most ridiculous move, the fifth-year priests by tradition give 'the presenting of the pies'. A few of them got up and sang I Believe I Can Fly with the lyrics appropriately modified ('I believe in the pie/ I believe in the pumpkin pie... I believe I'll have some more/ Keep it coming through that kitchen do-ooooo-OR, etc.) while the others brought out the homemade pumpkin pies to each table. It was pretty hilarious. We then had a movie showing that evening for some college classics that really can't be described in a blog post.

Then, New Man weekend began. We had a big New Man dinner Friday night, consisting of homemade Mexican food- guacamole, salsa, and fajitas, among other things. It was wonderful, since Mexican is a very rare treat overseas. Saturday evening we had our big New Man Show. Again, this is something almost impossible to describe here. It was essentially a one hour comedic show that we first-years had to get together and perform, a little akin to Saturday Night Live or something of the sort. Every year does it differently, but I guess ours turned out exceptionally well. The Old Men were a tough crowd- making animal noises and calling out during scene transitions if things took longer than they wanted them to, but people were very impressed. They thought it was one of the best in a long time. I got a lot of compliments, as well- the skit in which I played a part was a parody of the Bud Lite radio commercials "Real Men of Genius", except for the seminary, so it was "Real Men of Virtue". We parodied various elements of the seminary life in each one-minute song. I got to be the radio announcer/narrator for each of them, which was a lot of fun. It took a great deal of practice time, but it paid off. People were very impressed that we decided to do it live and not tape it, as some people do with skits of that nature. We even had a live drummer and pianist for the bit, and our show director, who was the backup singer, did an exceptional job. The show really brought our class together in a way that hadn't occurred up to that point, so it did its job. The Old Man show followed, which was also hilarious.

Finally, the weekend was capped-off with the Spaghetti Bowl and Thanksgiving Weekend Cookout. It was a flag football game between the New Men and the Old Men. The New Men hadn't won in ten years (not surprisingly, given the intentional imbalance in the teams), and we were really hoping to break the losing streak. It was a really tough first half, with us ending it down 12-27. We really came back after that, though, and made it a game worth watching. The final five or ten minutes were incredibly tense, and we screamed our lungs out. People were getting really excited. Except for the first set of downs of the second half, we had completely shut-out the Old Men. We got a couple needed interceptions, made a couple exceptional plays, and when the smoke cleared...

...

we lost the game 32-35. *sigh* We came in for the final huddle post-game a little disheartened, but Ross, our coach and fellow New Man, was very gracious and he and the rest of the community applauded our efforts (and his own, very importantly). Ross was an assistant college football coach for a while before becoming a seminarian, so his expertise went a long way toward making it as close of a game as it was. We had a lot of fun and, like with the New Man Show, grew in fraternity through the game. I played D-Line, which is probably pretty much the only thing I could have done, not having played football formally before. We actually did really well- we cut through the Old Man line easily, but they played very cleverly and had their quarterback what must have been at least eight yards back, if not more. It took them a long time to find a guy who could hike the ball that far, but it paid off big time. That gave him enough time and space to get rid of the ball before we could take him down.

It really is rather impressive how many gifted athletes we have in our class. I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that, while we're studying for the priesthood, we're still young men. We have a couple marathon runners, a couple college football players (and one college football assistant coach, as well!), and any number of other athletes. Our AMERICAN college soccer team, the North American Martyrs (on which our very own Father James Adams played and plays), managed to place second in the Clericus Cup last year against all the other international schools. That's not too shabby, if you ask me. We actually have one of the nicest fields in Rome- the Swiss Guard come to play sports on our sports field!

I took some pictures on Thanksgiving and gave Francis Marotti my camera so he could take some shots from the game, so here they are.

Here is the Ambassador giving his speech.

Here are the fifth-year priests singing their pie song. [:)

If you look closely you can see OUR fifth-year, Fr. James Adams, serving champagne below.

Some pre-game stretches

You see some of our spectators

Here we are, slowly coming together

Man, that's a fierce football player! What a game face!

The two teams jogging to loosen up and get warmed up for the big game.

Here we are, being led in prayer by our rector, Monsignor Checchio, prior to the kickoff.

Our band and color commentators

Here's a good shot of me on the line- it didn't happen often and will probably never happen again, so I'm glad Francis got a picture of it. [:)

This is just overall an awesome shot- I especially like the back of the shirt caught in the picture. It is very apropos.

Half-Time

So that, as they say, is that. I rolled my ankle a couple weeks before the game, so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to play, but one of the priests was also a paramedic in a past life and he taped me up well enough that I could get out there and smash into my brother seminarians. It was great fun and I'm glad I got to be a part of it.

Flashback 3: A Little Humor

2010-01-24T13:35:00.004+01:00

Ok, so I took a couple pictures, one prior to the trip and a few on the trip, that I thought you would all appreciate. Random? Yes, very much so. Sometimes those are the best, though...

I saw this one on the train out of Vienna. The prefix 'not' signifies 'emergency' in German, but it's much funnier in English. Clearly, what we see here is NOT a hammer.

This was at the exit of the subway in Munich. I suppose they probably meant for this to be a 'fire exit' sign, but it seems much more appropriate for a 'in danger of being chased by men with scimitars, please exit here' or 'emergency skis/surfboards run amok exit'.

Finally, for our college hall, we decided to pose for ridiculous family pictures for a Christmas decoration. The one catch was we all had to wear the same ugly sweater and Christmas hat. This was one of my shots. [:)

May God bless you all with much joy and light-heartedness in these trying times.

Flashback 2b: My Christmas Break- Linz and Munich

2010-01-24T12:37:00.009+01:00

We arrived in Linz and dragged our bags to the hotel. I wasn't feeling that great at the time- long, long story- having gotten sick at Klosterneuberg and was really sore, so we made it in and I just kinda chilled. A couple of the guys took off running, while Matt (pictured with the Snow White dwarf) and I just wandered a little, prayed a holy hour in their cathedral, and went back to the hotel. I took a nice, hot shower and popped a couple motrin and took a nap until the other guys got back. We went to dinner at this interest little joint. It was very American punk and rock inspired and there were a lot of young people there- the average age in the room was probably 19 or 20. We had some dinner and the waiter came over and practiced his English with us. It was quite good, since he had spent some time in Pittsburgh, if I recall correctly.

Just look at the detail in these stained glass windows- it's really quite spectacular. That being said, the ones in the front of the Church which follow... look like they were designed to be deciphered by cryptographers... the mathematician in me was more than a little intrigued, but they don't really quite fit with the rest of the Church...

The next day we packed our bags and headed to Munich.

I still wasn't feeling great but was a little better than before and was at least up for a little exploration. We got in early afternoon on New Year's Eve, dropped our stuff off, got settled in a little, and went off exploring the city. I made a point to find the cathedral, which was right next to the main square and the rathaus- the Town Hall. Before that, though, we appreciated the little wooden fort surrounding an ice rink which had both been set up in honor of Christmas and New Year's quite near to our hotel. I was a little surprised by the price of our hotel room until we got there- it was literally a 90 second walk from the ice rink and only about 10 minutes from the town center, which was awesome. At to that the fact that we were only two to a room instead of four to a room like we did in Linz, and it was well worth the extra expense. After converting from the Euro, which hurt a little during the trip, it came out to about 85 or 90 dollars per person per night for the hotel room, which, given the central location and the fact that it was New Year's Eve in downtown Munich, was quite reasonable. We found a nice place to eat for dinner then just hung out and wandered around, engaging in some good people watching and firework dodging.

That was the really interesting and memorable part of the evening. New Year's Eve is an excuse for everyone under the age of thirty in Munich to spend all their money on fireworks and shoot them off, at the sky, at the spire of the rathaus, at the roof of buildings and other people, whatever. We enjoyed watching this in the main square until one misfired near us and sent jets of red flame shooting toward us. Thankfully we were already mostly behind a large column and just inched back a bit and missed getting nice and singed. It provided an occasion to get talking with the couple standing next to us, though, who were a retired couple from the Southwest somewhere- New Mexico, maybe. They made a pact to visit someplace new and exciting with each other every New Year's as long as they could. They were excited to hear our story, since it turned out they were both Catholics. It was a very providential and enjoyable conversation.

After things got a little too hairy, we went and prayed and listened to an organ concert. After that, a couple of them stayed and prayed, one went back out into the chaos, and I ducked back to the room. I didn't feel like dying that evening and it was 11:30 already. The fireworks and firecrackers were being shot off and thrown in full force. It was to the point where people were actually hitting the outside of the Church during our holy hour and organ concert and I didn't feel like sticking around to get hit- I had seen it and enjoyed it, but it was time to call it a night.

