In the groove

Wow, so much happens here that I hardly know what to write about. I am absolutely loving my time here.

Last week I had my first official meetings with both my spiritual director and my formation advisor. A formation advisor just talks to you about what is going on both in prayer life and in the total formation process here. He also keeps a seminarian accountable for full participation in the formation process. For example, although I am free to come and go from here as I please I am of course expected to be at certain things, such as community prayers and Mass. If I want to go off of campus for a weekend, such as to go home, or to visit someone I have to clear it through my formation advisor. In discussions with my formation advisor he feels strongly on the importance of participation in the community but understands that people want to get away or are asked to be somewhere at different times. I just have to make him aware of when and why I will be gone, he will tell me if it is too much. My formation advisor will also follow up to ensure that I am following the university’s policies and performing academically, it isn’t as if he is to crack a whip over us, he is to discuss issues and help us figure out ways to grow and achieve our goals. Discussions with the formation advisor are considered to be in the “external forum” meaning that he is free to discuss my performance with those whom it is appropriate to do so i.e. my Bishop or my vocation director.

The spiritual direction process sounds similar to the formation advising, but it is considered to be in the “internal forum” so anything talked about there is held in confidence. Spiritual direction doesn’t have the same status as the sacramental seal of confession, so if the spiritual director hears something that would be required to be reported as a mandatory reporter by law he is still obliged to do so. In spiritual direction I talk about similar things to what I discuss with the formation advisor, but we go at it in a different way and try to figure out more spiritual ways to grow (as would be expected by the name). In both of these meetings for this first time I spent a good deal of time discussing my vocation story on what has made me believe that being here is the right thing for me… I also talked about areas that I knew in advance that I would need to work on, and the goods and bads that I have experienced here so far.

Other than that it was pretty standard during the week. The weekend was very nice, my mom and her husband came down since it was family day on Saturday. They expressed the same thing that I have about it being a beautiful campus, we even got to take a tour of the campus with an expert in classical architecture. During the tour we were taught that if done properly you can determine the importance of a building by the design of its pillars and many other aspects, although I won’t remember the specific details it was great to be exposed to those thoughts so that I do appreciate the designs here that much more. I truly enjoyed meeting the families of many of the guys that I am studying with, and my mom and her husband said that they were glad to meet the people I am studying with so that they may be able to put a face with whomever I may be talking about. Other than that it was a great weekend just to spend time with them and hang out… obviously we went to Mass together and to the formal gatherings, but we did our own thing quite a bit too.

This week I plunged headfirst into leading community events. The day that I am scheduled later this quarter to lead Morning Prayer conflicted with my field education at the nursing home, so I traded and took Tuesday of this week. Although it really isn’t that big of a deal to lead the community morning prayer, it was a great feeling and made me feel even more a part of this wonderful community. I did this both for Morning and Evening prayer, I was surprised that I wasn’t nervous about it at all, it kind of just felt right.

Today at the nursing home was another wonderful experience of helping to lead. During my time at the nursing home I spend a lot of the time visiting rooms of those who can’t get out, I bring them communion if they want, chat with them a bit, and help them with any needs that I can (I do have to check with a nurse before giving water or such since they may be on restrictions) this is very fulfilling, and I think will be even better as I get to know the people more. We also have a communion service for those who can get to it. This has a lot of the appearance of Mass, but doesn’t contain the Eucharistic prayer as there is no priest there. During the communion service we use the same assigned readings as we would at a Mass and then there is a reflection given (a homily if by the Deacon) followed by a few prayers and then distribution of communion that has been consecrated at an earlier Mass.

Today I got to give the reflection, this may seem like a minor thing, but after Ordination these would be homilies, so I am excited to get some practice in it. Everyone said that I did well (a patient even said that it was a nice homily, but I didn’t bother to go into the differences, just said thank you and moved on). The first reading from today was from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians when he talks about confronting Cephus for living wrong. The Gospel reading was from the Gospel of Luke when Jesus teaches the disciples the “Our Father” prayer (Lord’s prayer). My reflection focused on the idea of these scriptures telling us how to live our life quite directly. In Paul’s letter it not only talked about actually living the way that we are taught, but it gave the example that if we feel someone is doing something wrong we need to address it with them, rather than simply harboring bad feelings. In the Gospel I broke apart the Our Father and discussed lessons in how to live life from the various parts of it.

As I said, between leading morning and evening prayer for the whole community and giving the reflection at the communion service I have kind of dove headfirst into this. I love it, it was so much fun, and both just felt right to be doing.

I have my first paper of seminary due tomorrow in my intro to spiritual life class (yes mom, it is already done, and has been for a couple of days). I have a big test in my Latin class on Friday. I am very much enjoying the study of Latin, but it seems that I understand what is going on during class, but when I sit down on my own to go over it I struggle. Probably the biggest challenge to me in Latin is the fact that I don’t know English grammar well enough to understand how it transfers to the Latin. In English I can tell if a sentence is wrong, but I can’t normally give the exact reasons that it is wrong… so that is just something that I am trying to learn as I go to help with the Latin.

Although there are obviously many prayer requests that I could write in the blog, I normally don’t as you know. One that I am going to ask for today though is this. The sister and one of her friends of my brother seminarian here, Martin, were abducted from their grammar school in Uganda (he is studying for his home diocese there). Please keep these two young ladies and their family in your prayers. For their safe return, and for a conversion to peace for those who have abducted them.

Peace,
Adam