Hello again!
After my last post I received an e-mail from someone saying that it appeared that there was no emphasis on personal/contemplative prayer. He said that there must be the thought that there will be time for contemplation after we are dead. I merely hadn’t written about the personal prayer time since I was writing about the scheduled stuff in our busy days. There is actually a great deal of emphasis on personal prayer and I will write about that in just a little bit.
To update you, I did end up dropping my choir class. If you remember I was quite frustrated by many aspects of it. I had a great conversation with the choir director and noticed her working to address the concerns that I had raised. I decided however that on the whole it wasn’t worth it to take this class at this time. I may take it again in the future, or I will take the vocal practicum at a later point which will cover that requirement in the formation program.
Back to the personal prayer… This is a topic that is frequently brought up and emphasized as important. A person is to develop a way of making personal prayer a part of all liturgical prayer, as well as a part of their other time. We are not in formation to become contemplative monks who spend hours and hours on their knees in the chapel every day, that is an important calling for those who receive it, but we are being trained to be Diocesan Priests who are out serving the people of God. In this way it is great that we are busy and being formed in building prayer into all parts of our daily lives.
One of my favorite classes so far is Intro to Spiritual Life. In this class we are discussing the history of Christian Spirituality, and various methods of Christian Spirituality that we can adapt to ourselves. It is important for a priest to be well versed in this area, the priest may have one way that works best for him, but if he is to help all of the people he is shepherding to grow in their faith in the Lord he should know many different approaches to prayer.
In the Christian Catholic world the obviously most important part of one’s spiritual life is the Mass. In this we start out with opening up God’s word in the Liturgy of the Word (4 readings from Scripture in a Sunday Mass, 3 in weekday Mass, plus the homily in all) We then move into the Liturgy of the Eucharist by doing as Christ directed in His holy sacrifice of His Body and Blood.
Outside of the Mass there are other liturgical prayers which are important, but nowhere near the same as the Mass. Then there are also private devotional prayers that are prescribed as great ways to pray on the life of Christ, probably the most famous of these is the Rosary. The Rosary is a form of prayer in which one meditates on various mysteries of the faith (I’m sure if you Google “mysteries of the rosary” you will find them listed) while repeating scripturally based prayers. There are many other private devotional prayers that are embraced by different people.
Devotional prayer is not seen as a substitute for personal conversational/contemplative prayer. In this there are many different forms. One should always give thanks to God for what He has given us, which is everything. One should bring their needs to God, He already knows them, but wants us to ask Him for His assistance in all parts of our life. One of the most important things that someone should bring to God as a need is their sins. They should spend some time thinking about what their sins are, asking God for forgiveness, and asking God to help them to sin no more.
Spiritual reading is another great method of personal prayer. In this someone reads anything based on faith, scripture, saint stories, vocation stories, or just anything that opens the faith up more. While reading it someone takes time to reflect on what they have read and grows in their faith through that prayer. I will write about some of my spiritual reading as time goes on in the blog.
A great tool that has been given to us here to help with our personal prayer is the Examen, a prayer format that has been handed down by St. Ignatius of Loyola (the founder of the Jesuits). The parts of the Examen can take various amounts of time based on what one feels is needed. I will summarize the Examen sheet that I have sitting right next to my computer, this is something that I go through a couple of times a day just as prayer for myself.
1) Give Thanks: go over your day to give thanks for the great things that God has given… look at all aspects, the physical, the spiritual, the personal encounters, etc. Give Thanks to God for the good that has been part of your day.
2) Pray for God’s Light: In this you ask God to give you the grace to see Him in your day and to see how He would want you to see.
3) Replay the Day: This step may seem a lot like the first, but without giving thanks just think about all parts of your day, how can you find God in the good and the bad, in the actions you did and the encounters you had.
4) Express regret: figure out what you have done wrong, apologize to God for it. Apologize for the ways that you have failed to live up to what He wants.
5) Look forward to tomorrow: How will you find God tomorrow? Prepare yourself for the challenges to come, and ask God to help you get through and move forward as you go about the next day.
The last thing that I'll say about personal prayer in this post is that since people often ask for prayers I worry that I will forget them specifically. I have long kept a notecard that I write the names of those whom I wish to pray for on. Since I have been here I have expanded it to a small notepad that I keep in my brievary... I read this list and say a few prayers for these people a few times a day.
Peace,
Adam
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The busy life here
Hello again,
I am so very glad that I warned everyone that I would probably only be able to get a blog up about once a week when I got here to seminary. We are so very busy, nothing too terribly hard, but fast paced that I like to have some down time when I can, and writing a blog is difficult to fit in, but I do really enjoy writing this, it is a nice way for me to do a reflection.