We just relaxed the next day, really. There was a little sight-seeing, but nothing particularly of note. I don't think I even brought my camera with me. Our last day before the night train home we bought a subway pass and took off for the BMW headquarters and museum. It was a pretty cool tour- I learned a great deal about car manufacturing and cars in general. At the end they had a new exhibit on prototype cars, and I have a few good pictures from that. After that, we took a short walk over to the Olympic Village from the Olympic games in Munich. The pool there is still a functioning natatorium, which is kinda cool, though we didn't go swimming. They also had a plaque and monument to the Israelite athletes killed in the act of terrorism at the olympic games. Finally, we made our way to the train station, ate some dinner en route, and got on our train home.

Here's a picture of the cathedral, then one of the stained-glass inside, to give an idea of how tall this church really was. The window went most of the way up, and the whole things was decorated. It must have been immensely expensive and taken untold days to complete. Following that are the rathaus and a nice picture of both the cathedral and the rathaus.

Here we are enjoying dinner in a German pub.

It finally snowed for me! I was so excited. Living in Rome now, we never get a chance to see snow, except on the distant mountain tops. I was beginning to go through withdrawal, so it was nice to get to stomp around in it a little before heading back to Rome.

Here are the shots from the BMW Museum

I was impressed to see that they had an exhibit on this... lest we forget...

This was one of the more unusual concept cars. It kinda looked like it belonged in Star Wars. One of the guys mused about whether his bishop could be persuaded that such a car was a necessary business expense for a priest... I suspect not... [:)

Now this one was awesome. The 'skin' on the car molded and reshaped itself according to the current action of the car. The headlights actually blink open, the door pulls ajar with the skin reshaping around it, the seat readjusts from within, the dashboard just opens up- no latches. It had a very organic feel to it. I'm not sure if I'd want to own one like it, but it was pretty awesome to see, nonetheless.

Then we were off to the Olympic Village.

May they rest in peace...

Overall, it was a really great trip. It was nice getting to spend some quality time with some classmates and it was a very culturally and spiritually edifying trip. That was an interesting element of the trip- we hear all too often about how spiritually dead the Church is in Europe, but we didn't quite get that impression in our travels. Admittedly, Austria is supposed to be almost entirely Catholic so there should be a lot of people attending Mass, but I was very impressed by the numbers of people who showed for daily Mass, even. The cathedral in Vienna was completely packed for the daily Mass at noon, and not just with old people. There were a lot of younger people, as well. It was very impressive and spiritually heartening to see, truly. I'm quite certain things aren't great in Europe, but the Spirit is still moving strongly amongst His people. Praise God.

Flashback 2a: My Christmas Break- Vienna

2010-01-24T11:37:00.013+01:00

So after the Christmas festivities died down, I and three of my friends got ourselves packed and took off to the airport the afternoon of the 27th. We departed for Bratislava, at which point we were picked up and brought to the monastery at Closter Neuberg, just outside of Vienna. To give the history of the place could take hours and endless blog posts- I would recommend looking it up if you get a chance at some point. It's really rather fascinating. The monastery is extremely well-endowed, both from previous emperors and rulers as well as from the money the city of Vienna pays them regularly for use of their land. Apparently, or so I was told when I returned to Rome, Closter Neuberg owned about a third of the land on which the city of Vienna was built, all the way down to the Danube, so the city pays the monastery well for use of their land. The men who have committed themselves to the service of God at Closter Neuberg are known as 'canons'. It is a distinction with which I am still not entirely familiar, since we don't really have such a system in the United States, but they are priests who live in community at the service of the diocese. Almost all of them have a parish for which they are pastors or associate pastors, and they divide up their days praying, working, and recreating at the monastery and celebrating the sacraments and serving the people at the parish. A couple of them are in Rome studying for various higher degrees of education, and we actually got hooked up with the place by one of them, to whom we are most grateful.

The 'canon' system seems like a fascinating idea- it seems to be a problem plaguing the priests of every diocese of the states (and perhaps the world) that there is not enough fraternal support or accountability. Here at the North American College we've been advised repeatedly that, to stay strong as a priest, we need to maintain a good, faithful prayer life and maintain true, mature friendships with other priests. The canon system seems like a beautiful way in which to do just that, while still serving the diocese. Whether this could ever happen in the states is beyond me, but it seems like some movement in that direction could be one answer to a few of the problems facing the Church in America today.

There were a huge number of pictures taken on this trip, so forgive me if I do not comment on all of them. They begin with our entrance late late in the evening our first night there and work through our tour of the grounds the next day, as well as our couple day trips into Vienna. Those that follow immediately are all from our first day or two at Closter Neuberg.

We met a heavy, mechanized gate upon arrival. The complex was EXTREMELY well protected, to defend all the priceless items I will describe shortly.

Yeah, this was just in the Kaiser's Sitting Room, essentially, not in a chapel or anything. [:)

Here we saw one of the only full tapestry sets left in existence, apparently. It's worth more than its weight in gold, and tapestries weigh quite a bit!

These last few pictures have all been from the Kaiser's suite, which he had them build when they built the monastery. He ended up staying... wait for it... wait for it... a whopping one night. This is a picture of the radiator from one of the Kaiser's rooms. It looks more like an altar...

Ambrose, our tour guide and a novice with the canons, continued the tour and eventually we came to the monastery's schatzkammer, their treasury/vault. They have acquired a number of priceless artifacts over the many years from various civic and ecclesial authorities. This is the entrance room, with various vestment sets and precious vessels. They also have the second oldest German bible in existence- as in the second oldest hand-written one, not printed. They used to have the oldest one, but they gave it away, I think.

In the next room, which was in many ways like a sacristy, they housed many of their priceless vestments and their national treasures.

This was made of woven silver and gold. Seriously. He let us touch it. It felt like it must have weighed as much as a suit of armor.

Here is one of the national and Church treasures- the skull of St. Leopold, patron of Austria. He was the Margrave of Austria (essentially the Lord in service of the Kaiser/Emperor) and founder of Klosterneuberg. He was a man of great piety and justice, who actually turned down a possible succession to the throne as Kaiser. Students in much of Austria actually get his feast day off from school.

This monstrance is just about solid gold and semi-precious gems, if I recall. It's much too heavy to use for benediction. This, like the skull of St. Leopold and the next item, is kept under four separate locks and security system.

This is the royal crown of Austria. It's in the keep of the canons at Klosterneuberg. They actually possess a papal bull stating that anyone who removes it from the monastery for more than twenty-eight days is automatically excommunicated! Obviously, it's not used any longer. The most recent use was for the funeral of Empress Zita of Austria in the 80s or early 90s, though I could be wrong on that.

Here I am, posing with Saint Ursula and companions, virgins and martyrs. They just had her kept in a closet in their Schatzkammer. It was really quite stunning.

Alright, then we moved on to the Church proper. The odd picture of the glass box is the Kaiser's booth for Mass. He came periodically to attend Mass here.

As a side note, if you can't tell from the pictures, the dress code at the monastery was cassock for everything, so we brought ours along for our time in Klosterneuberg.

These next pictures are from our time in Vienna proper. The first is from the inside of the cathedral, Stephansdom. The second is shot from the top of the tower of the cathedral- notice the unusual roof. It's very distinctive and makes this cathedral probably one of the easiest to pick out in a photo album of random churches in Europe.

Here is the Hofburg Imperial Palace (or at least one small angle of it- each side and angle is very different and beautiful in its own right), old residence of the Kaiser.

This next one is difficult to see, but it's the altar piece for the Church of St. Michael right across the way from the Hofburg. It depicts, if you look carefully, the casting out of the fallen angels from heaven. It's called something like "The Overthrow of the Angels". It was a pretty cool piece, but the lighting was very bad for pictures.

Here we see all the decorations for Advent and Christmas.

Our last day, I got a shot of Klosterneuberg from afar. Then you see my traveling companions chilling in a park in Austria, and finally the tomb of Franz Joseph in the Imperial crypt underneath a Capuchin church in Austria.

Then we took off by train for Linz and Munich...

Flashback 1: Pictures from Midnight Mass and All Things Christmas

2010-01-24T11:16:00.003+01:00

Alright, I've finally staked out a little time in which to update my blog, and there is just SO much updated to perform. I'll begin with Christmas, work my way back to the Spaghetti Bowl and Thanksgiving weekend, then catch everything else I missed.

Christmas really was a very blessed time. We were all a little homesick, so we spent a lot of time together, watching movies like The Muppets' Christmas Carol (which is one of the best Christmas movies of all time, no exaggeration), and just spending time together. We played cards, waxed philosophical, and wandered the city a bit. It was very enjoyable. Christmas Eve, as I said before, we all attended Midnight Mass with the Holy Father. It was actually 10 PM Mass, since the Pope was starting to feel his age a bit. We showed up around 6:30 and waited outside at the side entrance by the sacristy for an interminable amount of time due to a misunderstanding, but we finally got in, got practiced, and sat waiting for Mass to begin.

