Adam's Seminary Experience

Finals week Winter 2011-2012

2012-02-07T20:38:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone,

The busy time at the seminary continues. I really think that there isn’t much of the other type of time. Classes are going well and wrapping up this week. I have written a lot in the last two weeks for class, but I still have a decent amount to get done before I get to leave. What I have left is the take-home exam for Political and Social Philosophy (Probably about 6 or 7 pages of writing), to finish my long paper for Gospel of Mark (about 10 more pages), and to memorize a part of a poem for my Humanities class (I don’t memorize specifics well, so this may be the biggest challenge of the three).

Everyone in my class is gearing up for the mission trips. The trip to Arizona leaves on Saturday. My trip to Burkina Faso with CRS will leave the seminary on Monday and go to Baltimore for some orientation to CRS. We will leave Baltimore on Wednesday and head to Burkina Faso.

We had our final conference call about the trip today; it is nice that plans are falling into place. I am getting excited. I don’t know all of what we will do there, but I heard during the conference call today that on the first day in Burkina Faso we will visit a shelter that CRS runs. It is a unique place. This shelter is for women who have been accused of witchcraft. Burkina Faso is about 50% Muslim with about 10% Christian (most of them Roman Catholic). The rest are still part of the indigenous belief systems. Actually, from what I have read, even the Christians and the Muslims still have a lot of the old beliefs. With this there is still a great deal of talk on witchcraft. When a woman is accused of witchcraft she is banished from her family, and normally the village. With such limited resources the country over, not much is allowed to go to these women. CRS has a shelter where they provide for these women. I am excited to see this.

We will also get to visit a seminary there. I don’t know much about it, if it is a college level seminary or a major seminary, or how many men they have studying for the priesthood. It will be interesting to see how much we are able to experience with these seminarian brothers across the world.

For each of the three conference calls we have had dealing with the CRS Global Fellows trip we have had assigned readings to go through and then some reflection questions to answer talk about when we are on the call. Today’s readings were dealing with the teaching on Solidarity. This is a deep theological principle within the Church. It is meant to bring out a lot of Jesus’ message of loving one another. In short it makes us remember the connection with all the members of the Church, all the members of the human species, and even all of God’s creation. It is a teaching that people can spend a lifetime on and not totally grasp. This is a big part of how I live my faith so I am excited to see how it plays out through CRS’ mission.

I want to take a brief moment to talk politics. I don’t do that much on here so I hope you will grant me a moment. Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a mandate that all insurance plans have to provide for free birth-control within the plan. This is up-to and including abortion causing drugs. When this was talked about last year HHS said that it would include a conscience clause to allow organizations to opt out of it. In the regulation that was published the conscience clause extends only to Churches and a couple of other very limited settings. It is good that HHS put in this small exemption, but it does not exempt some very important entities of the Catholic Church.

For example, Catholic hospitals, I have seen various stats from 1 in 6 to 1 in 4 of the hospitals in this country are run by the Catholic Church. This regulation would not exempt these institutions. It would possibly be allowed to exempt these institutions if they went to only having Catholic employees and only serving Catholic patients. This would go against our teaching of helping all people. One way or the other Catholics are being asked to violate their conscience.

The first amendment to the US Constitution starts out, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This mandate from HHS will severely limit our free exercise. If someone wants to say, “Well it doesn’t stop you from going to Mass” That is true, but that is not the extent of how we exercise our faith. This is a major infringement on religious liberty in this country.

The mandate does not require Catholics to use these drugs; however, it does require us to pay for things that go directly contrary to the Church’s teachings. With all honesty, many Catholics do use these drugs, but that doesn’t mean that they are in line with the Church’s teachings on that and these institutions are supposed to be run in accordance with our teachings, which this mandate will not allow in one way or the other.

Okay, the political rant is over. I’m going to get back to working on my papers. I’m not sure if I’ll have time to write again before I return from the mission trip at the end of the month.

Peace,

Adam

January 2012

2012-01-24T20:18:00.001-06:00

Hello again everyone,

Obviously I’ve been very busy with stuff here that has caused long break in posts. This one will probably be short for the same reason, but I guess I never really know about that until I get working on it.

Since I wrote last there has been a lot that has gone on. My Bishop came down to the seminary. He took the La Crosse guys out to eat on the Tuesday but was really here to celebrate the Mass to install the Second year theology guys as Acolytes. I wrote a bit about the Acolyte Mass last year, but to remind you it is one of what used to be called “minor orders” on the way to the priesthood. The idea of minor orders has gone away but these are now offices to be installed in that allow for different functions in the Mass. Most people would see an Acolyte as simply an altar server (altar boy) but there is a bit more that they can do and some theological ideas with it that I don’t fully understand so I won’t try to go into them.

Following late the night of the Acolyte Mass (actually about 1:00 the next morning) I had to coordinate picking up the group from my parish that had been on a mission trip to Guatemala. Fr. Tom rode back to the seminary with us and then spent a day here before catching the train to take a quick vacation.

The following weekend my mom and her husband came down. We spent a good deal of Saturday at the Shedd aquarium and then went out to dinner with my cousin that lives near here and an old neighbor who has moved to this area. On Sunday we went to Mass and then they left.

Since then I have been trying to get a lot of homework done and working on my application the St. Paul Seminary. This is an interesting process even though I went through it applying for here. All of the forms are different and even the autobiography that I have to write is formatted differently so I can’t just use my old one while adding to it.

Those of us going on the CRS GlobalFellows trip to Burkina Faso have had one of the three conference calls that we are going to have with CRS before leaving, to help us prepare. I will try to write in my next post a bit about what I am hoping to gain out of this experience.

I have to get back to working on other stuff. I hope you enjoyed this brief post.

Peace,

Adam

Christmas break 2011

2011-12-30T16:20:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone,

I had hoped to write sooner, but then I left my computer in Stevens Point on Christmas day when I headed back to Winona for a few days. Break has been great. I have had times where I am busy doing things that I enjoy and times that I have been able to just simply relax.

I can’t remember if I posted that I found out where we will be going for the CRS mission trip in February or not? In case I didn’t, it is Burkina Faso, a country in Western Africa.

Break started out pretty normal with me going to Stevens Point and spending time with a couple of friends. I had to go to Marshfield for the extended family Christmas party on that Sunday, after which I drove back to Winona.

I went to Mass on Monday morning in La Crosse, hoping to see a friend who goes to Mass most days, but she wasn’t there. I then had my annual check-up to see if the cancer has returned (it hasn’t!) and then I was able to take some down time. I was given one of my Christmas gifts early from my mom and Perry, a certificate for 30 workout sessions at the gym that they go to. It is very nice that the gym allows it to be used as a punch card, since I’m not there very often a month long certificate wouldn’t be able to be used much. I was able to get in a few workouts during the time I had in Winona over break. I always feel so good after those work outs.

On Wednesday I had to meet with the admissions board and the Bishop again as I move from pre-theology to theology studies. The board had a short discussion of how I felt I have grown in seminary and how I hope to continue to grow. The Bishop and I talked for a while; he is still trying to get to know us seminarians. It was a great conversation. During this I was told to go ahead and apply to St. Paul Seminary, something I will work on when I get back to Mundelein.

We then had the seminarian Christmas party (yes, during Advent, don’t ask me why) and I went and spent some time with friends in La Crosse after that.

On Thursday I headed back to Stevens Point to help with final preparation for Christmas, such as setting up and whatever else was needed. I served at all three Christmas Masses (two on Christmas eve and one on Christmas morning) before heading back to Winona to celebrate Christmas with the immediate family there.

Following that I had 3 days with nothing scheduled to do, I can’t remember the last time that I had 3 full days in a row to decide what to do. I spend some of the time at Mass of course, and getting some reading done for School and visiting with friends, but it was pretty much three down days. I enjoyed the time, but was starting to want to get to doing things again, so I came back here to Stevens Point yesterday to see what I could do around the parish. I will be here for a few days and head back to the seminary on New Years day.

Remember, it is still Christmas season (it starts on Christmas day in the Church’s view) so be sure to still be celebrating the incarnation of the Lord.

Peace,

Adam

Advent reflection points 2011

2011-12-13T20:59:00.001-06:00

Hello again everyone,

Advent is well underway now and I thought I’d take a minute to give an advent reflection. First just a quick update, I have been very busy beginning this quarter, we have had a couple of extra things that they wanted to get in before Christmas rather than postponing them until January, plus the professors want to get some level of an assignment turned in before the break so that they have the break to go over them. So we have all been dumped on with a ton to get done. Thus, I will keep this short.

Advent is a time of preparation. In current times it consists of the four Sundays preceding Christmas and the weeks that follow them, in a year like this with Christmas on a Sunday we have 4 full weeks of Advent, but it can be as short as the Monday after the 4^th Sunday. Over time the length of Advent has varied, I’m not quite sure how the traditions have changed, but I know that had one time Advent was 40 days, to correspond with Lent before Easter.