I guess that the first thing that I want to say is that after my last blog I finally got ahold of the choir director and had about a 40 minute discussion with her. She understood my frustrations and it was noticeable during the class on Monday that she was keeping it in mind as she went through stuff. I haven’t decided for sure to stay in the class, but it was a great step and really reduced the frustration level there, which eliminated almost all of the stress that I have here.
I mentioned that I would write a bit about the day to day lifestyle here… I’ll at least get started in this post, but that could get long so I may have to carry it on to another. Our day to day life is very busy, but it tends to be with little things with gaps in between that aren’t accounted for. I have typically preferred to be one who has longer times occupied and then a bit longer stretches off… I need to work at getting going for short stretches. Based on time that I have been around a parish, this is more the life of a priest, with scattered obligations, so it is good preparation.
On the days that I have classes the obligations start at 7:15 in the morning with the community praying Morning Prayer together from the Liturgy of the Hours. This takes about 15 minutes and then there is some quiet time in the chapel before Mass starts at 7:40. Week day Masses take about 35-40 minutes, at which time we go over to breakfast. I think that they put the breakfast out at about 8:15 and it runs until 9:05. Depending on each person’s schedule there are two class sessions in the morning. I have class from 10:45-12:05 on Mondays and Thursdays; Tuesdays and Fridays I have class from 9:15-10:05. I was able to get a work study job to help me to have a little bit of money for fun stuff… I currently have this two hours on Monday and Thursday, after Mass, so 8:30-10:30. I am working in the library, shelving books, working the circulation desk and such. I also work Friday evenings for 4 hours.
Lunch starts at 12:10 and runs to 1:00. Afternoon classes can get going at 1:10 depending on the class length. On Mondays and Thursdays this quarter I have a class from 1:10-2:05 and then again from 4:05 until 5:05; Tuesdays and Friday’s I have two classes from 1:10-4:00 with a 10 minute break in between at 2:30.
The day isn’t over after class though. On Monday’s at 5:15 we get together as a cam (floor and hallway living unit) and pray Evening Prayer together before going to supper. Evening Prayer on Tuesday’s is prayed by language groups… because there are international students here, or those trying to learn another language there are various groups for English, Spanish, Polish, and I don’t know if there are any others… I only go to the English. Wednesday Evening prayer can be on your own with Night Prayer prayed at a cam meeting. My cam has decided to do Evening Prayer again on Wednesdays and then Night Prayer will be either on our own or if we choose to get together again later. Thursday’s night prayer is prayed with the other men from your home Diocese, this is normally followed by some level of social activity, such as going out to eat together. Friday Evening Prayer is on your own, or with anyone that you set it up to pray with.
We also have formation time as a class on Mondays from 7:00-8:30 PM most weeks, there is just a couple of Monday’s per quarter that we don’t have it. During this time we have various topics, such as last night’s running a communion service for the sick… This is an important ministry because obviously the sick can’t get to Mass as easily, but a priest doesn’t always have time to visit them in the home to say a Mass in their home. The Church allows for people to be commissioned to take communion consecrated at a Mass to these peoples home. It is hoped that the person won’t just walk in, hand the sick person the Body of Christ and leave. There is a rite for a small prayer service for this. I will be doing this as part of my field education in the nursing home. I will also be holding a bit larger prayer service with communion consecrated at a previous Mass, this is because there isn’t always a priest available to come in and say Mass even in the community room in the Nursing home. It is hoped that a priest will do this sometimes, but this is another way that people can receive the Body of Christ.
As I have said previously Wednesdays I will be going to a nursing home for a field education. Everyone in my class has their field ed. on Wednesday morning, but not all the other classes do. On Wednesday mornings on campus there is an hour of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. There is personal prayer time, along with praying Morning Prayer at this point. Mass on Wednesdays is at 4:45 in the afternoon. I think that some years have class on Wednesdays… but I haven’t looked into that for sure.
On the weekends we do have a lot of free time. Some people have field education on the weekend, some in later years go to a parish to help out, others just go to visit friends and family. If we are around we are expected to be at Morning Prayer at 8:30 on Saturday and Sunday and then Mass is at 9:00 each of those days. It is hoped that a guy will be around to be part of the community the majority of the weekends.
In addition to all of this, there is a meeting with a spiritual director that is expected to happen every two weeks at a time set up between them. I have selected my spiritual director and set up a time, but haven’t had a meeting yet, I think this will be for about an hour each time. There is also an hour meeting twice per quarter with a man’s formation advisor, just to talk about how things are going on the whole.