Mass began and proceeded as usual, but then we heard an audible gasp and the procession stopped. The sound of a couple women stifling screams was clear. If I am being honest, I have to admit that my first thought was, "Dear Lord, who shot the pope?" We waited in suspense, being on the other side of the main altar, unable to see anything which was occurring. Finally, we heard the sounds of cheering and knew that the Pope was fine. The Mass continued and went beautifully. It was such a graced experience, not just being able to attend Mass with the Holy Father but to be able to sing for him was great. My Italian has been improving- I could understand a not insignificant part of what he said in his homily. Had I been more alert and not so close to wanting to fall asleep after a long day I would have understood a fair bit more, no doubt. After Mass we returned to the college and had an early Christmas breakfast while quickly discovering what had happened to the Holy Father- that he had been knocked over by that agile but mentally-disturbed woman now made famous in that youtube clip. Here are some of my pictures from the event.

Here you can see how close we were seated to the high altar. The Pope sat in front of it, so we couldn't see his face for much of the Mass, but that's definitely ok. We had a spectacular view for the Eucharistic prayer and consecration, which was great. You can really see the great love the Pope has for our Lord in the reverence with which he prays the Mass.

Ok, before anyone says anything, this was not during the Mass. I hate hate hate hate hate it when people take pictures during the liturgy, but this was after the Mass had ended and the organist was playing the recessional. Everyone was snapping pictures and I figured I would sneak a quick shot in myself before my prayers after Mass.

Finally, this was the view of the Christmas tree and the giant Nativity scene in St. Peter's square, which was unveiled earlier that evening. I would have gotten closer, but as you can probably tell from the picture, it was raining heavily after Mass and I didn't want to soak my cassock.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-26T14:28:00.002+01:00

Buon Natale a tutti! I have much on which to catch up on this here blog- these last two months have been quite busy. We had Thanksgiving and our New Man weekend, which was awesome and exhausting- a wonderful experience I'm glad I will never have to endure again. We sang Christmas carols around Rome and at our university. In house, we celebrated our college's 150th anniversary on December 8th and had our annual Christmas party. We new men got assigned to our apostolic outreaches for next semester. Last but certainly not least, we celebrated Christmas itself, at Midnight Mass with the Pope for many of us. I would put pictures up and tell you all about the going-ons over here now, but I leave shortly for the airport to catch a flight to Vienna with a few of my friends. We will be staying at a monastery on the outskirts of Vienna for a few days, then we will spend a day in Linz and a couple days in Munich. Once I return, I will do my darnedest to get caught up a little on the blog, assuming I accomplish all the other work I have to do to survive over here. I pray you all had a very Merry Christmas and continue to do so as the octave progresses. More later. Praise God!

Happy All Souls' Day!

2009-11-02T16:47:00.004+01:00

Hello all! This last weekend was a college travel weekend, and most of the house scattered to the four corners of the continent. I was originally planning to travel to Venice this weekend with my DBs (Diocesan Brothers- I'm slowly picking up proper "seminarian lingo" over here), but our plans fell through, so I spent a quiet weekend here, which was ok, since I got a fair bit done and got some good fellowship in with the other guys who stayed behind.

For All Saints' Day, I went to a High Pontifical Mass celebrated by the Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, which was quite an experience. I had only been to four or so extraordinary form Masses before this, too, so it was a relatively new experience for me still. It was very beautiful- the singing was very well done. They had all their relics pulled out on display for veneration. I didn't end up taking pictures, which I am always a little hesitant to do during liturgies, but if you really want some good shots the blog http://www.orbiscatholicus.org/ is a good place to look. It's difficult to quite gather how beautiful the church was from most of the shots, but some of them are really quite excellent.

This morning I and a number of the men from the house went to celebrate Mass and pay our respects at the College Mausoleum at Campo Verano. It was a simply enormous graveyard- so big it had map stations and, apparently, guided tours and bus lanes through it! The resting place for our deceased college brethren is one of the simpler plots there, but it's still very nice. I'll get the pictures up from this morning when I can. Obviously nowadays a seminarian would be sent home to be buried if he died over here, but in the past that simply wasn't very feasible, or so I gathered- that long ride on a boat was perhaps too much for the body. Many of them were younger than I am now- the ages were also posted on their marble plaques in the mausoleum, with many of them being 22 or younger! It was very humbling on this Feast of All Souls' to think that all these young men, all these intercessors, had already made the greatest leap of faith- that great leap from life through death to life everlasting. It's encouraging, in a way; even though they were not martyrs, there is a certain example of courage in a Christian death, I think. It calls us all on to live our faiths, for we do not know the hour or the day when Christ will come again for us individually.

Other than that, not too much to report. We ended up missing our first hour of classes because of the trip this morning, but we were able to catch breakfast at the cafe in our university, which is really quite excellent. Their prices are really reasonable, too- even translated back into dollars (which is almost heartbreaking some days with the current conversion rate), the prices were no worse than they would be in a coffee shop back in the states. I ended up paying 2.60 euro for breakfast of a blood orange Fanta and an apple pastry. That was really good, too, especially considering the fact that pop is a LOT more expensive over here than it is back in the states. I also made my deposit for a retreat I'm planning on taking after Easter with 44 other guys from the college and the head of spiritual direction here at the North American College. We are going to Ars, the town where the patron of this Year of the Priest, St. John Vianney, spent his days hearing confessions and ministering to his people in superabundant charity. May John Vianney intercede for all of us seminarians and help us to become priests like he was, priests in the likeness of Our Lord.

Beginning of Week Three

2009-10-25T20:43:00.004+01:00

Once again, it's been much too long since my last post. I have simply been too swamped with school to be able to post anything of significance. Thankfully, there hasn't been quite as much excitement around here to report. Friday we had our Halloween Party/Costume Contest/Oktoberfest all rolled into one here at the NAC. That was a ridiculous amount of fun. The second-years hosted for us and they put on quite a presentation- they will be big shoes to fill. They even set up a haunted house, of all things! They did a really nice job with it, too! I was thoroughly impressed, from the mad doctor operating on his "patient" to the Exorcist-like possession of one of the second-year men on his shaking and moving bed. Quite frankly, I think the empty corridors and the backstage area they set up for the haunted house are scary enough in the dark without any additional help. The costume party goes utterly beyond description, so you'll just have to ask me in person sometime if you really want to know what seminarians do for a Halloween costume party. If it's any clue it was hosted by the crew from the movie Anchorman with a North American martyr, a flower child, and the physical embodiment of the vice of Entitlement as guest judges. We had a statue, a mime, a dinosaur-impersonator, a Mexican wrestler, a NASCAR chaplain, and a number of buddhist monks in the contest, among other things.

What else? Tuesday the guys in my class from Franciscan went again to Sant'Onofrio to visit the rector there, who is a friend of the head of the pre-theologate program at Franciscan, Fr. Ken. That was pretty nice. He gave us a tour and we got to talk for a little while. I took a couple pictures of the event, but sadly technical difficulties have resulted in their mysterious deletion. I suppose it's just as well that I didn't take pictures of the festivities Friday, either, then. *sigh*

Other than that, things are really just business as usual around here. The first two weeks of class have been good, insofar as they can be. I still feel the need to slam my face into my desk repeatedly every morning, but that urge is occurring less frequently and becoming easier to resist. Taking classes in a foreign language is a very good way to develop virtue, I've discovered. We have about 19 credit hours of class this semester, but there isn't as much homework as there would be in the states. Homework really becomes independent study over here- we get out what we put in. The professors don't check to see if we've done the reading; all that matters is whether or not we can pass the test at the end of the semester. I'm trying, so we'll see how it goes.

Ah, and everyone over here seems to be catching some sort of cold or flu; I heard back home there's been a lot of swine flu going around, so maybe we've caught it here, as well. Amazingly, I'm still in good health, so praise God! I would write more, but I have to get back to work. I'm going to make a real effort to get a post up on Sundays, maybe, from here on out. Now that things are much calmer, maybe I'll get some pictures of random sights from around town or the college posted. I hope all is well back home. Remember to feel free to leave prayer intentions if you think of it; believe me, we spend enough time in prayer to be able to offer everyone up at some point, so please don't hesitate to ask. May the grace of God be with you all.

