What a week

Hello again,

               

This has been a week with a wide variety of prayer.  Not long after I posted my last post here I received news that one of my friends was seriously hurt at his job.  Casey is a guy that went to the same high school and university as me so I have known him for a long time.  At the university Casey got actively involved at the parish and became a member of the RCIA team, to help welcome people into the faith and teach them what the faith is all about.  Casey got married last summer and both him and his wife are involved in the life of the parish.

               

Casey worked in a tree service job and was hurt when a tree fell on him.  He was airlifted to the hospital in Marshfield and through some miracle they were able to save his life.  He had severe injuries that I can’t even begin to describe.  On Wednesday Carolyn received a report from the doctors that there appears to be severe spinal cord injury and it is believed that Casey will be a paraplegic for the rest of his life, if he survives.  It appears now that he is going to survive.  I asked the whole seminary community to pray both for healing for Casey and for strength for him and Carolyn as they grow into their new lifestyle.  The retired archbishop who teaches one of my classes is going to offer Mass for them this Thursday.  This whole event was and still is some obviously emotionally difficult prayer time.

                For some wonderfully joyous prayer I drove to Stevens Point on Friday night and then over to Colby on Saturday for an Ordination of a friend to the deaconate.  I may have mentioned it before but incase you don’t know, while there are men who are permanent deacons in the Catholic Church a man who is going towards the priesthood is ordained a deacon at least six months before his priesthood ordination.  Jeff is one of three of these “transitional” deacons that we have in the La Crosse Diocese this year.  It was a great joy to attend and pray at this event.

               

Aside from those two extremes it was a fairly routine week, nothing spectacular occurred in my classes.  The trip to Stevens Point was of course great.  I draw so much strength from getting to be with the Newman Parish there that I can’t even describe how wonderful it is. 

I guess that this is enough for a short post this week.

Peace,

Adam

Third Week 2011-2012

Hello again everyone,

                So the quarter is rolling along very well.  I have been very busy with homework.  I am planning a few weekends in a row which I won’t get much homework done, so I am trying to get ahead in any area that I can. 

I have written a couple of papers well ahead of when they are due.  I like it when I am able to do this.  These papers are in a format that I know because I have had this professor before and he hasn’t changed.  They are summaries of readings that we have to do so I can get them accomplished without waiting for the lecture on the topic.  These are probably interesting only to those who are studying this stuff and to a certain extent only a little bit interesting for some of us.  This has lifted quite a bit of weight off of me for the rest of the quarter, which has only seven and a half weeks left… wow that seems so short of a time.

               

                One paper that wasn’t early but that I have done so far is very interesting.  It was comparing the difference between polytheism and monotheism; it is more than just numbers.  I am checking to see if the professor will let me put it up here.  I think that I have to check, because even though I wrote it, it was written for that class, so to my understanding it would be possible to plagiarize my own work if I don’t get permission.  I really enjoyed writing that paper and the lectures that led up to it.  It gave me a greater understanding of where western thought has come from.

                This past Saturday five of us went to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.  I had been able to get some free tickets from a friend.  It was great because the tickets were the high end ones that included everything.  We took the train into town and the “El” line to get close to the aquarium and then walked over.  There were a lot of people in the area because early in the afternoon the Wisconsin Badgers were playing Northern Illinois University at Soldier Field near the aquarium.  It was kind of fun seeing all of those people. 

                The aquarium was very cool.  We got there just in time to go to the dolphin show before starting our walk around through the place.  They have a lot of stuff that isn’t just in big square aquariums, but in pretty cool displays, we all really enjoyed it.  After the aquarium we decided to just walk back to union station rather than take the “El” and walked through a couple of parks and looked at all the big buildings.  I enjoy visiting big cities, and can put up with them for a time, but would never want to live in one long term.  The train rides were fun and we made it back in time to get some stuff done on Saturday night, so it was an overall good day.

                Sunday was pretty uneventful.  I followed the Packers game online while I was doing homework.  Being in the Chicago metro if the Bears are playing at the same time I don’t get to see the Packers games.  A few guys went to the Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the game, but I decided not to.  I am going away a couple of times this quarter so need to save money for gas, plus I was able to get some homework done.