Now onto the reflection… (It may be more of my ramblings than a reflection, sorry, my mind is in a lot of different places.)

The image that comes to my mind most years during Advent is that of John the Baptist. John fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament regarding a messenger preparing the way of the Lord when He comes. “A voice cry’s out from the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths for our God.” John was the one there to do this for the incarnation of the Word becoming flesh.

How do we prepare in a special way for Christ’s coming, not only in the celebration of Christmas, but every day. Is our little corner of the world ready for Him at all times? How can I make it better?

My mind tends to wander quite often to preparing Christ’s way to come into me. Into my heart, into my soul, and into my body through the Eucharist. What obstacles need to be removed for this, namely sin. How do I recognize when Christ comes in, this was a problem for Him when He was walking around Palestine and Israel, what do I do to make sure that I don’t make those same errors?

What will I do after Advent to continue my readiness? How will I live every day in anticipation?

These are just some of the thoughts that I reflection during Advent. I hope that you may be able to use them to guide your own prayer and preparation.

Peace,
Adam

Beginning Winter quarter 2011-2012

2011-11-29T20:45:00.001-06:00

Hello again everyone,

I hope that everybody had a very happy Thanksgiving and took some time to be thankful to God for all that he has given to us. He is the ultimate cause for all the rest of the stuff that you are thankful for.

I have had a great (almost) two weeks since I wrote last. In addition to spending time in Stevens Point and the wonderful talk given by Fr. Chris regarding the new translation of the Roman Missal I have done quite a bit.

I spent the weekend before Thanksgiving staying at a friend’s farm so that I could just wake up and walk out the door for hunting. These are the friends who got married last spring and I was the best man in their wedding. I didn’t see any deer at all opening weekend, but it was still great to get into the woods for a bit. The weather was decent too. I went to Mass on Saturday evening at St. Elizabeth’s in Holmen; it is always nice to go back to the parish that I grew up going to. The new priest that came in last summer is wonderful. Sunday night I went up to my mom’s house to take Monday off for myself and Tuesday to spend with her since she had off of work.

Wednesday I went hunting at the farm again in the morning, still no deer to be seen, and then went hunting with a great friend in the afternoon on some public land that we hunted growing up, again no deer. Wednesday evening I was able to go out for wings with some good friends before hunting again Thursday morning. I wasn’t seeing any deer so I came in early to go to Mass for the Thanksgiving holiday, they asked me to be the reader, I haven’t read in that parish in more than 10 years, so that was very nice. Then I went back to my mom’s and had all the Thanksgiving stuff with family.

On Friday I packed up all of my stuff and headed back to Stevens Point. I went out hunting there on Saturday morning and saw the first deer I had seen all season and I got him, a five point buck. After getting him all butchered up I got cleaned up for the Saturday evening Mass.

This was the first weekend of Advent and the first weekend with the new translation of the Mass. I was serving (altar boy) for it and was pretty impressed with how smoothly it went. Of course there were a few hiccups since it was the first change in 40 years but the Newman University Parish was well prepared. After going out to supper with a couple of parishioners and then serving at the Sunday morning Mass I picked up one of my friends to bring him back to where he goes to school in Milwaukee, which is along my route to get back to school.

Classes started yesterday (Monday) for the new quarter and I am pretty excited for them. This will be my easiest class schedule by far, since I only have 4 classes this quarter. I still have all the other stuff like field education and formation and such, but it is nice to have fewer classes. I have three classes that meet on Mondays and Thursdays and only one that meets on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The class that I have on Tuesdays and Fridays is Political and Social Philosophy, which I still don’t quite have a handle on what we will be going over in this, maybe I’ll say more on it later. This is taught by Fr. Bob Barron, who produced the Catholicism TV series and runs to Word on Fire ministry. He is a good speaker and presents information well, so I’m sure that I’ll get a lot out of it.

My first class on Mondays and Thursdays is on the Gospel of Mark. This is normally one that people take in first year of Theology, but since I dropped Greek, this is what they had me pick up. It should be fun and educational having this presented in class. The Gospel of Mark is believed to be the first Gospel that is in the Bible to be written. It is believed to have been written somewhere between 55 and 70 AD, so the author seems to have known St. Peter and taken many of his stories directly.

My second class is Humanities II. This will be pretty fun I think. It seems like we will read a couple of novels and talk about a wide spectrum of humanities topics such as music and architecture in addition to the novels.

My final class on Mondays and Thursdays is Modern Philosophy. This will cover works by philosophers such as Descartes (although we have done some of his stuff already, he is who most of the others work off of), Spinoza, Locke, Kant, and Nietzsche to mention a few. I really enjoy the instructor for this so I am looking forward to this class quite a bit too.

We are only here for three weeks at this point, before getting another two weeks off for the Christmas Holiday. So we have a little sprint with a lot of material and then come back to finish out the quarter after the New Year’s Day holiday. We will only have six weeks left at that point since this quarter is only nine weeks long for those of us in second pre-theology. The final week of the quarter and one week of our two week break will be taken up by a mission trip. We had the opportunity to apply for going to Mali in Africa with CRS (Catholic Relief Services) or to a Native American reservation in Arizona. I have applied for the CRS experience, but we have not found out for sure if we are accepted yet.

Well, that is enough for now. I hope everyone is doing well this Advent in preparing for the incarnation of our Savior.

Peace,

Adam

Fall finals and beginning of fall break 2011-2012

2011-11-17T11:11:00.001-06:00

Hello again everyone,

My finals last week went pretty well. I am glad to be done with the quarter, this was probably the most stressful quarter that I’ve had in seminary, but on the whole it wasn’t too bad.

After finishing finals I hit the road right away to get to Stevens Point. I had decided to spend the night at the house of a couple that are close friends of mine before going to Fr. Tom’s on Saturday. I was getting into town early and since it was Veteran’s Day I decided to stop for my free meal at the Appleby’s restaurant which I was passing on my way in. The line was out the door, this is a very popular thing that they do, however, I was alone so I was told that I could sit right away if I didn’t mind eating at the bar. So I did that and had a beer and the shrimp basket meal that they had on the veterans menu. It is very nice of them to give the free meal, although the beer was kind of expensive. I then headed down to my friends and had a great evening playing with their kids and visiting with them. It is always nice to catch up with friends.

Saturday was pretty much a down day until Mass and going out to supper with a couple of parishioners. I also attended both Masses on Sunday, I get so much strength from this community and although I get here regularly it is always special. Following the evening Mass on Sunday Fr. Tom and I were planning on picking up a priest friend of his at the airport nearby, but his first flight was delayed so he missed his connection and we had to drive to Appleton to pick him up. This friend is leading a talk tonight (Thursday) at the parish about the new translation of the Roman Missal which will be changing many of the words used at Mass starting on the First Sunday of Advent.

After we finally got out of the airport at about 10:30 we stopped for Supper and then Fr. Tom asked me to drive back to Stevens Point. I have driven his car quite a bit, so this is fairly normal. Driving back from Appleton is a 65 mile per hour road and we were rolling along until at about quarter after midnight I see a deer in the median running out in front of me, I hit the brakes but ended up hitting the deer. After calling the sheriff, Fr. Tom calls AAA to get a tow, since the car was not able to be driven. This took quite a while but we eventually got back to the house at a little before three on Monday morning. Fr. Tom and his friend Fr. Chris were planning to head up to a parishioners cabin up north on Monday and after dealing a little bit with the insurance company that morning he was able to borrow a car and still have their relaxation time.

I of course felt really bad, but there is nothing that can be done when a deer runs out in front of you. I spent a lot of Monday doing some little things around town before going to have dinner with another couple of my college friends. A little after leaving there I got a call from Fr. Tom that the insurance company said that the car is totaled, so he is beginning to look for a new car. I was then able to sit in on a Bible study at the parish with college students before catching the second half of the Packers Monday Night Football game.

Tuesday I served for a funeral that the parish was having. A retired priest celebrated the funeral. The lady that died wasn’t really a parishioner. She had just moved to town when her health turned so she hadn’t joined any parish yet. She had met Fr. Tom through one of our parishioners who works in spiritual services at the hospice and she had asked Fr. Tom if our parish would have the funeral. I was kind of saddened that there were only about 50 people who attended the funeral, and although it sounds like this woman was a devout Catholic it didn’t seem like her children could even remember the responses at Mass. This makes me a bit sad.

Other than that I did quite a bit of work around the parish on Tuesday and Wednesday and was able to go to the Pointers men’s basketball season opener game, which I went to a lot of games while I was in college, so I always enjoy that. On Wednesday the two priests returned and we went to a talk at the university by a history professor who has looked in to the various types of propaganda that countries use when going to or in war. This was a very interesting talk, and it was kind of set up to time with the art display Visions of War that the university had by art students and veterans timed to coincide with Veteran’s Day.