Monte Cassino

2009-10-13T09:08:00.013+02:00

Ok, so Saturday I took a day trip with one of the third-years I knew from Franciscan. He was looking for someone to go with him and I would have just spent my day back at the college, so I was happy to go along. Montecassino is an old* monastery founded by Saint Benedict himself (his first and most important, if I remember correctly, though I could be mistaken on that). "Old" is used rather loosely, as the place has been destroyed and rebuilt roughly five times since it was first founded, most recently at the Battle of Monte Cassino during WWII (where sadly we Americans bombed it to smithereens, but that's how it goes sometimes- I heard from another guy there that one of the bombs that fell immediately next to the high altar and down into the crypt with the bodies of Saints Benedict and Scholastica did not explode and is still there to this day- praise God for that). It was a beautiful example of how nice modern art and architecture can appear, when we so desire. The place was stunningly beautiful. We took a 110 minute train to Cassino, a small to mid-sized Italian town at the foot of the mountains. From there we took a bus up the mountain to Montecassino. The morning was beautiful in its solitude and quiet- there was a heavy, low-lying layer of clouds which hung around the base of the mountain, so that, by the time we got to the monastery, we could not see anything- the noise and distractions of the city were hidden from view and quickly forgotten. Saints Benedict and Scholastica are both entombed in Montecassino, so we prayed at their tombs for a few quiet moments. The chapel there was stunning- I'll let most of the pictures do the talking and comment only where necessary. I've very glad Riley invited me to go with him- it was a perfect day trip and a good end to our time of orientation and acclimation.

Ok, I couldn't help putting this picture in my post- the juxtaposition was

too beautiful to resist. If you look very carefully, you can see Monte Cassino through the graffiti-covered window of the train just above the "I", partially covered by the train line outside.

Again, I couldn't help it. Welcome to Europe, everyone!

Here's a better view from just outside the train station.

And we arrived here...

The solitude on the hill I mentioned- this is actually quite a good shot- that's

really how shrouded we were in the clouds.

Ok, notice the statues of Benedict and Scholastica. When you see the picture of Our Lady, that's the rear of the main altar, the spot in the main chapel where Sts. Benedict and Scholastica are venerated. Also, the very golden chapel is the crypt church underneath the main church. It's where the bodies of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica are. I tried to get shots of them, too, but they weren't great. It was a good thing another tour group got down into there to pray- it appeared that the lower chapel was not always open. Notice the incredible marble work on the altars and walls, especially the Blessed Sacrament altar (the first one you see in the set of pictures right before the main altar). It's incredible what we can do with modern technology. The final shot is of the Polish graveyard from the war down the mountain a little from Monte Cassino.

Ok, here begins my commentary silence. Enjoy!

The Diaconate Ordinations

2009-10-13T09:03:00.004+02:00

Ok, so after the last post I realized that I had not updated you on the ordinations. It was an awe-inspiring experience getting to sing in the choir at St. Peter's. The ceremony was very beautiful and I'm sure the families and friends of the ordinandi were most appreciative for all that everyone did for them- the lectors, MCs, hospitality crew, and everyone else involved. We had any number of receptions and events going on around the house and, as enjoyable as it was, I think the whole house breathed a collective sigh of relief and thanksgiving when the post-ordination reception was over. That really, in a way, marked the end of the chaos and the quiet before the storm, err, school year. Half the house was probably napping after that reception. [:) Here are some pictures from the event. NOTE: All pictures were taken well before the start or end of Mass, so none of these were particularly irreverent (despite how they might look).

Here we are, mulling about in the choir area almost an hour before Mass.

Since I can't bilocate, I had one of the organists take this picture so you could see where I was sitting/standing in the mix.

If you look carefully, you can figure out exactly where we were located in the Basilica- notice the column of the baldachino. Mass was actually held at the altar of the chair, not the altar in the center.

Here are the new deacons with Archbishop Carlson, among others, taking

their group photo after the Mass.

This was from the reception afterward. It was held in our courtyard

at the college. Most of the students were required to perform some service at the reception- I poured drinks until they closed our station. Notice that this picture was taken as I was leaving, so at the peak there were probably six times this many people socializing and celebrating.

Canonization and First Day of Classes

2009-10-13T08:03:00.006+02:00

So we all survived our first day of classes! Yesterday began "ordinary time" at the college, so to speak. We have finally begun our school year schedule, which comes as almost a sort of relief after the craziness of the last six or so weeks. We begin each day with 6:15 Morning Prayer, followed by Mass and breakfast, then the half-hour walk to make it to class on time. Classes generally run from 8:30 to 12:30, after which we walk back to the college for optional class rosary and then lunch at 1:15. The afternoons differ from day to day- we have a seminar Tuesday afternoons and a house formation night Thursday evenings, I believe, but other than that we generally don't have anything regularly scheduled until 6:45 Evening Prayer, so the afternoons are our time to really get in some studying, praying, working out, and maybe a little napping, too. Today our two morning classes were cancelled, which is why I am able to write this post at this moment.

Sunday was the big canonization Mass of five new saints of the Church. The best known of them for Americans was most certainly Saint Damian of Molokai, the apostle to the leper colony in Hawaii. I arrived with a couple classmates about 90 minutes before the event began, and it took us every bit of an hour to get to our seats. The place was jam-packed. It really was very moving seeing so many turn out in honor of these holy souls and the God Whom they served. I heard that we even had some lepers turn out for the ceremony!

Yep, that's how far back we were a solid twenty minutes into our wait in line.

Not a great seat- we certainly weren't inside- but not a bad seat, either.

At least we got seats.

Here's a closer up at the portraits they had of each saint. The close-ups follow.

After the Mass, the Pope prayed the Angelus with the pilgrims. Here he is.

Here are some of us, having just arrived back at the college.

A handful of our men from the college got the chance to serve for the Pope at this Mass, which must have been an amazing experience. One of Kalamazoo's own, Francis Marotti, even got to be candle-bearer and got to wash the Pope's hands during the Mass. He said he was shaking like a little girl (well, maybe he didn't put it exactly that way, but I know I probably would have been shaking like a little girl, so...). It really was a moving experience getting to be there on this momentous occasion. At the end of the canonization proper, the prefect of the congregation for the cause of the saints came up, along with other representatives, and personally thanked the Pope on behalf of the Church for this great gift. The program stated that he was going to give the Pope a hug, though I think he simply kissed the Pope's hands. What a remarkable statement, what a touching show on behalf of all of us!

It really made me think about the significance of this pronouncement. How beautiful it is that we have five new, officially declared, older brothers and sisters in Christ as role models and intercessors! I would encourage everyone, if you have a bit of time, to look up their stories- they are a varied group, an appropriate selection of new patrons. They are a reminder that, young or old, no matter what our call, God meets us where we are and holiness is found in living out our lives for Him whatever our vocation happens to be. All five were religious or ordained of some sort, I think, but they ended up in very different circumstances through their calls, ones which they probably would not have chosen if they had known when they first started. Holiness is not simply for those who live out their days in a cell in some obscure cloister. One of the newly canonized, Raphael Arnaiz Baron, was only 27 when he died, and, if I recall correctly, he didn't even succeed in becoming a full Trappist friar because he was sick so often and had to constantly leave to receive medical care. How difficult that must have been and what a good example to us all when everything seems to be falling apart around us. He did not achieve his will, even his desires in God's service, but he united his will to God's and was greatly exalted by God for his child-like trust. He was known for his mystical spiritual writings and his joy and friendship offered to all. Saint Damian definitely wound up in unusual circumstances, exiling himself to the leper colony of Molokai to be their pastor, administering the sacraments and offering hope to those otherwise abandoned by most of the world. He contracted the disease himself and died a brother leper for all those whom he served in life.

Other than that, things are finally starting to slow down around here, just as school is picking up. I'll try to get another post up later today or tomorrow, maybe, to tell you about my trip to Montecassino Saturday. I don't remember putting pictures up after the diaconate ordination Mass, either, so I'll try to get those up, as well. For future reference, I'll try to get a post up once a week to keep you updated on things around here. May God richly bless you all.

Prayer Intentions

2009-10-07T15:03:00.004+02:00

Ok, I wanted to start a post for prayer intentions for which people might want me or anyone else who visits this sight to pray. I hope this works- we'll see how it goes for now. Feel free to leave them as comments to this post- just give a first name and a general idea of for what we are praying- even if you cannot give a name for whatever reason, please do not just put "special intention"- I like to have some vague direction in which to go with my prayer. I'll take anything from

"Please pray for me for a big test tomorrow. -Joe"

"My mother, Mary, is going in for a triple-bypass surgery tomorrow."

"Please pray for my wife. She's going through a very tough time right now. -Anon"

or anything else appropriate

There is a link to this post on the side of the blog so people can make it to this post directly. Also, please keep me/us updated on the status of the person(s) for whom we are praying, whether they have gotten over their grave illness or passed away or passed the test or whatever the intention happens to be.

Thanks for all your prayers- I'll try to check this every day or two or three to keep you all more specifically in mine! Please pray for each other, as well. God bless.

Sant'Onofrio

2009-10-07T13:00:00.004+02:00

This morning I and the other three men in the first-year class from Franciscan decided to pay a visit to the old stomping grounds of our Pre-theologate director in Steubenville, Father Ken Cienik. We arrived at this small church almost literally next door to our college and prayed for a while. Then we admired the art work and took pictures. We asked the lady working the information desk if we could speak with the friars there, and she checked for us, but the rector was in Assisi for the week and the others were not available, so we'll have to go back and introduce ourselves at some point in the future. It really was a nice, peaceful place to pray and I think I will have to pay them some visits in the future. Here are some of the pictures I snapped while we were wandering the place.