                I am really enjoying my classes this quarter.  I even enjoy Greek, although it is very tough for me.  I am spending most of my study time on it, but my brain doesn’t work the language type learning too well.  I figure I will put in my time and get what I can get out of it and then move on.  I am not stressing it too much. 

                Well, I think I will end it there.  If I get permission to post that paper I will try to do that shortly.

Peace,
Adam

Getting started again, fall 2011

Hello again,

                So the school year is off and rolling.  I haven’t written since just before the silent retreat so let me fill you in on that.  As I have said before, silent retreats are very difficult for me.  I can control myself from talking just fine, and I can focus on my prayer, so that is good.  The thing is though, is that with me being so very extroverted I draw my energy from interacting with people.  When I am on the silent retreat I don’t have that source of energy.  Most priests (and thus most seminarians) are quite introverted, so it works well for them to be on silent retreat.

                This retreat was what is called a “preached retreat” meaning that there is someone who preaches or gives sessions during it that give you stuff to pray about.  The presenter this year was Father Andrew Ricci, a priest from the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin.  A few years ago he was their vocation director, and is now the rector of the Cathedral in Superior.  I talked with him a bit before the retreat started, he is a good man and I enjoyed his sessions.  He started out guiding us a bit in getting to know ourselves.  From that he went into growing what are called the theological virtues, these being faith, hope, and love.  From that he talked about in general being better men and better future priests.  It was pretty good, although as I said draining on me.

                After that ended we had our cam day of reflection for the cam that I am on.  Remember that a cam in Latin for dorm or hallway, so we use the word cam for the hallway that we live on.  My cam chose to have it before the classes start so that we aren’t distracted by that.  It was a pretty simple event.  We went to a retreat house nearby and had prayer and a sharing of each of our vocation stories and then Mass.  We attempted to go mini-golfing in the afternoon, but it was raining so we ended up just playing board games and such together before going out for a nice meal. 

                Classes started this past Monday.  I have five classes plus my field education this quarter.  For my field education I am going to be going to a site that one night a week is a homeless shelter.  I haven’t started there yet, so I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing, we’ll have to wait and see.  My classes are Greek I, Medieval Philosophy II, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Nature, and Documents of Vatican II.

                Greek I is obviously just like you would think.  We are learning the basics of Biblical Greek so that we have a better grasp on the nuances of what is being said in the new testament, most of which was written in Greek.  It seems like the professor that teaches that, a lay woman, is going to be pretty good.  She seems to have a very systematic approach to it and also the ability to make it fun.  I am looking forward to this much more than I was looking forward to the Latin classes I took last year.

                Medieval Philosophy II seems like it will be pretty heavily based on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.  I like that a lot, his writing is very readable and important in Church history.  Although obviously some of the issues he deals with are a bit dated (he lived in the 1200s) it has a great impact on our understanding yet today.

                Natural Theology seems to be quite a bit about what revelation has told us about seeing God.  It seems like it will be very applicable to our future priesthood.  I don’t know quite what all we will encounter in it.

                Philosophy of Nature seems like it will cover much of the same ground as Natural Theology, but from a bit of a different angle, a bit more the reasoned approach than the revelation.  Again, I’m not quite sure where all this will take us, so I’ll fill you in more as the course goes on.

                Documents of Vatican II is our study of what was written during that great ecumenical council.  It is taught by a retired Archbishop, he wasn’t involved in the council, but was a priest before it started so lived through much of the change that it brought about.  I am looking forward to this class quite a bit.  I have read all of these documents in the past, but it will be fun to be taught how they can be interpreted and such.  Many people talk about the council without a real good basis in it.  They say that the council did all these radical things, but many of them were people taking stuff further than what was intended. 

                As usual here on the quarter system we hit the ground running right away.  With only 10 weeks of classes we don’t have the luxury of working into something slowly like we did in college on the semester system.  I have already done about 700 pages of reading and hope to get 3-4 papers done this weekend.  Only 1 is due next week, but if I get the others done now that is that much easier of a time later on, since we never know what will come up.

Peace,

Adam