On Wednesday night Fr. Chris had the late night Mass and it is always so very wonderful to pray with a group of about 50 college students at a weekday Mass. I will do a few more things for the parish today before the talk tonight. Tomorrow morning I will head home to get ready for the gun deer season which opens this Saturday.

That is the update for the first part of this break. I hope you all are doing well and incase I don’t get another post in before it, have a Blessed Thanksgiving and don’t forget to give thanks to God.

Peace,

Adam

Catholic Q&A November 2011

2011-11-09T15:19:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone,

It is Finals week, so I am of course very busy. So I thought I’d share with you a recent e-mail conversation. I received a comment on the blog from someone asking me to e-mail her to answer some questions about the Catholic faith. I am going to put two e-mail exchanges with her here. I have removed her name for privacy. Enjoy.

Peace,
Adam

Her to me #1

Lately, God has been placing it upon my heart to become more aware of other denominations, which is when I came across your blog. After reading it, I was in awe of how different this denomination is from what I am used to. I grew up Lutheran but now I do not affliate myself with anything other than a follower of Christ. So there were a few questions I had about catholicism that I would like to ask you-I feel it would be more insightful to learn from a devout catholic themself, rather than an online wikipedia entry. With that said, I was wondering if you could tell me what catholics believe about Mary and what the significance of the Rosary is in relaion to her? What do catholics believe about Jesus Christ and His divinity? Why do catholoics go to a priest to confess their sins? No need to elaborate too much on these questions, just a general response would be great. Thank you so much for your time!

God bless,

Me to her #1 Reply

May God Bless you in your inquiry. Since you asked for the short answers I will try to keep this short.

Your first question was in regards to Mary. We honor Mary because she is the first Christian and the one who said, "Yes" to bringing Christ into this world. We also see her as an able to, willing to, and wanting to plead for us to her son. If you look at the story of the Wedding at Cana you will see this in action with her pleading with her son to help out those hosting the wedding. Also, on the cross Christ pointed to John and said, "Behold your mother." We see that as a message to all of us, not just John. When praying "to" Mary we are truly praying through Mary. God the father and God the son both honored Mary so we feel that we should to. If you look at prayers like the Hail Mary (the most frequent in the rosary) they do not ask for Mary to do anything more than to pray for us. Also, in regards to the rosary, it is more than simply reciting the words. There are four sets of five "mysteries" which are announced before each decade (Our Father, 10 Hail Marys, and a Glory Be) to be meditated on during the decade.

As for Jesus Christ and His divinity it is most likely the same as you learned growing up as a Lutheran (by the way, which synod were you part of, I may be able to explain stuff better knowing this, I have a great deal of family and many friends in different synods of Lutheran) We believe that Christ is both fully God and fully man, understandable only as a mystery of the faith, in the two thousand year history of the Church we have battled the teachings of some who have taught that either was only an illusion, one thing that helps our Church is the extensive history of clarifying the understanding from the scriptures.

The reason that Catholics participate in the sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) is because Christ told us to. Upon the sending of the Apostles he gave St. Peter the keys to Heaven and told the Apostles "who's sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you hold bound are held bound" so we see this as Christ forgiving sins through the priests. We are not confessing our sins to the priest, at that time they are acting as a mediator between us and Christ by the power that Christ gave to His Church. I understand the difficulty that some would have with this when you can go directly to God and I am struggling to explain it in short.

I think that this answers what you were asking at least to some extent... let me know if there is more that I can help you with. One website that may help you with questions is www.catholicscomehome.org this site is focused on bring those who left the Church or those from other Christian faiths to a better understanding of the teachings. It has the goal of bringing people into the Church, I don't know if that is a possibility with you or not, but it has a pretty good frequently asked questions section.

Peace,
Adam

Her to me #2

Hello,
Your answers have definitely given me a better understanding of the Catholic faith so I appreciate you taking the time to answer them! The website was very helpful as well. Thank you for the scriptural basis-I now have a clear picture of where the catholic beliefs come from, especially the role of Mary. There are only 2-3 more questions that I have. What are catholics' beliefs on believers performing miracles/healings today? What do they believe the role of the Holy Spirit is in our daily lives? On a more personal note, what does your relationship with God look like (quiet time, prayer life, etc. ) I promise, those will be the last of my questions! No need to feel rushed in answering the questions-I understand that you're busy with your class obligations.

Thanks!

Me to her #2 Reply

Feel free to ask more questions, I enjoy answering peoples questions, it helps me get things ever more clearer in my mind every time I do so. I am glad that the website was helpful. I wouldn't imagine giving information like that without the scriptural references (although I don't often cite book chapter and verse unless you want me to). Now onto the questions here.

No believer can perform miracles themselves. All miracles are acts of God. God may and does work through His believers in this regard. As Catholics we put a great deal of emphasis on science as a gift from God to help us understand and better serve the world, but there are many areas that He gets involved and will go against science to help us out. If our prayers line up with His will it is very easy to see miracles happening often. Many of these are small miracles while others are bigger. We wouldn't give the credit for a miracle to a believer, but to God working through them. This applies both to believers still alive on earth and those living in Heaven. The definition of a canonized Saint is someone that we are sure is in Heaven with God, but they are still simply a believer. When someone says that they were healed through their prayers "to" St. so-and-so it is simply a way of saying that we asked that St. to pray for us and God worked a miracle.

The Holy Spirit is very, very important in the Catholic Church. In fact, the feast of Pentecost is considered the birthday of the Church (Pentecost is the celebration of the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles to guide them in their ministry) We believe that the Holy Spirit is involved in our understanding and growth. Most Catholics ask for the Spirit to be with them when reading scriptures since it was the Spirit who gave the authors their inspiration. As a future priest I will be asking the Spirit to guide my ministry to the people at all times. We see the Sacrament of Confirmation as a Holy Spirit sacrament in the growth of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in promoting and defending the faith.

As for my personal relationship with God. All of us are to be constantly growing in our relationship with God. As Catholics we see this as a life long process. Our faith and relationship with God should be (and for me is) centered around the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the true presence of Christ in communion. When we receive communion we are receiving the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ into us as He instructed at the last supper. Christ is everywhere but in a special way is present in the Eucharist both during Mass and when it is reserved in the tabernacle. (The tabernacle is the place where we place consecrated hosts for times when the sacrament is needed for those who are unable to attend Mass such as the homebound or the sick.) So I spend time every day just saying prayers in front of the tabernacle since Jesus is there in such a special way. I of course go to Mass every day to receive the Eucharist and be fulfilled by the Word that is part of the Mass. I pray at all times, sometimes these are formalized traditional prayers and other times it is just something that the Spirit moves me to make up as I go. In my previous career I was a forester so I see God's work in all of His creation so I spend a lot of time praying outdoors too. I also have a book called the liturgy of hours which is a set of prescribed prayers to be prayed at five times during the day, this is required of priests and religious (nuns and brothers) and a good practice for me as a seminarian to get into. This is something that is growing among the laity, but probably most Catholics that you would ask wouldn't be familiar with it... it just isn't out there as much. I also am a very visual person so I use icons and statues to point me to God. Many of these are of different biblical stories which is obvious how they point to God. For a protestant you may not as easily understand the statues to the Saints, but these are all tools to guide us to God. When I see a statue of St. Francis I can think of the mission that God gave him to rebuild His Church and so on. I also try to spend time in the scriptures every day. There are prescribed readings every day for Mass and I like to take these to my personal prayer as well as listening to them at Mass and listening to the Homily (sermon) during Mass. I can find these every day either in a book that I have or at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings

I hope that this answers today's questions. Feel free to ask more. I don't check this e-mail account a lot unless I am expecting something so please be patient if you send and future questions.

Peace,

Adam

Chicago's transitional Deacon Ordination and more 2011

2011-11-01T19:18:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone,

It has been a joyful week here at the seminary since I last posted. On Saturday 11 men were Ordained to the Deaconate. Ten of them are going to be Chicago priests and one is going to be a Springfield priest.

When we talk about Deacon Ordinations we often use either the word permanent or transitional. In reality the office of Deacon is the same, the Ontological changes (changes in being, mark on the soul, etc…) are the same. A permanent Deacon is a man who feels that this is where they are called to in life while a transitional Deacon is a man who is preparing for the priesthood. Canon Law requires that a man be a Deacon at least 6 months before being ordained a Priest is why there is this step. I am not entirely sure on all of the theological reasons for this. So now you know what we are talking about when we use the terms transitional or permanent Deacon. It is a blessing for these two Diocese to take this next step towards having them as priests.

The man from the Springfield Diocese is a wonderful story. In short he was a minister in a protestant denomination (I’m not sure which one) who over time and study realized the truth of the Catholic faith and converted to Catholicism. One interesting thing in his situation is that while most priests are not allowed to marry, if someone was ordained in certain protestant churches they can get a dispensation from the Vatican to later be ordained as Catholic priests despite being married. This is only possible if they were not raised Catholic, so it isn’t an end around that a man could go and be ordained in one of these Churches, get married, and then come back to Catholic…

Other than the Ordination we are all busy finishing up projects, papers, and studying for finals which are next week. All five of my finals are Thursday and Friday, the 10th and 11th of November. After that I get another two weeks off. I am sure I will write about that in a later post.