Here's Dan in my shot of the sanctuary of the church

This is from the chapel of Sant'Onofrio. I wish it had turned out a little better, but so it is. To be honest, none of us really knew much about his story. He was an early Church ascetic, perhaps like an eastern desert father or something of the sort. I'll look him up and maybe fill in a few of the details at some point.

This is from the inner courtyard, next to the Church in the residence of the friars (at least we were pretty sure that was what this area was)

NAC Orientation Part VII - Cenone, Confession, and the Casa Santa Maria, Oh My!

2009-10-07T12:18:00.003+02:00

If you notice the name of this post, this is one that has been long in coming. I think during the second week of orientation, we took a trip to the Casa Santa Maria, which is the house of study for older priests from the States and other English speaking countries. At least, that was the impression I got, since I met an English priest there as well as a couple from other countries. The Casa is almost immediately adjacent to the Gregorian University, where I and most of the men will be studying. We were given a tour of the place and then treated to a grand dinner- without a doubt one of the top ten biggest meals of my life.

Let me see if I can remember correctly- we had an appetizer of meats and cheeses and rocket salad (like arugula, I think), followed by fried chicken and mashed potatoes, followed by a big steak and green beans, which was, in turn, followed by a nice salad, which was followed up with a homemade fruit tart and a large bowl of homemade gelato. I swear we don't eat that well all the time! It was big enough that its name is actually changed in Italian- "cena" is the word for dinner in Italian, but this was "cenone"- BIG dinner. In Italian like Spanish, suffixes are used with some frequency to express size. In our defense, we ate dinner over a LONG period of time. We were there for more than two hours. As slowly as I eat, this was a wonderful experience for me.

In the original post for this, I had gone to confession the night before this trip to the Casa (though some of us probably could have used to go again after that dinner...) and was going to comment on how beautiful the sacrament really is. Perhaps I will save a long ode to confession for another day, but simply take this moment to encourage everyone to develop a love for it. It's capable of being an embarrassing experience, to be sure, but that is bound to happen when we make ourselves vulnerable to our Lord. There can be very little growth in the spiritual life without that openness and frankness with God. Now, admittedly, it is really the frankness with the priest which is the primary problem for most people, but two simple thoughts on that-

1)there really is something to be said for having to vocalize our sins and our rejection of them. Giving word to such a thing really does help us better turn our hearts to God and experience that which we profess in our words. For better or for worse we are physical creatures and creatures of ritual- we learn and grow in our habits not merely through thinking but through doing, which is exactly what is done in confession. We do not merely think about our contrition and our repentance but we actively confess and actively repent.

2) the seal of confession is really quite absolute. A priest cannot, of course, tell anyone what one has confessed, but he cannot even really treat a person differently according to that confession, if I understand it correctly- it really is as if it never happened between the priest and the penitent (unless of course the penitent desires to discuss it in a later confession or spiritual direction). Besides, I'm growing to discover that priests really have heard it all- they're much harder to scandalize than just about anyone else on the planet. They are also, if they are living out their vocations, approaching penitents with the Heart of Christ Himself, full of love and compassion for sinners and desirous of bringing us all into closer union with Him and full of awareness of their own sinfulness and need for greater conversion of heart.

Ok, so too late- I talked more than I wanted to, but suffice it to say that I think we are seeing in our time a rededication of the Church faithful to the sacrament of confession and that this is a wonderful thing. We should all take advantage of the graces and love Christ desires to lavish upon us in this sacrament. The Holy Father has made a point in this year of the priest to emphasize the place of confession- that he truly desires this to be a year of the sacrament of confession, as well. Perhaps we should all keep in mind that Pope Benedict goes to confession once a week!

Alright, I think I have, at long last, caught up on posts. Anything from this point forward should be relatively recent news.

And Now I'm Back Again. Thanks for Your Prayers!

2009-10-07T10:49:00.003+02:00

First things first- a heartfelt thank you for all your prayers. I had a wonderful, moving silent retreat. We went to Greccio, a little place in the mountains where St. Francis started the tradition of the crèche for the celebration of Christmas with his brother friars. The Spirit was moving strongly in our prayers and quiet time. That is not to say that the time was "perfect" in any human sense of the word; everyone still had their own moments (or hours) of distractions, along with some desolations here and there. God works through those moments, too, if we let Him. It was funny though it's something I have experienced with silent retreats in the past- I think, and many others in the class agreed- that we grew more in brotherhood sharing the silence with our Lord with one another than if we had been free to converse. I would have pictures for you, but I decided it might not be in keeping with the spirit of a silent retreat to be taking a whole bunch of pictures there. I kinda wish I had, though, so that I could show you the two scorpions I found in my room there. It was kind of exciting, really. They were really quite small and pitiful- so much so that, perhaps through the intercession of St. Francis, I took pity on them and just took them outside rather than squishing them. For all I know they could have been terribly poisonous, but eh, none of us ended up getting stung, so praise God! The retreat was good in a great many ways, but it was really nice just to get the chance to recollect myself and "waste time with God," so to speak, after all the chaos of the preceding four weeks and right before classes start up.

Speaking of thanks for prayers, I passed my Italian language proficiency exam! Praise God! Believe me, He was definitely responding to prayers, since I and a handful of my classmates would not have passed that thing any other way, at least not with our Italian abilities the way they are at present. As my dad is fond of saying now, "ancora imparo," or "I am still learning," stated by many but attributed most famously to Michelangelo.

Now the difficulty is remembering what else I have not yet put on this blog, since so much has happened these six weeks. I have been, believe it or not, singing in the choir for liturgical celebrations here at the urging of Francis Marotti, one of our seminarians who got here last year. It's really been a great experience. I've learned a lot, having never done anything of the like in a formal setting. Our experience will culminate with Mass and ordinations at St. Peter's Basilica tomorrow, where we will actually be singing! It's very humbling and awe-inspiring to think that I'm going to get a chance to sing for a Mass on the main altar at St. Peter's. Please keep the fourth-year men in your prayers, those who either were just ordained or will be ordained to the diaconate tomorrow.

Classes start next week, so that will be very exciting. I'm actually looking forward to it, I think, as amazing as that may sound. It looks like I will be taking Intro to New Testament, Revelation and its Transmission in the Church, Church History, and Christology and Soteriology, in addition to my Greek class and a Class Seminar that we are required to take (unless we can test of out the Greek, which a few guys have been able to do, but not too many of us).

There are some other things I could list, but I think they will best fit in another post. May God bless you all.

I'm Back... and Then I'm Off Again

2009-09-26T16:21:00.006+02:00

So, first things first- I offer my heartfelt thanks to all for your prayers. Things have gone really well lately. I'm finally almost finished moving into my room, having unpacked my trunks and rearranged my furniture and all such things. I think I may have caught a cold, but then again that could just be my allergies rebelling against the fact that I actually took the time to dust my room this week.

My Italian test... oh, my Italian test. Only God and a small handful of Italians know how that went, and judging from the fact that the test was Monday, there were only thirty of us taking it, they had our scores before we left the building, and we still do not know how we did, this is likely a small handful of highly bureaucratic Italians who know how the test went. [:) I'll let you know when I know, but, again, only God knows when that will be. The written part of the examination definitely went well enough; I'm not at all worried about the results of that half. The oral part was a little rougher. I do not think that I represented my Italian abilities as well as I could have, and I do not know if I could have as well as I should have. (NB: To be fair and in all seriousness and charity, they were truly lovely people who administered our test, but things do tend to take, well, significantly more time over here than they did in the states. It's just part of the Italian culture, I suppose.)

I have had my first meetings with my formation advisor and spiritual director since last I wrote. These are two important elements of seminary life; a seminarian is not expected simply to study theology, but also to become formed into a better person so that he might more ably serve God and His people. The formation advisor calls the seminarian on in the area of human formation, helping him to overcome perceived character flaws and challenging him to grow through various apostolates and endeavors which force him both to step outside his comfort zone and to grow in his ability to take on difficult tasks. The spiritual director helps the seminarian to discern the voice of God in the seminarian's life. The director helps him to take a closer look at his prayer life and even his day-to-day life, since our spiritual life cannot be compartmentalized but deeply influences our whole person, and see where God is leading him and where he needs to work to grow in holiness. The spiritual director also becomes a spiritual mentor of sorts, sharing his experience in spiritual warfare with the younger man. Formation direction is what is referred to as part of the external forum, while spiritual direction falls under the heading of internal forum. Essentially, external forum discussions are public domain- the formator can bring whatever he discusses with you to the rector or others involved in your formation. Internal forum, on the other hand, is shared with no one. Seminarians are thus encouraged to be totally honest with both parties, but to be willing to be brutally honest with their spiritual directors. A spiritual director cannot help you discern the movements of your soul, how our Lord and the Adversary are trying to work in you, if you are not sharing the movements of your soul with him. There are whole books that could be written on this subject and I considered finding a couple nice passages from a bishops' conference document to help explain, but I imagine this is more than plenty.