We also have various opportunities for other ways to grow ourselves that come up. This past Saturday I attended a conference nearby with presentations on the Theology of the Body that was geared towards those in celibate life. Theology of the Body is a series of weekly talks given over a multiple year period by Pope John Paul II. This discusses how to properly embrace the beauty of the sexual being as God intended. It was given in part to refute the societal perception that the Church thinks that sex is bad… the Church as long (not sure if I can say always since I haven’t studied that much of the history of it) taught that sex is a wonderful gift given by God to be used within the Sacrament of Marriage to unite a couple and glorify God.
This conference I was at discussed that beautiful aspect of the Theology of the Body, but more focused towards how to properly embrace what God gave us while living a celibate life. It was a wonderful step for me, it helped me move closer towards embracing the gifts that can come from a celibate life.
In addition to the information presented at the conference I was also able to see a wonderful friend who has recently joined a religious order moving towards being a sister (nun). It was great to see her and to catch up. We got to spend a bit of time together, but she was with a lot of her sisters from the same convent she is at so she was also with them. There were men and women from many various religious orders, and men going towards the diocesan priesthood as I am.
Well, this is long enough (maybe too long, sorry).
Peace,
Adam
I am so very glad that I warned everyone that I would probably only be able to get a blog up about once a week when I got here to seminary. We are so very busy, nothing too terribly hard, but fast paced that I like to have some down time when I can, and writing a blog is difficult to fit in, but I do really enjoy writing this, it is a nice way for me to do a reflection.
I guess that the first thing that I want to say is that after my last blog I finally got ahold of the choir director and had about a 40 minute discussion with her. She understood my frustrations and it was noticeable during the class on Monday that she was keeping it in mind as she went through stuff. I haven’t decided for sure to stay in the class, but it was a great step and really reduced the frustration level there, which eliminated almost all of the stress that I have here.
I mentioned that I would write a bit about the day to day lifestyle here… I’ll at least get started in this post, but that could get long so I may have to carry it on to another. Our day to day life is very busy, but it tends to be with little things with gaps in between that aren’t accounted for. I have typically preferred to be one who has longer times occupied and then a bit longer stretches off… I need to work at getting going for short stretches. Based on time that I have been around a parish, this is more the life of a priest, with scattered obligations, so it is good preparation.
On the days that I have classes the obligations start at 7:15 in the morning with the community praying Morning Prayer together from the Liturgy of the Hours. This takes about 15 minutes and then there is some quiet time in the chapel before Mass starts at 7:40. Week day Masses take about 35-40 minutes, at which time we go over to breakfast. I think that they put the breakfast out at about 8:15 and it runs until 9:05. Depending on each person’s schedule there are two class sessions in the morning. I have class from 10:45-12:05 on Mondays and Thursdays; Tuesdays and Fridays I have class from 9:15-10:05. I was able to get a work study job to help me to have a little bit of money for fun stuff… I currently have this two hours on Monday and Thursday, after Mass, so 8:30-10:30. I am working in the library, shelving books, working the circulation desk and such. I also work Friday evenings for 4 hours.
Lunch starts at 12:10 and runs to 1:00. Afternoon classes can get going at 1:10 depending on the class length. On Mondays and Thursdays this quarter I have a class from 1:10-2:05 and then again from 4:05 until 5:05; Tuesdays and Friday’s I have two classes from 1:10-4:00 with a 10 minute break in between at 2:30.
The day isn’t over after class though. On Monday’s at 5:15 we get together as a cam (floor and hallway living unit) and pray Evening Prayer together before going to supper. Evening Prayer on Tuesday’s is prayed by language groups… because there are international students here, or those trying to learn another language there are various groups for English, Spanish, Polish, and I don’t know if there are any others… I only go to the English. Wednesday Evening prayer can be on your own with Night Prayer prayed at a cam meeting. My cam has decided to do Evening Prayer again on Wednesdays and then Night Prayer will be either on our own or if we choose to get together again later. Thursday’s night prayer is prayed with the other men from your home Diocese, this is normally followed by some level of social activity, such as going out to eat together. Friday Evening Prayer is on your own, or with anyone that you set it up to pray with.