Today I found out some wonderful news (wonderful for me). I will be able to be done with Greek after this quarter. I am enjoying the class, but my brain just doesn’t seem to work in the detail needed for language studies, at least a language that can’t be used in modern conversation. I seem to understand the concepts that are being taught, however, I am still struggling to memorize the things that we were supposed to memorize the first week. This isn’t due to me not working on it. I am studying for Greek between 12 and 16 hours a week at least, plus class time. I just can’t seem to memorize the details. I think that the professor can tell that I am indeed working and will allow me a passing grade in the course, even if my scores don’t justify it. The reason that I am dropping for next quart isn’t the work load, I wouldn’t mind that amount of work if I was getting the material and at least partially able to keep up, but now it seems pointless to continue when I am not able to apply what I am learning. It looks like I will be taking a course on the Gospel of Mark instead, something that will be very useful in the future.

Well, I should probably get back to homework, so this is a long enough post. I will try to write another short post next week.

Peace,

Adam

Week 8 Fall 2011-2012

2011-10-25T15:49:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

This past weekend was my first weekend with no major obligations in quite some time. It was very nice to be able to relax and get some things done.

One of the cool things that I have started to get into lately is a young adult ministry program at a church not too far away. I was invited to an event that they were having by a friend of mine from college who goes to that church and is on the leadership team for this young adult ministry group. I enjoyed the event and the people there. I was asked if I had any tips for the ministry program. It sounds like at that church they had a decent young adult ministry that kind of fizzled out but they are trying to get it going again. I have been part of a good young adult ministry program and a not so good one, so I do have some ideas and look forward to the possibility of helping them with this.

I think that young adult ministry is one thing that the church needs to get better at, and fast. The Catholic Church has long been pretty decent at young family ministry, and I think it is getting pretty good at campus ministry for the college students but there is a gap in between when many people feel neglected by the Church and we could improve. I hope that I can help with this group, and give myself the enjoyment of participating in it.

Today would have been my sister’s birthday. She would have been 39 today, but she died almost 9 years ago. She had been born with numerous birth defects that we suspect are related to Agent Orange exposure. I never knew her much. She lived in the home of another family most of my life. This family was able to take great care of her and I am thankful for them every time that I think of it. I kind of get sad because while I had a sister I never got to experience the things that most people do with their sisters. I never get in trouble for pulling her hair or got to see her go to prom or get married. I occasionally think of this and it kind of gets me down.

I am happy to think that she is in heaven now though. I have no doubt about this. In the Catholic understanding there is no question about this since with her physical and mental limitations she could not understand right and wrong and thus could not sin. She was baptized to wipe away the stain of original sin and since she could not sin she is most assuredly in Heaven. This makes me happy and I pray that I will be able to join her there when my time on Earth is finished. I like to think of her in Heaven free of all the limitations that she experienced in this world.

Well, that is the goings on with me for now. I hope everyone has a Blessed week.

Peace,
Adam

Visiting St. Paul Seminary

2011-10-18T21:07:00.001-05:00

Hello again everyone,

I have received a few nice comments on the paper that I posted last week. I am glad that you enjoyed it. I will try to post more papers in the future if I think they are the type that you would enjoy.

To catch up a little bit from before that post… The weekend before I attended the wedding of two good friends. They had asked me to serve and then say the grace at the reception meal. I am always very honored to be asked to join in peoples special day. The wedding was a lot of fun, almost a reunion for a large number of my friends from college. In fact, every Eucharistic Minister (except the priest) at the wedding was a person that I had worked with when I worked at the Newman University Parish. I had a lot of fun.

For the wedding I had called the priest at the parish where it was being held to see if I might be able to stay with him to save some money. He said that normally he would, but his family was in town that weekend. He did call offer to and did call a neighboring parish and got me permission to stay with them. This was great, because hotel rooms in that area were near $90 a night and would have made my budget really tough.

Last week at school was a few mid-terms and other than that normal until having Friday off. We get one long weekend during the fall quarter, I’m not entirely sure why, but it is a nice break. On Thursday afternoon another seminarian from La Crosse in my class and I drove up to Stevens Point. We had to drive separately, since he had to be back early but we both arrived at near the same time. We went out to supper with Father Tom and then spent some time together before all of us went to bed early. We had to leave at 6:00 in the morning to head to St. Paul, MN to visit St. Paul seminary there.

I had set up this visit a while back with a couple of seminarians that La Crosse has there already. We didn’t feel the need to drive way early to get there for the first class, but made it easily in time for the second morning class. Mark (the other seminarian) and I attended class with Billy, a seminarian from La Crosse in first year Theology. After that class we looked around the seminary a bit and then had Mass. I kind of like that mass is at 11:35 there, rather than first thing in the morning. I like the idea of centering my day around Mass, but there is also something to be said for starting the day with Mass like they do here at Mundelein. I guess it is just personal preference for different people.

The campus there is smaller than here at Mundelein, but very nice. The rooms that the seminarians live in are comparable size. At St. Paul Seminary each seminarian shares a bathroom with one person, opposed to here where we have our own. It probably wouldn’t be too big of a deal to share with one. The fitness areas at St. Paul are a bit smaller, but I may be able to find other areas to work out on the St. Thomas University campus, of which the seminary is part. I like the idea of being part of a larger university. I am not sure how much interaction the normal seminarian would have with others on the campus, but it would surely open up some more opportunities for activities.

The classes that Mark and I attended were both very interesting, and very well presented. It seems that there is a smaller percentage of the faculty that is priests at St. Paul, but the professors were very engaging and seem to have good relationships with the students. I wish that I’d gotten a chance to talk to the rector of the seminary or to say more than hello to the vice rector, but in the little encounter that I had with each of them they seemed nice.

People have asked me if this means that I am for sure transferring next year. I can’t say that. I am going to pray about it a little more, but I think that I will tell the vocation director that I am interested in transferring and ask him to ask the Bishop if I should start the application.

Well, that has brought this up-to-date. We are now in the four week sprint to the end of the quarter, I don’t think that I have any more travels in that time. We’ll see what I can do to make it interesting.

Peace,

Adam

Paper on Monotheism vs polytheism

2011-10-11T20:47:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone, today I wanted to treat you to the paper that I talked about a few posts back in regards to the difference between Monotheism and Polytheism. As I said before it was very interesting to write, I hope you enjoy it.

Peace,
Adam

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adam James

Philosophy of Nature

Polytheism vs. Monotheism:

The Metaphysical Implications of Their Respective Narratives

When thinking about the differences between a polytheistic faith and one that is monotheistic, it is common to believe that it is simply a difference of the number of gods that a faith embraces. While this is an understandable mistake, the words are deceiving. The idea of god is completely different in the polytheistic view compared to that of the monotheist. In these two settings the idea of gods is different in part because of the different views on the matrix that encompasses everything.

In a polytheistic tradition people grow up with the notion that their gods are born. This in itself means that there must be something before their gods. It also means that there must be more than one, for one has to give birth to another. The gods in this view are procreated, so there is an element of the unsuspected and unwilled involved with them and their actions. From this it is seen that the matrix of all reality predates the gods. This raises the question as to what or who created the matrix.

The gods in a polytheistic view are subject to fate, as is all that exists. Fate means that what is destined to happen will happen with no effect of will. The polytheistic people pay homage to the gods, despite the belief that all is subject to fate. They do this because the gods are typically quite cruel and demanding of their attention.

The only way that a person can influence fate is through magic. This magic is not simple tricks as in the current definition of magic but is a way for the polytheist to tap into the metadivine. If the act for magic fails to influence fate, it doesn’t necessarily hurt the faith of the polytheists. They feel that if magic doesn’t work it can only be because they performed the magical act wrong.

A polytheist learns all of this through narrative. The best known of these narratives would be Iliad and Odyssey by Homer. These stories tell the tales of the gods and show all about them, how they came about, how they act, and the fact that they are subject to fate. These tales are the narrative that tied the culture together and similar tales exist in every polytheistic culture. These tales show a cyclical system to the polytheists’ understanding.

Monotheism has a completely different take on the metaphysical realm. Monotheism is unique in history from the Israelite God to the faiths that have come from that, namely Christianity and Islam. Monotheistic metaphysics is summed up in the first line of Genesis. Which describes how in the beginning there was nothing and then God willed everything into being. This shows a couple of the biggest differences between polytheism and monotheism. The first that this shows is that God has always been, not born from something. Along this same line it shows that God pre-existed everything. This shows that in monotheism the metadivine is linear, not cyclical as in polytheism, if there is such a sing as a metadivine in monotheism, maybe it is more accurate to say time or history.