If you had not noticed, I just now made an executive decision to color code my paragraphs, especially if they start getting rather lengthy. Black sentences are simply my commentary on how things have gone since my last post. Light blue paragraphs are passages in which I have strayed from my normal commentary to explain something of importance, whether it's in the life of a seminarian or in the workings of the Vatican or in how Italians cross the street. Finally, I think I will color paragraphs in which I wax theological or philosophical red, or whatever color doesn't contrast too badly with the background, if such a thing ever does happen. [:) So we'll see how the system works.

I don't have any especially impressive pictures at the moment, though I do intend to take pictures of the grounds here in due time and get them up. The first-year men are leaving for retreat tomorrow, though, so I will not be able to post again until next weekend. We are drawing much closer to the diaconate ordinations in early October. All of the fourth-year men who were not ordained deacons back in their home dioceses will be ordained by a visiting American archbishop at Saint Peter's, at least I'm pretty sure that's how it works, having yet to attend one. I will be singing in the choir for that Mass, too, which is pretty neat- there aren't too many people that can say they got to sing in a Mass at the main altar in Saint Peter's. Choir has been a grueling and humbling experience, much like Italian. In a way, they really are very much alike, both being languages rather foreign to me. I was a little lost during our first practice when the choir director starting telling us to "add a breath to the beginning of the third note in measure 35" and then to "make sure to remember the crescendoes!" and other foreign concepts. I've been picking it up quickly enough, though, and things have really been smoothing out. Once the deaconate ordinations are completed, I'm pretty sure we will have one week off and then classes finally start. I'll write more once the time comes. Thank you again for all your prayers. Please pray for us while we are on retreat; I will be remembering all of you in my prayers. May God richly bless you all.

The Italian Test, Your Prayers, and My Future Posts

2009-09-14T16:18:00.004+02:00

I think I'm finally down to being only one post behind. I will try to get that one up here soon, but then I'm going incommunicado for at least the next week. A week from today we have our Italian language proficiency test, which is more than a little worrisome. We essentially need to prove the equivalent of somewhere between three and four good college semesters' worth of knowledge and ability in Italian- proving our "independence" with the language, if not our fluency. Since I have now had only 10 good days of it here and 12 good lessons back home, I predict that I have a bit of a challenging week of studying ahead of me. Worst case scenario, I have to retake it in December, but please pray for me and for all of us first-years, especially those of us who are not particularly gifted linguistically *cough* *cough*. I will let you know how that went when I know something... May God bless and keep you all. Be assured of my prayers.

Comments on My Blog

2009-09-14T15:38:00.002+02:00

Hello all. So, it has been brought to my attention that it was inordinately difficult to make comments on my blog posts. I have looked into it and significantly streamlined the process... I think. Feel free to post now and let me know if it's still not working. As always, rules of common sense and common decency apply- if a post is obscene, irrelevant (read as "spam"), or just plain mean, it will be given as much attention as it deserves, which is none. I will simply delete it with no further ado. That being said, write away. May God bless you all.

NAC Orientation Part VI - The Swiss Guard Barracks

2009-09-13T13:07:00.009+02:00

So I know these pictures have been long in coming, but they are finally here. Last week on Tuesday we took an excursion to the Swiss Guard Barracks in Vatican City. We weren't allowed to see too much of the place, but they did let us in the main cortile (courtyard) and their armory. You can look up all the finer details on the Swiss Guard yourself, since I would probably have to look up most of the information again to tell you about them here, anyway. [:) In short, though, they are actual Swiss men who are serving in the Swiss armed forces. They generally serve two year stints, though some stay on as officers for significantly more than that. There are, I believe, only 110 in Vatican City right now, according to the officer who was leading our tour, though I could be wrong on that. I'll comment more as I move through the pictures.

This was in the central courtyard. The place is very obviously Swiss. It is directly abutting the wall of Vatican City, I believe, likely the same wall through which the original swiss mercenaries led the Pope to safety in that historic slaughter. Like I said, feel free to look the story up- it actually makes for a rather exciting tale.

Here we are, gathering around our guide to hear some of their history and get split into groups for the armory tour. As you can see, it was casual dress, but some of us still wore our clerics anyway. The funny thing is, the Swiss Guard salute priests as they walk by, and a couple of us have actually gotten mistaken for being priests by the Swiss Guard one time and gotten saluted. That didn't happen this time- it was pretty obvious we were seminarians.

Here are the Swiss Mannequins in the entrance to the armory.

This is the main lobby of the armory. Here they hang their uniforms and store some of their other accessories. Notice the name tags on the uniforms. The armor is not used quite so often anymore...

Here's a better look at the armor and the officers helmets.

Behold the Swiss Guard Halberds... and Father Belsole translating from German into English and back again for us with one of the guard who doesn't speak English very well.

This is what the officer uniforms used to look like, if I remember correctly. For a while, the uniforms used to change with each Pope, adding the main color from the papal crest to the uniform. They did away with that some decades ago, though.

Here is what you see upon entering the weapon room in the armory. Most of these are not used anymore, but they were at one point. The weapons range from ancient to quite modern, with modern rifles amongst the older guns in that section. Notice my personal favorite- the spiked club- in one of the pictures. They even had crossbows and claymores.

These are their dress swords which they actually wear and still use.

I found this to be an interesting shot. After their first year, the Swiss Guard are permitted to get married, so we actually saw a couple women and their kids in the courtyard. The solitary kickball and the little girl in the Swiss Guard Barracks was just too poetic a juxtaposition for me to pass up without a picture.

Finally, here we are leaving the complex. I took this shot mostly to give a better impression of the height of the place. It did not appear to be an unusually large barracks, but it was rather tall.

So that was the Swiss Guard Barracks. We then had to hurry back for holy hour and evening prayer, since the day was scheduled a little tightly, but it was definitely worth it. Praise God.

NAC Orientation Closing Remarks

2009-09-13T12:40:00.002+02:00

I know that I still have one or two more posts from orientation that need to find their way onto my blog, but today marked the official end of orientation. All the old men were due back by 11:30 PM last night, so we celebrated Sunday Mass this morning with the full house, which was really rather beautiful. After Mass we had Sunday brunch and the closing remarks from the second-year orientation head, as well as the opening remarks from the rector. It was nice to get to catch up with some old friends from Steubenville among the upperclassmen. On that note, Ted Martin got back a week ago today. We went out to dinner as a diocese- Ted, Francis, and I. As funny as it sounds, we actually went out for German food! It was quite good, though.

It has been very good to get to spend some time with both of them. I only knew them so well back in Kalamazoo, so I look forward to getting to know them better over my time here, especially since, God, bishop, and formator willing, I will be serving the diocese with them as my brother priests.

I'll write more when I can and fill you all in on some of the more interesting and bizarre elements of my first few weeks here, especially about the excitement over my room. [:) For now, I am going to get some work done and settle into a more regular schedule of Italian classes and prayer. May God bless you all.

NAC Orientation Part V - The Labor Day Extravaganza

2009-09-13T12:01:00.005+02:00

On Monday of last week, we celebrated Labor Day. Yes, sadly, we still had Italian classes- no rest for the wicked (and no rest from labor on Labor Day here), but after our morning classes we had a cookout and the dress code was relaxed so that we could wear more American backyard cookout/tailgating clothes. A lot of guys wore baseball caps and their baseball team shirts and such things. We had hamburgers, brats, and many of the other game day standards that are harder to come by in Italy. It was really kinda nice to have that taste of home after a little time acclimating to our new home.

After the cookout, we had a new men vs the second-year men softball game. I didn't end up playing but I very much enjoyed watching our team utterly dismantle the second-year men. The final score was something like 14-3. There was even at least one inning, I think, where we had three up and three down- not one man from the other team got to base. Our outfield was really rather exceptional. The game was made all the more enjoyable by the second-year color commentating that they had going from one of the lower walkout terraces on the NAC. We also had a foot race during our fifth inning stretch. One of the second-year men considered himself to be "the fastest seminarian alive." This, however, was put to rest by two of the incoming men, one of whom had been running competitively since he was about five. Further, he had a few inches of stride on the second-year man, which helped him to pull off a win. It was quite a race, though, and it was definitely a close finish for all the men involved. We all had a lot of fun; the celebrations were a welcome diversion from the studies and the orientation conferences.

One of our monsignors was exercising his role as father in our community and cooking the hamburgers and brats for us. One of the second-year guys was helping him out.

Here, of course, like at any good American baseball game we sang the national anthem, with our color commentators and their friends holding the flag for us. We also had the rector offer our opening prayer.

"Play ball!"