We also have formation time as a class on Mondays from 7:00-8:30 PM most weeks, there is just a couple of Monday’s per quarter that we don’t have it. During this time we have various topics, such as last night’s running a communion service for the sick… This is an important ministry because obviously the sick can’t get to Mass as easily, but a priest doesn’t always have time to visit them in the home to say a Mass in their home. The Church allows for people to be commissioned to take communion consecrated at a Mass to these peoples home. It is hoped that the person won’t just walk in, hand the sick person the Body of Christ and leave. There is a rite for a small prayer service for this. I will be doing this as part of my field education in the nursing home. I will also be holding a bit larger prayer service with communion consecrated at a previous Mass, this is because there isn’t always a priest available to come in and say Mass even in the community room in the Nursing home. It is hoped that a priest will do this sometimes, but this is another way that people can receive the Body of Christ.
As I have said previously Wednesdays I will be going to a nursing home for a field education. Everyone in my class has their field ed. on Wednesday morning, but not all the other classes do. On Wednesday mornings on campus there is an hour of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. There is personal prayer time, along with praying Morning Prayer at this point. Mass on Wednesdays is at 4:45 in the afternoon. I think that some years have class on Wednesdays… but I haven’t looked into that for sure.
On the weekends we do have a lot of free time. Some people have field education on the weekend, some in later years go to a parish to help out, others just go to visit friends and family. If we are around we are expected to be at Morning Prayer at 8:30 on Saturday and Sunday and then Mass is at 9:00 each of those days. It is hoped that a guy will be around to be part of the community the majority of the weekends.
In addition to all of this, there is a meeting with a spiritual director that is expected to happen every two weeks at a time set up between them. I have selected my spiritual director and set up a time, but haven’t had a meeting yet, I think this will be for about an hour each time. There is also an hour meeting twice per quarter with a man’s formation advisor, just to talk about how things are going on the whole.
We also have various opportunities for other ways to grow ourselves that come up. This past Saturday I attended a conference nearby with presentations on the Theology of the Body that was geared towards those in celibate life. Theology of the Body is a series of weekly talks given over a multiple year period by Pope John Paul II. This discusses how to properly embrace the beauty of the sexual being as God intended. It was given in part to refute the societal perception that the Church thinks that sex is bad… the Church as long (not sure if I can say always since I haven’t studied that much of the history of it) taught that sex is a wonderful gift given by God to be used within the Sacrament of Marriage to unite a couple and glorify God.
This conference I was at discussed that beautiful aspect of the Theology of the Body, but more focused towards how to properly embrace what God gave us while living a celibate life. It was a wonderful step for me, it helped me move closer towards embracing the gifts that can come from a celibate life.
In addition to the information presented at the conference I was also able to see a wonderful friend who has recently joined a religious order moving towards being a sister (nun). It was great to see her and to catch up. We got to spend a bit of time together, but she was with a lot of her sisters from the same convent she is at so she was also with them. There were men and women from many various religious orders, and men going towards the diocesan priesthood as I am.
Well, this is long enough (maybe too long, sorry).
Peace,
Adam
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Week 2
A week and a half of classes down… I am really feeling like I am getting settled into the routine of classes again. I can say that I am enjoying all of my classes except for the choir class.
I am a bit surprised that I am enjoying the Latin. Latin will be very difficult, and is taking a lot of time to study it… but I can honestly say that I am enjoying it. The priest that teaches it makes it fun, and doesn’t seem to get frustrated if he has to repeat something, actually I think that he enjoys the repeating because he is repeating something when we ask, which shows him that we are truly trying to learn the material.
I am actually very surprised that I don’t like my choir class. I never imagined that I would do well in it… I don’t hear tones well enough to hit the pitches. I also haven’t had any sort of musical direction since middle school, if even then, I don’t remember if we had music after elementary school. I did think that I would enjoy it though. I enjoy singing at Mass and along with the radio. I truly enjoy the act of singing (although it may be painful for those around me).
I guess that I am frustrated with the way that the choir is run, and the instructor… After one class period we were put in the choir loft with no help in how to sing the songs at all. The choir director makes whispered announcements in the choir loft that many people say that they can’t hear, what I have picked up out of those announcements doesn’t help because it uses words that I am not familiar with and have no clue on the meaning. I am not trying to slam the choir director, to be fair to her we did have a big Mass last week (Mass of the Holy Spirit, to ask the Holy Spirit to guide the students and the faculty during the coming academic year) and she needed to get ready for that, but I do feel that this isn’t what I thought I was getting into for the choir, I thought we would be helped in our singing.