The other big difference that this first idea in the Genesis shows is that God’s will is the ultimate thing in this realm. God is not subject to fate, His will trumps all. God willed the world into existence, and it was so. This is a big difference, it means that everything was created intentionally, not procreated and getting whatever comes.

In monotheism prayer is the way to influence God, not magic. This leads to and understanding that God can do anything that He wills.

While monotheism has a narrative as does polytheism it differs in several ways. One way that the narrative differs is that it comes about through revelation. In revelation God has shown himself and what is true at the time and to whom He knows will spread it in the proper way. Polytheists don’t believe in this idea of revelation, although their gods interact with them in a constant manner. Monotheism tends to be more difficult to get people to convert to because of this revelation aspect. It has a less obvious metaphysical idea than polytheism, so is believed in primarily by those to whom it has been revealed.

So while polytheists have many gods and monotheists believe only in one God as the words would show there is a very great deal more to the difference between monotheism and polytheism. This difference is shown best in the narratives of the two ideas. In the polytheistic narrative one sees the creation, or more properly procreation, of the gods while in the monotheistic narrative one sees that God is before and above everything else that has and will ever exist.

Dad's visit and more

2011-10-04T20:44:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

So the big thing to type about this week was family day here at the seminary on Saturday. It is a day of great joy with quite a large turnout for families coming here. I enjoy meeting the families of my seminary brothers a lot.

To make it even better, I got to see my dad. His trip in just happened to coincide with family day, but it was nice to be able to take advantage of all that was offered. My dad had ridden the motorcycle from his home in Montana to Wisconsin at the beginning of September to help one of his sister-in-laws to drive out to spend time with them in Montana. Last week they drove back to WI and after spending some time with my brother and his family, and some time getting the motorcycle worked on my dad came down on Friday to see me. We got him settled into his room and then went out for pizza with one of my classmates whom I am good friends with. It was great spending this time with him and talking.

I showed my dad around the seminary a bit and then on Saturday we took part in a few of the activities. I showed him the book store here and he bought me two polo shirts with the logo on them, which was very nice of him. We then sat in on a mock lecture regarding the importance of liturgy in the faith and the importance of adhering to liturgical norms since the liturgy is the prayer of the entire church. I was a bit concerned how my dad would handle this since religion has never been a big part of his life, however, he really enjoyed it and was glad that we had attended.

After that we did a little bit of work on the bike, we didn’t get the problem fixed, but decided that the indicator light he had on was a sensor making a bad connection and not really the problem that it indicated. We followed that by lunch and then the wonderful architecture tour that they offer on campus for family day. The professor that leads this tour does an absolutely amazing job of describing all the thought that went into the design of the buildings on this campus. He gives a great deal of background and insight. I can’t even begin to go into detail describing what he talks about, but it is amazing.

After that my dad and I went out for a nice supper and time together. He left on Sunday morning. It was great to be able to spend time with him and to show him this part of my life.

Classes are of course busy, as well as all the other stuff that we have going on. At my field education we had one last night of preparing for the people that we will serve starting this Thursday. We were reorganizing the supplies and cleaning up the store room. I am excited for the people to start coming in. I am sure I will tell you about it in future posts.

Last Thursday morning I was able to participate in a special Mass offered by the retired Archbishop that I have for my Vatican II class. He invited me to participate since he was offering the Mass for my friend Casey who was hurt seriously hurt and his wife. Casey is doing much better. Last Thursday or Friday the doctors told Carolyn that it appears that Casey MIGHT be able to regain some sensation in his lower extremities, but it is still too early to tell. This is a great step up from the sure paralysis that was being told to them. Casey was moved yesterday from the ICU to a normal hospital room, so he is making great strides.

That is again enough for now. Have a Blessed week everyone.

Peace,
Adam

What a week

2011-09-27T16:13:00.002-05:00

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

2011-09-20T15:48:00.002-05:00

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

2011-09-10T14:37:00.002-05:00

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

Back to Mundelein 2011

2011-08-27T20:34:00.002-05:00

Hi again,

So I am back here at Mundelein getting ready for the second year of pre-theology. Our silent retreat starts tomorrow night and runs until Friday so I thought I’d write quickly before then. I am then occupied the next day, so if you are going to contact me wait until next week Sunday.

Since I wrote last I have had a few things go on while I have been getting ready for the new school year. One of these is a fundraiser that the seminarians help out with. The money raised helps the vocation program for the Diocese of La Crosse. This year it was a bit different than the way it had been in the past, but I liked this a bit better.

We converted the large dining room at the diocesan center to look somewhat like a place that you would see in Rome. The event was titled “A Night in Rome with Bishop Callahan”. We borrowed a lot of props from the local Catholic University’s theater department and I would say that it looked wonderful. In the past there had been a nice served meal, this year it was kind of buffet style of Italian dishes. Part way through the night the vocation director and the bishop talked for a few minutes and then it went back to just a socializing evening with seminarians and the bishop mingling and talking to people. It was nice. I left shortly after the talks so I had gone down early to set up. I was leaving to go to a friend’s birthday parting across the state.

I had thought that the friend’s birthday party was Friday night when I set up to leave early, I found out shortly before the event that it was Saturday, but I still left early to drive part way across the state so that I could get to my friend’s early. The friend whose birthday it was is one of my dearest friends. She has moved to the west coast for work and we don’t get to see each other much. I was so happy to go to this party, see her and some other friends. We had a bonfire and camped out in the back yard before going to church together the next morning.

After Mass I headed to see another friend who lived near that area before driving back to Stevens Point for a few days. Again this time in Stevens Point was nice and relaxing. I did some chores around the parish, and went out to dinner with a few parishioners before getting ready to head back to Mundelein. I got in here on Thursday afternoon and got to work setting up my room. I built a loft for my bed to give me more room, this was a big project but it makes my room very livable, I like it a lot. It has been great spending time with friends and catching up after the summer before the retreat begins.

You will all be in my prayers during this silent retreat.

Peace,
Adam

End of Scout Camp and Start of Time Off 2011

2011-08-13T20:23:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

Since I wrote last I have had a half a week of being very busy at scout camp followed by a week in Stevens Point without regular internet access, plus I just didn't write for a few days after getting back here. It is amazing how long it seems since I have written, although it has been pretty low key, not a lot going on.

In my last post I promised that I would write about finishing up at camp, the last week of Boy Scouts and the half week of Weblos. The last week of Boy Scouts was both great and difficult at the same time. Attendance at the chapel services was pretty good, and I felt like I connected with quite a few of the scouts.

Although I had been offering to the leaders all summer to come in for an ethics talk with the scouts I had never had any troops take me up on it. The last week of scouts I had 4 troops ask for this. For these ethics talks another staff member and I go in and sit down with the scouts, ask the leaders to leave for about 45 minutes and talk about issues that are affecting young men of this age range. I asked the leaders if there were any specific issues going on in the troop. Each and every one of them said that they were having major bullying issues with the scouts in their troop, so this was a big part of the talk.

It is expected that boys of this age will have some issues with bullying, but this was an exceptionally bad case of it. It amazed me how during the summer each week seemed to have its own characteristic of what the troops were dealing with, despite the fact that they were from all over and not really and pattern to when they come in. But they have some of the same issues, and that week it was bullying. I am sure that these 45 minute talks weren't going to work miracles with this issue, but the leaders did comment to me that there seemed to be some improvement after the talk. It gave them some time to think about it, and I think that the way that we presented the issue to them caused them some pause when they were about to be bullying someone.

After that week was the half week of Weblo scouts. This is the oldest two years of Cub Scouts, before they transition to Boy Scouts. This half a week ran quite a bit like those with the Boy Scouts, just condensed into a shorter time. I was surprised with these scouts being a bit younger that I didn't have much for homesick to deal with, I guess that is partially because of how short the time was for them. I did something pretty cool with them that I hadn't done with the scouts. We only had one chapel service due to the time, but instead we did a chapel minute at the end of most meals. There were a couple that time just got too short, or the person coordinating the after meal activities forgot. It was pretty cool and I got a lot of compliments on it.

When I left scout camp I went out for a drink with a couple of friends from camp before heading to Winona for one night. I left the next morning and after completing a bit of running around in La Crosse I headed over to Stevens Point.

Nothing too special was going on in Stevens Point. I took care of some chores for the parish and I served both Masses on the weekend in addition to catching up with some friends in the area. It was a nice visit. I then came back to Winona and will be here for a week and a half before heading out again. I am keeping up with personal prayer and attending daily Mass often to revitalize myself before heading into the upcoming school year. I have been looking into the possible move to St. Paul seminary after this year. It is kind of fun doing this research and having some down time is nice.

Peace,

Adam

Seminarian retreat 2011

2011-07-30T18:50:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

It has been since before the seminarian retreat since I wrote last. So I’ll go ahead and get right into it.