Here are some of the men stretching and preparing

themselves for the softball game.

Here we see a handful of the spectators. There were a fair number behind me, too, but I couldn't capture all of us in the picture. Besides, I was trying to watch the game, too. That's why you won't be seeing any pictures from the game. Sorry.

Here are the four men participating in the foot race (along with the "official"). I tried to get a shot of the finish, but there were too many people in the way and it happened a little too quickly.

After the game, both teams shook hands. Our players might just look a bit more satisfied with the results of the game. Just maybe. After that, everyone, including the spectators, dropped a knee in prayer of thanksgiving to Our Lord around home plate.

May we keep that in mind- that all our endeavors, whether apparently successful or not, ought to end in prayer and thanksgiving to God, from whom all good things come.

Nac Orientation Part IV - A Day at The Beach

2009-09-12T17:49:00.006+02:00

So, I know that I still have a couple posts of past events that need to find their way onto my blog, but I just got back from the beach and figured I might as well take care of current events and fill in the gaps as I can. All the first-years, a handful of the older men, and a large portion of the monsignors and priests of the faculty went to the beach today. I thought this was especially post worthy, since I think some can forget that priests and seminarians are people, too. [:) We left for the beach at 9:30 this morning (3:30 AM back in Kalamazoo) and spent most of the day there, lounging in the sun, swimming, reading, talking, and playing frisbee, football, and volleyball. It was a lot of fun, though I was probably ready to come back to the college two hours before we finally did. I'm so used to Lake Michigan that the salt water of the Mediterranean was a bit of a surprise, though I was told by my Aussie friends that it's good for your skin. Go figure. So that's really about it. We ate cold cuts for lunch and really enjoyed ourselves. A couple of my friends are definitely going to be feeling their sunburn tomorrow. Thankfully, one of the other Franciscan guys thought to bring sunscreen to Europe so he let me use some of his. Here are the few pictures I took from our adventure today. I would have taken more, but it's difficult to take pictures when you're in the water or eating lunch.

Here are most of the guys swimming and throwing a football, beach ball, and a couple tennis balls and frisbees around. I had just gotten out of the water at this point.

Here are most of the rest of the guys reading, sunbathing, or napping.

Most people make sandcastles when they go to the beach. Seminarians make Sand St. Peter's Basilicas. He even represented the fountains in the plaza. [:)

Finally, just as I was posting this, I heard a crash of thunder, which has been so uncommon around here that it confused me until I looked out the window and noticed that it had started to rain rather hard. Just for the sheer heck of it, here's what it looks like out my window right now.

That's it for now. Please remember to pray for me and know that I am praying for everyone back in Kalamazoo and many who aren't (as best I can, anyway). [:) God bless.

NAC Orientation Part III - Assisi, The Scavi, and My Random Musings

2009-09-10T14:42:00.009+02:00

Alright, I managed to get another set of pictures to load today, as well. Last week all the new men were required to go on a tour of the excavations beneath St. Peter's Basilica. I had already done this once before, but it was just as incredible the second time. One gets to see the tombs of early Christians, culminating in the tomb of Saint Peter himself, which is a mind-blowing experience. Understandably, they did not allow pictures of anything down there, so you'll just have to acquire tickets and go on the tour yourself to see it, which I would highly recommend. Other than that, we had a lot of Italian studying and numerous conferences to attend in preparation for the school year.

Assisi was a wonderful break after a long week. We got a chance to do a lot of praying, reading, and socializing during our time there. On Saturday, we walked up to the hermitage where St. Francis and his friars spent some of their time in prayer. Last time I was in Assisi I had walked up the road- the "easy" route, being only probably 50 minutes of somewhat gradual uphill. This time I opted to try for the nature trail, which, unbeknownst to me, was tantamount to mountain climbing. We had an incredibly steep climb which ascended much more directly toward the hermitage- there was no real meandering to this trail. It was, admittedly, an awful lot of fun. I was hiking up part of the way with one of the Monsignors from the College, which was an impetus to keep going, lest I get schooled by someone twice my age. We made it just fine and, thankfully, my asthma did not rear its ugly head, so the walk was quite pleasant. I sweat through three shirts in the course of the hike, but it was a lot of fun.

One of the evenings we were there, there was the equivalent of a Miss Italy pageant or some sort of girls' talent show going on in the middle of Assisi of all places. Suffice it to say I did not watch to see who won, but it was hard to even think, let alone pray or try to fall asleep during much of the show, what with the square being so crammed full of people and the music being so loud. It was actually kinda funny, hearing American music resounding through the town being sung by girls who probably had no idea what the words they were singing even meant. Anyway, it wasn't exactly the ideal outing for a group of seminarians, so I spent my night trying to pray, talking with some of the other guys, and just catching up on my sleep.

Here's a picture of the Basilica of St. Francis I took the night of the pageant while I was trying desperately to find a quiet place in the town to pray by myself. The frustrating thing which only complicated matters was that most of the churches closed rather early, and the only church which was still definitely open at that hour was literally RIGHT in the square with the talent show, and was probably closed anyway because of the show.

Here's where we had Mass at the hermitage of Saint Francis at the end of the long hike up the hill. It was really a beautiful, peaceful place. I could definitely see why they chose it.

A view of the hermitage from the top of the hiking trail just as it met the road in the final stretch.

Here's a few pictures showing the nice view from the place close to the top where the trail finally levels off a bit and opens up so you can look down at the countryside. It was stunningly beautiful- the picture does not do it justice.

Finally, I took a shot of the sunset over Assisi. I know sunset pictures never turn out on film, but this one actually did alright. The whole valley just glowed and shimmered with the light of the dying day. A few of us just stood there and quietly (well, kinda sorta quietly) watched the sun go down over Assisi.

Assisi is truly a beautiful town and the time for prayer and fellowship was most welcome during the chaos of these opening days. It was really good for forming those relationships amongst the men of our class which will be so helpful and encouraging in upcoming days. I really have been very blessed in a number of ways, but the great realization of that first week and a half was the caliber of so many of the men here.

Perhaps it's due in significant part to the "big fish in a small pond" syndrome with which so many of us can be afflicted, especially in a relatively small town with a relatively small high school, but it has been humbling being surrounded by so many talented, devoted individuals. The great diversity in our class is also quickly apparent- contrary to what one might think at first, we really do boast the full spectrum of individuals, from serious jocks to math nerds to artistics types to really any other stereotype in existence. This isn't to make it sound like these are actually adequate descriptions, though. This is merely to describe the surface appearance and impression a person makes. Here it seems that really every man breaks out of his particular stereotype and expresses a much greater fullness of the human person. Many men are talented leaders, athletes, singers, engineers or historians or [fill in the field of study], possessing a great store of knowledge on Church history and devotions, all at the same time. It is, in a way, much akin to my time at Franciscan University. You just don't realize that people like that exist in any number. It's encouraging to realize that there really are a great number of individuals your age who are trying to live out their faith, both in their spiritual lives and in their interactions with others. It is a prayerful, charitable community, knit together in our shared faith and dedication to our Lord and our shared status as resident aliens, "strangers in a strange land", so to speak. We certainly possess our flaws, which will no doubt become much more apparent and better known as time goes on, but my class, as well as the other men here, does fill me with hope for the future of the Church. Only time will tell... Vergine Immacolata, Aiutateci!

NAC Orientation Part II (b) - The Photos

2009-09-09T22:08:00.018+02:00

Ok, so here are the pictures from the Gandolfo Gardens and Papal Angelus that wouldn't post last time.

Here's a decent view of the lake near Castel Gandolfo. One of the priests at the NAC told a story of how, when he was a student, they snuck down to the lake to go sailing and swimming. They ended up using their cassocks as sails to get out into the lake. They started to go swimming and noticed a number of pairs of eyes all turn to watch them- the lake was full of snakes! Suffice it to say that they made it back to dry land in record time.

Here I am standing on the restaurant patio overlooking the lake.

Here's a shot down the road in the Castel Gandolfo gardens. I tried to give an impression of the dimensions of the place in this and the following pictures. Enjoy.

Here's my friend Jason sitting under what must be a tree as ancient as the Roman ruins scattered around it.

Speaking of Roman ruins, here are the ruins of the tunnel the Roman Emperor would use to get around these gardens in the rain or in heavy sunlight.

This was a tranquil little Marian grotto in which Pope John Paul II would end his prayer walk through the gardens. Pope Benedict often uses this grotto for prayer, as well.

These are the Pope's fish, which live in the pool in the Marian grotto. According to Archbishop Harvey, they are so used to being fed by the Pope, they instinctively draw near to the edge of the pool whenever anyone wearing all white stands nearby. We tried to get the sisters traveling with us to test this statement, but they were rather reluctant. It was actually rather funny- the Pope keeps his fish bread in the ruins of a wall where a rock has fallen out- a rather humble storage place for the Pope's fish bread. I suppose you would have had to have seen it to fully appreciate it.