Tonight at our cam meeting I mentioned that I am considering dropping choir, I have found out that even though it was presented by the choir director as a required class it is actually an elective. The seminary does require a man to be checked off at being proficient in singing the Mass parts, but that is not the same as taking a choir class. The rest of the guys convinced me to give it another week… which I will do because we have a while before the drop deadline. After the meeting two of the guys did come up to me and expressed that they understand where I am coming from, especially since I do ask questions and this gets me singled out without getting the help… they said that the rest aren’t experiencing that, and that the choir director probably doesn’t realize that it keeps falling on me. I do hope that it gets better and that we actually get some instruction to help us sing, rather than just using us as bodies up in the choir. I truly want to learn and get better, as I said in a previous post I agree that it is important for a priest to be able to sing well, so that he doesn’t hurt the ears of his parish.
I have had a couple of people get a hold of me and say that they have thought about calling me at different times, but are unsure about it because of the image that they have in their mind of seminary life. They say that although they are pretty sure it isn’t true, the image they have is from the movies of old monastic life with guys walking around in silence for selected hours out of the day and they don’t want to disturb that. I will go more into the schedule, hopefully in my next post (unless something else comes up that I feel like talking about) but in short if you want to contact me just think of it like I’m at a normal college… classes and meetings, but the rest can be open. I silence my phone when I can’t take a call… and I make judgement calls on how long I anticipate I need before answering any call. So feel free to call me, if I can answer I will, if not I will call back either the same day or within the next couple.
Peace,
Adam
P.S. I wrote this all last night, but rather than my normal practice of posting immediately after writing I decided to take a bit to think and pray about what I wrote. I decided in this case to go with my first impression. I did take some time to talk to a guy in my class who has already gotten to know the choir director fairly well. He told me that the impression that she wasn’t doing it intentionally is very accurate, and that she would feel really bad if she knew that it was coming across this way. He recommended that I go to her to express my concerns of the class before I make any decision on staying in the choir or not. I had actually attempted this before, I had stopped by her office a few times to see about asking these questions, but had not caught her in her office. As I said before I will give choir at least another week and have decided to make a few more attempts to contact the choir director in this fashion.
I am a bit surprised that I am enjoying the Latin. Latin will be very difficult, and is taking a lot of time to study it… but I can honestly say that I am enjoying it. The priest that teaches it makes it fun, and doesn’t seem to get frustrated if he has to repeat something, actually I think that he enjoys the repeating because he is repeating something when we ask, which shows him that we are truly trying to learn the material.
I am actually very surprised that I don’t like my choir class. I never imagined that I would do well in it… I don’t hear tones well enough to hit the pitches. I also haven’t had any sort of musical direction since middle school, if even then, I don’t remember if we had music after elementary school. I did think that I would enjoy it though. I enjoy singing at Mass and along with the radio. I truly enjoy the act of singing (although it may be painful for those around me).
I guess that I am frustrated with the way that the choir is run, and the instructor… After one class period we were put in the choir loft with no help in how to sing the songs at all. The choir director makes whispered announcements in the choir loft that many people say that they can’t hear, what I have picked up out of those announcements doesn’t help because it uses words that I am not familiar with and have no clue on the meaning. I am not trying to slam the choir director, to be fair to her we did have a big Mass last week (Mass of the Holy Spirit, to ask the Holy Spirit to guide the students and the faculty during the coming academic year) and she needed to get ready for that, but I do feel that this isn’t what I thought I was getting into for the choir, I thought we would be helped in our singing.
Tonight at our cam meeting I mentioned that I am considering dropping choir, I have found out that even though it was presented by the choir director as a required class it is actually an elective. The seminary does require a man to be checked off at being proficient in singing the Mass parts, but that is not the same as taking a choir class. The rest of the guys convinced me to give it another week… which I will do because we have a while before the drop deadline. After the meeting two of the guys did come up to me and expressed that they understand where I am coming from, especially since I do ask questions and this gets me singled out without getting the help… they said that the rest aren’t experiencing that, and that the choir director probably doesn’t realize that it keeps falling on me. I do hope that it gets better and that we actually get some instruction to help us sing, rather than just using us as bodies up in the choir. I truly want to learn and get better, as I said in a previous post I agree that it is important for a priest to be able to sing well, so that he doesn’t hurt the ears of his parish.
I have had a couple of people get a hold of me and say that they have thought about calling me at different times, but are unsure about it because of the image that they have in their mind of seminary life. They say that although they are pretty sure it isn’t true, the image they have is from the movies of old monastic life with guys walking around in silence for selected hours out of the day and they don’t want to disturb that. I will go more into the schedule, hopefully in my next post (unless something else comes up that I feel like talking about) but in short if you want to contact me just think of it like I’m at a normal college… classes and meetings, but the rest can be open. I silence my phone when I can’t take a call… and I make judgement calls on how long I anticipate I need before answering any call. So feel free to call me, if I can answer I will, if not I will call back either the same day or within the next couple.