You may remember that last year I was quite disappointed with the seminarian retreat. I actually didn’t think that I should have even been on that retreat since I had not yet started seminary. I thought that it was not much of a retreat, last year was very heavy on the business side of things, and didn’t feel like a retreat much at all. It had been nice to meet a few of the guys that I would be with, but not much of a retreat. This year was much less business but still a stretch to call it a retreat, it was more of a seminarian get-together. We did pray a lot, and it was quite nice, but not quite what I think of as a retreat. I will be having the silent retreat when I get to Mundelein, so that isn’t a bad thing and since I was expecting this I wasn’t as disappointed as I was last year with the diocese seminarian retreat.

On the retreat several of the seminarians were giving talks. The talks were about their thoughts on a specific aspect of the priesthood or about their summer assignments. I gave a talk about ministry at a scout camp, I thought it went very well. Each seminarian who has been through at least a year of seminary had a one-on-one meeting with Fr. Hirsch, the vocation director and another one-on-one meeting with Bishop Callahan.

My meetings went very well. I have spoken with Fr. Hirsch enough that this went about as expected so there isn’t too much to write about. I had only spoken to Bishop Callahan twice for about a minute each in the past so the 10-15 minutes in this was very nice.

We all knew that Bp. Callahan was wanting to diversify where we were attending seminary a bit. I don’t think that he sees anything wrong with Mundelein, but I think that he may be concerned that 12 of the 14 men at major seminary were there this past year. We all expected this to be an issue. He used to be a spiritual director at the North American College seminary in Rome and already was sending two more guys there this year. The other seminary that we had one guy at is St. Paul seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. With us knowing this and the fact that these moves would normally happen either after a guy finishes college seminary or pre-theology I had obviously been thinking about this some. I had decided that I had no interest in studying in Rome, while it would be cool to live there for four years I have been away from home quite a bit in the recent past and I didn’t want that for now. I also felt that it seems kind of stuffy to be studying at the NAC, so I did not want this.

While I like Mundelein Seminary I am not too attached there and was going to say that I would be happy to look at and discern moving to St. Paul seminary starting in the fall of 2012. It was surprising with the little contact that I had had with Bp. Callahan that when I sat down with him, after the initial pleasantries he said that he though the NAC would be too stuffy for me, but would like me to think and pray about St. Paul Seminary. I am quite surprised that he was able to pick that up about me already.

It is not set in stone that I would move there, but I got the impression that this is what he wants me to lean towards. There will be six guys who line up in my class if we all continue in seminary, three that are going into their senior year of college seminary and three of us going into second year of pre-theology. I think that the Bp. Callahan and Fr. Hirsch may look to send two of us to each place for theology.

The retreat was good for me in my discernment as well. I had been struggling quite a bit with my discernment. While I wasn’t ready to say that I was thinking that I was dropping out of seminary I had been thinking that I’d make a few comments so that guys wouldn’t be surprised if I dropped out. While I still am not sure of my vocation this retreat did make me more sure that I am doing the right thing in going back to seminary for this year. I have said in the past that I am taking seminary a school year at a time, I still think that in general this is what I am going to do, but if I go back and it is clear that it isn’t right I think that it would be appropriate to leave at mid-year, but not after a little bit of issues, it would have to be very clear. I am looking forward to this next year and the discernment that will come.

This week after the retreat was the last week of Boy Scouts at camp, and only a half a week of Weblos to come, Weblos are the oldest two years of Cub Scouts, so a half a week is a great transition for them. I will write about the last week of Boy Scouts and the Weblo half week in my next post as this is long enough already.

Peace,
Adam

Visiting a shrine and getting back to scout camp

2011-07-19T15:08:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

So other than the post about the prayer services it has been almost two weeks since I posted last. That was during the week off from scout camp for the Independence Day holiday. I had some people ask why we would be off that week. I don’t know anything official but I would imagine that a lot of troops don’t want to come to camp that week since many scouts would have to choose between family trips and scout camp.

The last weekend of that week off was pretty cool. I went with a couple of friends to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion, Wisconsin (just north of Green Bay.) We left early Saturday morning, I was still feeling a bit ill, but good enough to go. The friends that I was with are the parents of one of my ex-girlfriends. Her and her family are still close friends of mine. Some people may wonder about that, but it is easy in our case because after breaking up she went to a convent and I went to seminary… so still very good friends.

We drove to where her Aunt and Uncle live in Green Bay to meet up with them to go out to the shrine which is just about 30 minutes from their house. We got to the shrine in the early afternoon and looked around and prayed for about 3 hours. It is a really cool experience. This shrine is on the site of the only approved apparition of Blessed Virgin Mary in the United States. There are many people who want to get famous by saying that they saw Mary for something or another so the Church investigates the claims and determines if they are credible or not.

In the case of the apparition near Champion a young Belgian woman was walking in the mid-1800s and saw a sight that scared her away the first two times because she didn’t know what or who it was. She asked her priest what to do because she thought it might be an angel. When Mary appeared to her a third time she did as the priest had instructed and said in the name of Jesus Christ identify yourself. The Blessed Mother identified herself and told the young lady to teach the children the tenets of the faith. The young lady started a religious community and school at the site and this is where the shrine is now. One interesting thing about the site is that the great Peshtigo fire came to the edge of the property, stopped and went around without causing any damage on the site.

Marian apparitions are not a huge part of my faith, but it was very cool, and very moving to be in the presence of the site where she had appeared. I’m not sure that I felt anything special spiritually, but the knowledge of it made it very moving to me.

After that we went to Mass and spent the night in Green Bay before racing back on Sunday morning so that I could make it back to camp at a reasonable time. I had permission from the camp director to arrive late, but I wanted to be here at a reasonable time.

Last week at camp went very well. It was probably my slowest week for homesick scouts and I had no behavioral issues to deal with. I really, really, really enjoyed just going around and talking with scouts and leaders in addition to the chapel services. I felt like I was able to minister to all the scouts pretty well, rather than having to focus on the homesick scouts all the time.

This week is off to a pretty good start. The weather is extremely hot, to the point of almost being miserable. The staff is doing a great job of covering up the drag that this puts on to be able to give the scouts a great experience. I have a few more homesick scouts this week because they aren’t doing as much stuff due to the weather.

I will leave camp after Thursday’s chapel service to attend the annual seminarian retreat for the Diocese of La Crosse. One of the other staff members volunteered to run the chapel service on Friday so that is great.

Until I write again,
Peace,
Adam

Chapel service on Prayer

2011-07-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

Below please find the service that I have written for the scouts at camp. There may be some typos, but this will give you an idea of what the interfaith services that I run are like. This one is about improving prayer life. I may post some more in the future.

WELCOME: Hello, Thanks for coming out again. I hope that you enjoyed and were fulfilled by the outside ministers that I brought in yesterday. With that said, let’s go ahead and get started.

HYMN: Our opening hymn will be __________________________

OPENING PRAYER: Ever-loving God, your name is the greatest among us all. Thank you for this wonderful week at camp, for the safety and the fun, for the learning and the memories. We ask you to continue to bless us all as we finish out this week and go forward in the coming weeks. In all things that we do we ask you to keep us in your loving care. Amen

FIRST READING: Our first reading comes from the 3rd book of Nephi in the Book of Mormon
You must always pray unto the Father in my name; and whatsoever you shall
ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing you shall receive,
behold it shall be given unto you. Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name

SECOND READING: The second reading for today is from the traditional religion of Kenya in Africa.

Set me free, I entreat thee from my heart;
If I do not pray to thee with my heart,
Thou hearest me not.
If I pray to thee with my heart,
Thou knowest it and art gracious unto me.

THIRD READING: Our third reading is from the book Acts of the Apostles in the Bible
And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

FOURTH READING: The fourth reading comes from the letter of St. James in the Bible
Is any one among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him
sing praise. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the
church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of
the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord
will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that
you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.