Here we are, gathered around the pool. Shortly thereafter we all prayed the Salve Regina in honor of Our Lady and the Holy Father. Note my Australian friend wearing a baseball cap with his dress clerics. [:)

Behold the Papal swimming pool! It's actually impossible to see in this picture, but that's where it is, anyway- that building past the fence and the foliage... as I said before, it used to be an outdoor pool, but it had to be covered to protect the Pope from the papparazzi.

Now for a few pictures of the Castel Gandolfo farmland. They had various produce, olive trees, greenhouses, and even some cows, as you'll see in one of the pictures. There is also a helipad in one of the shots, which is rather self-explanatory.

Finally, we took a nice group picture with the Archbishop. Afterwards, Francis and I got a shot with the Archbishop as the seminarians from Kalamazoo. He actually remembered Father Fleckenstein from his time at the NAC, which was highly impressive.

Well, that's it for now. More to come soon. Stay tuned for pictures of our Labor Day First Year vs Second Year Softball game, as well as my trip to the Swiss Guard Barracks and anything else that comes up between now and then. May God bless you all.

NAC Orientation Part II - Castel Gandolfo and the Vatican Gardens

2009-09-07T15:53:00.008+02:00

Well, brothers and sisters, it's been a long, long week since I posted, and I cannot possibly contain all of it in one post, so I'm going to be posting past events piecemeal. Two Sundays ago we had the great privilege of attending the angelus service at Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope had been staying. We heard the Pope give a talk on St. Monica and Augustine, terribly appropriate considering my home parish and pastoral assignment, and on the Catholic family. Even though I have seen the Pope a handful of times now and even gotten to shake hands with him, it is always very moving being so near to him and listening to the words of wisdom which pour forth from the man.

Here I am with the other Steubenville men in my class.

Here are the NAC seminarians waiting to enter Castel Gandolfo

We actually saw the Pope inside a courtyard inside Gandolfo. It was a small but exceedingly high chamber. Most of the people were center and back a ways, but we got to come in through the side and stand under and to the Pope's left.

...hence the poor angle for my shot of the Pope.

It was a good place to stand, at least.

After we cleared out of Castel Gandolfo we walked to a nearby restaurant overlooking Lake Albano. The food was spectacular, the view was great, both only superceded by the company. We had a great time- one of the tables of guys got rained out because they didn't have complete cover, so they had to move indoors. Don't feel too sorry for them, though- they got dessert first and even got comped coffee. The most unique part of the day came after pranzo. Archbishop Harvey, the head of the papal household, gave us a tour of the vatican gardens at Castel Gandolfo. It was a rather humbling experience to be able to walk through the Pope's personal gardens. They were, of course, absolutely beautiful, and since Gandolfo used to be a part of the Roman Emperor's summer home, there were serious Roman ruins scattered throughout the garden, some having been restored and some left the way they were, perhaps to add an air of antiquity. It was stunningly beautiful. Archbishop Harvey also informed us that the Pope had his personal swimming pool in the gardens. We could not quite see it, though, since it had to have a roof put over it to keep paparazzi at bay. We were also shown the vatican farms, which provide the vatican with a great deal of the food they eat. There is actually a store, open only to vatican citizens and certain individuals with a pass, where they sell the surplus milk, meat, and other produce from the farm, so you could go there and buy milk from the papal farm. Holy cow! (sorry, that was awful... I'll try to refrain from any other bad jokes, like it would just be ridiculous to comment on how the holy cows would have calves with the papal bulls... you can see how our minds were wandering a wee bit during the tour.)

It was really an incredible experience and I am grateful that Archbishop Harvey was able to get us in for a quick tour before the Pope came out for his evening walk. Last year's class actually had to cut their tour slightly short because the Pope was going to come out for his walk and prayers! After this wonderful event, we really hit the books and got to our Italian this last week. That went well, but the week was just constant movement. It's been truly great, but just as an example one day last week (I think Weds. or Thurs.) my free time that day, aside from my prayer time, consisted of lying down on my bed and staring out the window for the length of one song from my iPod to keep my sanity before running to my next meeting. It's been a real whirlwind, but I can't say that that's at all been a bad thing. It's really getting us oriented and settled in quickly. This last weekend we went to Assisi for a relaxing break, a little quiet prayer, and a chance to get to know each other better. I'll write more on that and other things next time. May God bless you all.

P.S. I suspect this post will need to be broken up into two since I think I've reached the limit of content. Either that, or the internet here is dying- either is a distinct possibility.

P.P.S. According to the preview, these paragraphs and pictures might get jumbled together. Believe me, if that occurs know that there WERE spaces in this post at least once upon a time...

NAC Orientation Part I - Rome Sweet Home

2009-08-28T14:37:00.011+02:00

So I've been in Rome roughly 36 hours now, and what a whirlwind orientation it has been! I don't have huge amounts of time to post, as things have not yet quieted down (and my brain is a little fried still), but I wanted to get something up, at least with the pictures of the morning. When the six of us who were on our flight got in at the airport, Monsignor Gruss was there to pick us up along with a few of the second-year men. We got in and were immediately welcomed by the others and led off to pray midmorning prayer. We then got a chance to shower (praise God!) and have lunch with the faculty and the rest of the new students. We then were given a tour of the building and had a little time to think about unpacking.

This is the view from my room- our front yard. I thought the tree was actually rather artistic. Sadly, St. Peter's basilica is just a tiny bit to the right of what can been seen from my window, so I have to actually walk down the hall a little to see it. *sigh* What a tough life we lead here.

This and the two following are shots of my room. As you can see, I still haven't quite moved in, but I'm working on it. It's not luxurious, but it's a little like having a loft in downtown New York or something of the sort. It's tiny sure, but it's NEW YORK! Well, it's like that, except better, I guess.

THERE'S Saint Peter's. This is from the window at the end of my hall.

One of the coolest parts of the day come shortly thereafter, when we went on a very brief pilgrimage (as most of them are once you are already in Rome) to Sant'Agostino, the Church of Saint Augustine where St. Monica is entombed. This has special importance for me, obviously, since she is the patroness of my home parish, but it was also a great trip because we went to pray for our mothers at the tomb of the woman who so embodied maternal care and concern, without which none of us seminarians would be the same men we are today.

I finally got to bed around 10:30, I think, which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been for the fact that I was running on roughly an hour of sleep over the previous 34 hours or so and the fact that we had to leave the college in our dress clerics the next morning at 6:45. That being said, I handled it better than I thought I was going to, I'm certain in no small part due to the graces from all the prayers people are offering up for me. We left this morning at 6:45 for St. Peter's basilica to celebrate Mass at the tomb of Saint Peter, which was rather moving. It was really great being at Mass surrounded by all these men dressed in their clerics discerning the priesthood along with me.

Here we are getting ready to depart, all dressed up in our clerics.

This is my class of 2013, all standing in Piazza San Pietro.

Here I am with Dan Ulishney, a classmate of mine from Franciscan.

I'm standing in front of the main altar in Saint Peter's. You can see the baldachino in the background. It is really breathtaking.

Shortly thereafter we took our Italian language placement exams. Those really weren't as stressful as they sound like they should be. I can't imagine I did nearly as well as most of the guys, since all but 8 of the 57 of us came over a month early to study Italian, but I don't think I did abysmally, either. Only time will tell, I suppose.

After that, I went shopping with Francis Marotti and got to spend some time with him. I've been most appreciative for his help already during these first 36 or so hours. It's been really great having all these men here that I know, though I'm trying really hard to spend time with all the others in the hopes that I get to know them just as well. I think that's it for now. Please pray for me! I've been keeping the people back home in my prayers. May God bless you.

P.S. Yes, I unabashedly plagiarized the title of this post from Scott Hahn, but I thought it most appropriate, so there!

My First Blog Post!!!

2009-08-24T00:15:00.007+02:00

Alright, here goes nothing. T-minus forty-eight hours and counting! I'm almost packed and suffering from just the tiniest tad bit of trepidation. I wanted to get this blog up and running before the chaos ensued, so here it is. I obviously don't have anything impressive to show you as far as pictures are concerned (and I will spare you pictures of my clothing, nearly packed bags, nightmarishly disorganized room, saddened parents, etc.), so I will, as a test run, put up some old pictures of mine that are at least slightly relevant.

This was a picture of me overlooking St. Peter's Square back in 2006.

This is a picture of some of us at the Franciscan University Pre-The Graduation Ceremony in 2008. Three of us, Peter Van Lieshout, Dan Ulishney, and I, are all freshman at the North American College this year.

This is a picture of now Deacon Kurt Lucas and me in April of 2006 in the chapel underneath the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi.

Ok, just for the record, I just realized how small the picture resolution is for these pictures- I'll take care of that in future posts... *sigh*

Very well, proper posts will be up soon enough. Pray for me!!! May God bless you all.