Peace,
Adam
P.S. I wrote this all last night, but rather than my normal practice of posting immediately after writing I decided to take a bit to think and pray about what I wrote. I decided in this case to go with my first impression. I did take some time to talk to a guy in my class who has already gotten to know the choir director fairly well. He told me that the impression that she wasn’t doing it intentionally is very accurate, and that she would feel really bad if she knew that it was coming across this way. He recommended that I go to her to express my concerns of the class before I make any decision on staying in the choir or not. I had actually attempted this before, I had stopped by her office a few times to see about asking these questions, but had not caught her in her office. As I said before I will give choir at least another week and have decided to make a few more attempts to contact the choir director in this fashion.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Two Days of classes down
Here I am!! Classes started yesterday… yes on Labor Day. That was a little odd. I kept checking the mail and wondering when it was going to be in, the I realized it was a federal holiday but I still had my normal Monday schedule. I have now had all of my classes that I will have for this quarter (they run on a 10 week quarter system here instead of on a semester system.
My first class was on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The CCC is a wonderful book that condenses all of the major teachings of the Church. There have been various catechisms though the history of the Church, but this one was released in 1992… after a period of time for people to digest the works of the Second Vatican Council so that they would be able to expand on it in a more modern/relevant way. This doesn’t mean that they catered to modern society, just made it more readable and applicable to the further understanding that comes with time that the Catholic Church has had to develop over its 2000 year history. This class is taught by a priest who previously taught in a college level seminary but has just returned from 5 years of running orphanages in Latin America.
The second class that I had was my philosophy seminar 1 which is taught by a priest who has been teaching here and running the “pre-theology” program here for nearly 25 years. The Church wisely believes that we need to study philosophy before we can really get into the study of theology. Philosophy has many definitions (which philosophers tend to debate) but we are approaching it from the aspect of having to deal with whole knowledge that is applicable to many/all aspects of life. It is said that Philosophy is the base from which all knowledge grows… we’ll see how I grow to understand it.
The last class that I have on the Monday/Thursday rotation is my Choir class. This is a requirement at some point during our studies, and I figured I’d take it now to get the basis growing. It isn’t as if the inability to sing well would prevent ordination (as is obvious at churches throughout the world) but it would be nice to be able to improve my singing ability so if God continues to call me towards the priesthood it isn’t painful for people to listen to me (as it would be at this point).
After classes last night we had our first Rector’s Address of the year. This was just an introduction talk for the year and a welcome to all. Msgr. Lyle (the rector) gave a brief introduction and welcome to the new faculty for this year, then gave a little reflection and spoke about some model priests which he had been reading about. This was kind of a thing to get us motivated towards growing in the direction of becoming good priests. This address was followed by a social to chat with others in the seminary community.
Today I started my classes with a class on Introduction to Spiritual Life. Obviously we all should have a spiritual life before starting here but this is just a guide on ways to grow in our spirituality. I will get into that more in the future as I get a better feel for how it is being taught.
My next class of the day on the Tuesday/Friday rotation is Anthropology, or more specifically philosophical anthropology. So basically the study of what it means to be human and the way that thought has developed over the years. This is taught by the same professor/priest who teaches my philosophy class so it appears that they will work together very closely.
The last class that I have is Latin 1. Although they will readily say that we won’t be fluent in Latin to any extent they require a whole year (3 quarters) of Latin. This will give us a better basis of understanding theological texts and ideas that were originally written in Latin. There are obviously translations available to those, but we will be able to look at the original Latin writing to better understand the nuances in the wording that may not come through in the translation. At a later time I will be taking two quarters of Greek to be able to look at the scriptures in the same way.
I think that I am really going to enjoy my class load this quarter… the Latin will most likely be the most difficult, my head was swimming after this the first session, but it does seem that the priest who teaches that is very good at explaining, and repeating so that we can learn well.
As I have said in a previous post Wednesdays have no classes as we will have a field education. I had hoped to be assigned to jail ministry for this, but so did a pretty good portion of my class so I ended up being assigned to a nursing home. I am actually pretty excited about this too, as I don’t have a whole lot of experience in this setting. That doesn’t actually start for a couple of weeks yet, but will continue for the whole academic year (aside from breaks).
In addition to class we of course have daily Mass and prayer time. I will write more about that aspect in a future post.