FIFTH READING: Our fifth reading comes from the Gospel of Luke in the Bible. This is right after the disciples had asked Jesus to teach them to pray.
And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

REFLECTION:
Prayer, it is an important part in every faith. The readings from today demonstrate just a little bit about the scriptures relating to prayer.
Since I started seminary I often have had people talking to me about faith, I love that. One of the most common things that I hear from people is that when they try to pray they get distracted, or they don’t know how to pray. In fact, I had one of my friends e-mail me about that today. In this e-mail she said
“So, I find that lately it is very hard for my to concentrate and/or stay focused when I try to pray. I either lose my train of thought, cant focus on what I am trying to say, and mostly I feel so overwhelmed with the things I need to be thankful for and for everyone that I want to pray for that I feel I will be praying for days. Any advice?”
I have gotten e-mails along this line so often that yes, I do have some advice. In this I will talk to you about personal prayer, not the type at an organized service. The first point of advice is to keep going with what you are doing. The intent and desire to pray is itself a prayer and pleasing to God. Yes, you are going to get distracted in your prayer, but that may sometimes be God guiding you to what you need to pray for. In the Christian tradition we refer to the Holy Spirit guiding our prayer.
Don’t let every distraction lead you astray. Some of the distractions will actually lead you either away from prayer completely, or into praying for something that will be bad for you.
I think that the first step when one decides to pray is to ask God to guide your prayer and to be with you when you pray. Always ask for this grace.
A faithful person should pray constantly during the day, whenever anything comes up that is in need of God’s assistance, utter a small prayer to ask for it. When something good happens utter a small prayer to thank God for allowing it to happen, or causing it to happen. These types of prayers don’t need to have any sort of style, and others most likely won’t be able to tell that you are praying.
Often people are helped in prayer by repeating a simple traditional prayer. For many Christians this is the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father that was taught by Jesus to his disciples. We heard this in our last reading today. For many Catholics this is praying an organized prayer such as the rosary, the simple repetitive nature of this allows your mind to flow to wherever the spirit of God takes it.
Set aside a special time or place for prayer. In my house or apartment I have almost always had a corner that I tend to go and sit in when I want some long meaningful prayer. I may set up a table with some items to help me focus on prayer. These items may be a picture of Jesus, or a bible, or my rosary, or readings on the faith. Any of these can be jumping off points to start the prayer. They can help me refocus when I get distracted. This place often has a candle in it, I like to light a candle because I can even get lost in the flickering little flame.
I think that personal prayer is often helped through attending formal prayer. In your church or whatever house of worship you may attend you can get focused and receive graces that will help guide you in your personal prayer later.
There is no set format for personal prayer, but I will give you an idea of the format that I tend to use before jumping off into wandering prayer. The first thing that I do is to address God. There are many ways to do this. I may start out with “Dear God” or “Loving God” or “Good and Gracious Lord” or some such address.
I follow the address up with a bit of praising God and thanking Him for the good in my life. This may take up most of the time, or it may be a few short thoughts. God is great, if we have our faith in Him, we should tell Him so. I use this time to count my blessings and know of great it is to be one of God’s creation and in the world with so much of His other creation.
After the praises and thanksgiving comes time to ask God for what we need or want. God knows our desires and needs, but we should be able to express them to him. Remember to ask God for forgiveness for your sins. We are all sinners who need this forgiveness. One thing that I always add to these requests is the thought that I only want this if it is God’s will that I have it. Don’t forget to ask God to take care of others, whether they be people you know or not.
I then close it with a statement expressing my confidence that God can do this all. This may be saying, “I ask this in your loving name” or “through Christ our Lord.” Use whatever is appropriate for you.
Here is an example of a simple prayer of mine, so you can see how I put this together.
Good and Gracious God, Thank you for this day that you have given to me, the ability to serve you and others. Thank you for my family and friends. I thank you for all the experiences I have had, fun and not. Please continue to bless me in all these ways and in the ways that I am not yet aware of. Please answer the prayers of all those who have asked me to pray for them and provide for those in need. I ask all this through Christ our Lord. Amen

That was just an example of a prayer for me, yours may sound like that, or be different. After that sort of a prayer I spend time praying in more detail for those things that come to mind. I will let my mind wander and just be with God. It is pretty rare for anybody to get a direct voice in response to our prayers, but if you spend enough time in prayer you will be able to feel God answering your prayers.

INTENTIONS: Let us now join our prayers together to God. Please respond, Oh God, hear our prayer.

For the world, that all people may recognize God and communicate with Him… We Pray.

For our families, may their needs and prayers be answered according to God’s will… We Pray.

For us, that we will continue to grow in our prayer life, and our whole life loving God… We Pray.
CLOSING PRAYER:
God of us all. Thank you for this time to worship you and grow in our faith. We ask you to strengthen our faith going forward and to keep us in your loving care. We ask this in your loving name. Amen

HYMN: Our closing song will be _________________________________

Second week at scout camp 2011 and start of week off

2011-07-07T14:52:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

It has been a while since my last post so that I could think about how or if to write about the biggest incident that I dealt with last week at camp. I decided to do so. Obviously I cannot and would not use names, but I will try to write it out so you can see some of the stuff I am dealing with.

So the week started off great, I was having an amazingly low number of homesick kids so I was able to focus on just going around and being with the scouts and leaders at their normal activities. Then, on Monday, right after lunch I get a call that a leader is looking for me. I figured that it was a homesick kid so I hurried to get working with the scout. I find the leader, and both leaders for the troop meet me at the entrance to camp, not what I was expecting. It turns out that 11 year old scout A had found out that 13 year old scout B has a sister who is a lesbian. Scout A started harassing scout B and talking about how wrong it is to be gay and that he shouldn’t be gay because it was wrong and against scouting and against God.

To complicate matters scout A had taken off without telling anyone where he was going and without having a buddy with him which is required by camp rules. While I let the leaders and other staff track him down I worked to comfort scout B. I was able to work with him fairly easily, he was still upset about the lack of sensitivity when it comes to something like this, but was over the harassment he had endured. Scout A was finally located and I talked with him about being nice to people and how there are some topics that are inappropriate for scouting to be talked about. He said all the right things, and said that he would apologize. I told him that he had until an hour after dinner to apologize to scout B and he said that he would. I also talked to him about multiple other incidents already in just a day that had occurred with other scouts in his troop.

After dinner I waited for a while and then went back to the campsite. I asked scout B if he had even been approached and he hadn’t. I asked the leaders and they said that the other stuff hadn’t stopped. So I talked with scout A again. Scout B also wanted us to talk with the whole troop about being sensitive in what is said and careful of our wording. This went surprisingly well.

The leaders, however, were getting extremely frustrated with scout A. They even asked the camp director and me if we could support asking his scout A’s mom to pick him up. We said that the decision for that is up to them, but that we would support their decision. This is what ended up happening. After breakfast on Tuesday I was with the leaders when they told scout A that his mom was on the way to pick him up. He proceeded to cuss them out and when I tried to comfort him he cussed at me for quite a while as he packed his stuff. Thankfully, his mom got there soon. She signed him out. She was upset at him and the leaders, but didn’t make too much of a scene.

Then I thought we were going to just go on the rest of the week. That afternoon, however, scout A’s mom showed back up. She asked to speak with me and the camp director. We sat down and she asked if I had told her son that it is okay to be gay, I assured her that I had not and that I had only talked to him about being nice and respectful to all people. She accepted that and then asked who had made the decision to send her son home, we informed her that it was the troop leader’s decision and that we supported leaders when they made those decisions. She seemed to leave quite satisfied.

To finish with this story before going on to the rest of the week… On Thursday the BSA district executive came out and I ran into him talking to the troop leader for these scouts. They asked me if I could support allowing scout A to come back for the last day of camp, since he had been remorseful and expressed intent to not repeat the actions. We talked with the troop and they agreed to give him another chance. I talked to them about forgiveness when we were discussing this. Scout A returned and the last went quite well.

Other than that incident, the week was pretty quiet. Still very busy keeping on top of little situations so that they didn’t get bigger but very enjoyable. Thursday was my birthday. So for the Mass on camp on Wednesday I had invited one of my favorite priests to offer Mass and he did. It was a much smaller crowd than the week before, but very nice. I also took a few hours off on Thursday morning to go to Mass. I’m such a seminarian that this is my birthday gift to myself. I was starting to feel not well, but figured that if I took it easy I’d just get past it.

When we got done on Friday we started a week off. The camp is closed the week of Independence Day since many troops wouldn’t want to come that week, and the camp is able to rent out to an outside group who donates a lot of money. So on Friday night I drove to Stevens Point. On Saturday I slept in until 7:45 and then went to breakfast with Fr. Tom. I took it easy most of the day, went for a couple of nice walks around town and went to the farmer’s market. After the Saturday evening Mass Fr. Tom grilled out for me and another seminarian who is in town there for the summer. It was great spending time with them and just hanging out.

On Sunday after Mass I drove back to my mom’s in Winona and took a nap. My throat was really sore and I was painkillers to get by. I rarely take pain pills, so this was tough on me. After my nap I went down to La Crosse and sat with my mom and Perry while they ate, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to swallow so I didn’t eat. I then met up with a couple of friends to go to Riverfest, the festival in La Crosse for Independence Day. I had a good time, and enjoyed their company. On Monday I decided to go to the urgent care to have them look at my throat, to see if it was strep or if there was anything I could do. The doctor said to just keep taking Ibuprofen to keep the swelling down but that since it was a virus there was nothing more I could do.

After the doctor visit I went to those same friend’s house. We were going to eat lunch with some people and then head to Riverfest again and watch the fireworks. I enjoyed the lunch, and my mom and Perry came in and sat around chatting for a while with us. It was a lot of fun. I decided to go home and rest rather than go to the fireworks. I haven’t done much else during my week off. I did go to Mass at St. Elizabeth’s on Wednesday to attend Mass with the new priest there. It was wonderful and reminded me of the church that I used to know.

I am starting to feel better, but still not 100 percent. I am very thankful that I had this week off to get better.

I will write again when I can.