Peace,
Adam
My first class was on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The CCC is a wonderful book that condenses all of the major teachings of the Church. There have been various catechisms though the history of the Church, but this one was released in 1992… after a period of time for people to digest the works of the Second Vatican Council so that they would be able to expand on it in a more modern/relevant way. This doesn’t mean that they catered to modern society, just made it more readable and applicable to the further understanding that comes with time that the Catholic Church has had to develop over its 2000 year history. This class is taught by a priest who previously taught in a college level seminary but has just returned from 5 years of running orphanages in Latin America.
The second class that I had was my philosophy seminar 1 which is taught by a priest who has been teaching here and running the “pre-theology” program here for nearly 25 years. The Church wisely believes that we need to study philosophy before we can really get into the study of theology. Philosophy has many definitions (which philosophers tend to debate) but we are approaching it from the aspect of having to deal with whole knowledge that is applicable to many/all aspects of life. It is said that Philosophy is the base from which all knowledge grows… we’ll see how I grow to understand it.
The last class that I have on the Monday/Thursday rotation is my Choir class. This is a requirement at some point during our studies, and I figured I’d take it now to get the basis growing. It isn’t as if the inability to sing well would prevent ordination (as is obvious at churches throughout the world) but it would be nice to be able to improve my singing ability so if God continues to call me towards the priesthood it isn’t painful for people to listen to me (as it would be at this point).
After classes last night we had our first Rector’s Address of the year. This was just an introduction talk for the year and a welcome to all. Msgr. Lyle (the rector) gave a brief introduction and welcome to the new faculty for this year, then gave a little reflection and spoke about some model priests which he had been reading about. This was kind of a thing to get us motivated towards growing in the direction of becoming good priests. This address was followed by a social to chat with others in the seminary community.
Today I started my classes with a class on Introduction to Spiritual Life. Obviously we all should have a spiritual life before starting here but this is just a guide on ways to grow in our spirituality. I will get into that more in the future as I get a better feel for how it is being taught.
My next class of the day on the Tuesday/Friday rotation is Anthropology, or more specifically philosophical anthropology. So basically the study of what it means to be human and the way that thought has developed over the years. This is taught by the same professor/priest who teaches my philosophy class so it appears that they will work together very closely.
The last class that I have is Latin 1. Although they will readily say that we won’t be fluent in Latin to any extent they require a whole year (3 quarters) of Latin. This will give us a better basis of understanding theological texts and ideas that were originally written in Latin. There are obviously translations available to those, but we will be able to look at the original Latin writing to better understand the nuances in the wording that may not come through in the translation. At a later time I will be taking two quarters of Greek to be able to look at the scriptures in the same way.
I think that I am really going to enjoy my class load this quarter… the Latin will most likely be the most difficult, my head was swimming after this the first session, but it does seem that the priest who teaches that is very good at explaining, and repeating so that we can learn well.
As I have said in a previous post Wednesdays have no classes as we will have a field education. I had hoped to be assigned to jail ministry for this, but so did a pretty good portion of my class so I ended up being assigned to a nursing home. I am actually pretty excited about this too, as I don’t have a whole lot of experience in this setting. That doesn’t actually start for a couple of weeks yet, but will continue for the whole academic year (aside from breaks).
In addition to class we of course have daily Mass and prayer time. I will write more about that aspect in a future post.
Peace,
Adam
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Silent Retreat
Towards the end of my last post I mentioned that we were beginning a silent retreat here at the seminary. To be specific it is a silent-guided retreat. The guided part means that we do have sessions as a group with a retreat director who talks to us about the topic of the retreat and gives us some guidance on how we may go about praying about the topic. The topic for this retreat is simply the priesthood… Our retreat director is using his talks to talk about various aspects of the priesthood, and how they have been lived out during his 43 years as a priest.
We were told early on that the silence isn’t an end in itself… but a means to draw us closer to God. By being silent we don’t distract others or ourselves. I will tell you from my experience that when I am not talking I can’t help but be praying, a very good thing. We still do some of our community prayers out loud, morning prayer from the liturgy of the hours, and Mass to be specific.
The silence isn’t just a “no talking” it is a more general silence… we are to eliminate all the things that distract us: TV, radio, internet, telephone, and so on.
This retreat has of course been difficult for me with my very outgoing personality. I will say that other seminarians recommended that while it would be best for me to try to get fully into the retreat, it may be better and less stressful if I self-modified the terms of the retreat. I thought that this was a very good idea. I have allowed myself a little bit of internet time (for example writing this blog) but moved away from the more distracting aspects of the internet such as Facebook. I have allowed myself to read and write letters, as I find this to be a very prayerful activity, but most business mail remains unopened. A few things that were on my mind business wise I have allowed myself to deal with, as I felt that their hanging out unresolved would be a distraction to me.
One thing that the seminary builds in with the retreat to allow for the exchange of thoughts is the idea of a prayer partner. This is one person whom we picked in advance that we are allowed to get together with to either pray together, or just talk about faith stuff, not everyone takes advantage of this, but I thought it would be very helpful for me. My prayer partner and I take a walk around the lake after the morning session by the retreat director. On Tuesday we did pass on this, just to have a day of silence. My prayer partner has done silent retreats before, so wasn’t going to take part in this, but thankfully was very willing, and even happy to help me out in this way.
My prayer partner is a great guy that I am constantly amazed by. He has believed in his desire to be a priest from a very young age. He actually even moved away from home (with his parents blessing) to attend formation during his high school years at a high school age house of formation in La Crosse. He then went on through college level seminary and is now beginning his theology studies here, meaning that if God keeps calling him in this direction he will be a priest in 4 more years. Prior to my coming here I had some people talk about guys like this to me… most of them said that they thought it was a bad idea, as these guys don’t have much real world experience. I have always commented to them that the clarity of a vocation is a gift no matter what time it comes in life, it just come earlier for some people. I have grown to think this even more in talking to my prayer partner. Has he had an outside job, a mortgage or any of those things? No, but he has indeed lived a lot of life in the way that God has called him to. My experience with life outside of the church will make me a different priest from him, but surely no better of a priest, he won’t be a better priest than me for his life experience, we will just be different.
As the week has gone on I am finding that I truly am gaining a lot from this silent retreat. I am ready for it to end, as there are things I’d like to talk about with people, but it has been a wonderful experience, and I am looking forward to next year’s silent retreat already. I think I will be more strict with myself than this year to see if I can grow even more.
Peace,
Adam
We were told early on that the silence isn’t an end in itself… but a means to draw us closer to God. By being silent we don’t distract others or ourselves. I will tell you from my experience that when I am not talking I can’t help but be praying, a very good thing. We still do some of our community prayers out loud, morning prayer from the liturgy of the hours, and Mass to be specific.
The silence isn’t just a “no talking” it is a more general silence… we are to eliminate all the things that distract us: TV, radio, internet, telephone, and so on.
This retreat has of course been difficult for me with my very outgoing personality. I will say that other seminarians recommended that while it would be best for me to try to get fully into the retreat, it may be better and less stressful if I self-modified the terms of the retreat. I thought that this was a very good idea. I have allowed myself a little bit of internet time (for example writing this blog) but moved away from the more distracting aspects of the internet such as Facebook. I have allowed myself to read and write letters, as I find this to be a very prayerful activity, but most business mail remains unopened. A few things that were on my mind business wise I have allowed myself to deal with, as I felt that their hanging out unresolved would be a distraction to me.
One thing that the seminary builds in with the retreat to allow for the exchange of thoughts is the idea of a prayer partner. This is one person whom we picked in advance that we are allowed to get together with to either pray together, or just talk about faith stuff, not everyone takes advantage of this, but I thought it would be very helpful for me. My prayer partner and I take a walk around the lake after the morning session by the retreat director. On Tuesday we did pass on this, just to have a day of silence. My prayer partner has done silent retreats before, so wasn’t going to take part in this, but thankfully was very willing, and even happy to help me out in this way.
My prayer partner is a great guy that I am constantly amazed by. He has believed in his desire to be a priest from a very young age. He actually even moved away from home (with his parents blessing) to attend formation during his high school years at a high school age house of formation in La Crosse. He then went on through college level seminary and is now beginning his theology studies here, meaning that if God keeps calling him in this direction he will be a priest in 4 more years. Prior to my coming here I had some people talk about guys like this to me… most of them said that they thought it was a bad idea, as these guys don’t have much real world experience. I have always commented to them that the clarity of a vocation is a gift no matter what time it comes in life, it just come earlier for some people. I have grown to think this even more in talking to my prayer partner. Has he had an outside job, a mortgage or any of those things? No, but he has indeed lived a lot of life in the way that God has called him to. My experience with life outside of the church will make me a different priest from him, but surely no better of a priest, he won’t be a better priest than me for his life experience, we will just be different.
As the week has gone on I am finding that I truly am gaining a lot from this silent retreat. I am ready for it to end, as there are things I’d like to talk about with people, but it has been a wonderful experience, and I am looking forward to next year’s silent retreat already. I think I will be more strict with myself than this year to see if I can grow even more.
Peace,
Adam
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)