Peace,
Adam

First week with scouts

2011-06-25T10:58:00.001-05:00

Hello again,
Wow, I thought that the life at seminary required long days. It turns out that when I am there I am getting a lot of down time compared to what I am doing as a scout camp chaplain.

This was the first week with scouts in camp. It was amazing both how fast it seemed and how long it seemed. After staff week I got off fairly early on Friday evening and when I got to my mom’s house my aunt and uncle were in town. We had supper and talked late into the evening. On Saturday we went to an overlook in Winona so they could see the city from above. It was nice, and since it was steamboat days, the festival in Winona, there was a lot to see. In the afternoon we drove to Wabasha to go to the National Eagle Center. We sat in on one of their one hour class sessions. I had heard pretty much all of the information presented, but it was nice to have it presented in a condensed, organized fashion. We followed that up by going to a restaurant in the country near Nelson, WI that may aunt had read about in the magazine. That was nice and we finished off the day by again chatting into the evening.

On Sunday I went to Mass in Holmen before heading out to the camp. When I got to camp I had a few things to set up and get ready since the scouts were coming in soon. We were required to be there by 1230 and I was quite early to get stuff done. When the troops were starting to register I was asking the leaders if they knew the faiths that their scouts practiced. All of the scouts were Christian as far as I could find out, but I decided to still run the services as interfaith, rather than ecumenical incase the leaders had missed one or two. I did feel confident to go a bit heavier on Christian than even I had planned.

I found out Sunday evening that one of the troops had scheduled the priest from the parish that most of them attended to come in for Mass on Wednesday. This frustrated me to an extent because I had spent a bit of time scheduling a different priest in, and this troop hadn’t let me know in advance. So I had to end up calling and canceling the priest that had been scheduled in by me, somewhat embarrassing me, but he was fine with it.

I was alerted to a few scouts that the leaders were concerned would be homesick during the week. I made it a point to be a bit extra attentive to those scouts so that I had been with them if I had to start dealing with home sickness problems. I had a little bit with each of them, but they weren’t any too bad. On Monday and Tuesday I was able to quickly schedule in the Catholic Priest for next week, but had a bear of a time scheduling a protestant minister for the Wednesday. I think I called 20-25 churches before getting one. It would come on Friday that he ended up canceling so I called another 10-12 before getting one that I think will show up.

Monday and Tuesday were my busiest days for homesick scouts. Each of them is so different that I have to figure out a way to distract them and try to keep them in camp. Probably the third scout that I had dealings with I spent a lot of time with. Everything that I did to distract him he had fun with, but when I would mention him doing it again later in the week he would say, “No, I’m going home today.” I was pretty frustrated with myself for not being able to convince him, it was so hard headed though, that on Tuesday his leaders agreed to let him go home. He is the only scout that I wasn’t able to convince to stay, so I think I did pretty well.

As for my chapel services… I’m not as happy with them as the scouts and leaders are. I am planning on writing one or two more and then just editing as the summer goes on. This will also give me quite a bit more time to spend with the scouts. The hours I am putting in amaze me. On Sunday I was with scouts and leaders until 10:30 when we had a staff meeting. Then I get up at 5:30 in the morning. Monday was a 21 hour day and Tuesday was 20. Wednesday I had some homesickness issues in the morning but by the afternoon it slowed down so Wednesday and Thursday were only about 15-18 hour days and Friday I was leaving camp by a little after 9 p.m. It was very nice to go to my moms and climb into a real bed before 10:30 at night.

However, shortly after I climbed into bed I heard one of my step-brothers and a group of his friends come in and they were hanging out. I was so exhausted that I didn’t come out and see them. I dozed and woke up quite a bit until they went to bed about 3:30 am. I managed to sleep until 7:00 so I am good and with one more night’s sleep I will be ready to go for another week with scouts.

Thanks for reading.
Peace,
Adam

Staff week at camp

2011-06-18T12:08:00.001-05:00

Hello again,
As I said before, I think that posts this summer will be a little more sporadic than I would like them to be. I have found out that I do have internet access at the boy scout camp, but I am going to be very busy… I will post as I can.

So since my last post I went to Stevens Point for Pentecost weekend. I helped out at the Masses at Newman Parish and really enjoyed them, as always. I went out to eat couple of times with Father Tom, it was nice to catch up with just him. On Saturday evening there was an Ordination Mass to the deaconate for one of the guys from the La Crosse Diocese. He will be ordained a priest next year. There was going to be an Ordination for another guy on Sunday, but I couldn’t go to that, as the time conflicted with the Mass at Newman.

This deacon Ordination is the same Ordination as for a guy who is going to stay a Deacon, but since this one is going to be a priest, he is called a transitional deacon by those who know him. This doesn’t change any of his faculties or authorities. It is just a term used to clarify incase people are curious. Dan, the new Deacon at the Ordination I went to and Dave, the one for the Ordination that I didn’t go to are great guys. They will both be great priests.

After the Sunday Mass I helped a bit with changing the decorations in the church from the Easter Season to Ordinary Time. Ordinary time isn’t about the boring type of ordinary, but means ordinal, such as a number sequence… just a way of keeping track as to where we are in the liturgical year. I had to leave before this change over was complete… I had to head to the camp for staff week.

When I arrived at camp I checked in and moved the supplies that they had down to the chapel to begin preparing for the summer. I have a nice outdoor chapel to use. I really like it. I found out that they did indeed want chapel services during the staff week, I hadn’t been expecting that, so I raced to put some of them together.

The staff at camp is great. I really like everyone that I have gotten to know over the week. They all seem happy to have a chaplain there, and attendance for the chapel services has been great. I spent a lot of the week figuring out what I was going to be doing, and writing the chapel services. It was a bit difficult with the services because the music books they have are not good. I struggled with them for Monday’s chapel service, but then decided to make up some handout sheets for music. I got this done and it was nice, but it turns out that the people there only knew some of the songs. I had downloaded some music to my IPod to play along, but for the speakers I need power, there is an outlet in the chapel, but it doesn’t work. I am going to use an extension cord so that I can do this in the future, also one of the guys on staff has a portable keyboard and plays piano for his church at home so he volunteered to help out.

The leadership at the camp is great about the importance of chapel. For example, even though it was staff week and heavy on training, if there was an announcement to be made about something for the rest of the afternoon, the programs director would say to the people to meet out at the entrance to the chapel, not make an announcement in the chapel, since that isn’t what it is for. I had mentioned in passing to someone how much I enjoy rappelling and the programs director said that if I want to help out occasionally with the rappelling program I can, but that it is up to me, so that I can function fully as chaplain.

We worked hard this week setting everything up too. I enjoyed the good physical work and pitching in when I could. It was wonderful of the camp leadership to allow me to decide if I wanted to and not do stuff at the expense of the chaplaincy.

I am looking forward to the scouts coming in next week, and spending this summer doing this ministry.

Peace,
Adam

Training for the summer and taking some down time

2011-06-06T22:10:00.000-05:00

Wow, so I thought I had put up a post last week, but just looked and it turns out that I didn’t. Sorry about that if you were looking for a post.

After my last post, I was able to spend some time with my dad and his wife who were out for that funeral. Obviously the circumstances weren’t great, but it was great to see them. We spent a lot of time talking and just hanging out. On that Friday I went to the funeral with them. It was a very nice funeral. I stayed at the lunch for just a little bit before heading out. I had a few things to get done before heading towards Stevens Point.

I didn’t really have anything to do in Stevens Point, but it was a lot closer to where I had to be on Saturday and I was able to spend some time with a good friend and his kids. His wife was out of town with a team that she coaches at the school she teaches at. I got over there a little early so was able to relax and even do a bit of running around in Point before he got off of work. We then had pizza for supper and shared a couple of beers after the kids went to bed. When I was finishing up college I used to spend quite a bit of time with him and his wife, and it is always fun to catch up.

Saturday I headed up to the training for my summer position. This is part of the National Camp School for the Boy Scouts. Most camps don’t send their chaplains to this, but the camp that I am working at thought it would be a good idea. It was fun to be at a camp again. I will say that I was actually quite disappointed with the training, maybe more so with the trainer. She was nice enough, but there was quite a bit to frustrate a person. First of all, she was extremely disorganized which made the training go in fits and spurts. We would race through a lot, and then play it off as if there was almost nothing to do before racing forward again. Probably more frustrating than that was that while she put on being inclusive and accepting of all traditions she would get in digs against the Catholic Church with a great deal of frequency. I corrected her on most of her false statements about the Church, but she just kept them coming. I was quite disappointed by this, and happy to be done on Tuesday. I am still excited about working at the camp, because I won’t be dealing with that there.

Over the weekend there were a lot of priest reassignments announced within the La Crosse Diocese. I had a list of them and am excited about many of them. Some are difficult situations due to a shrinking number of priests, but I think that the Bishop and the personnel board did a great job on fitting different priests with different parishes on the whole, and making the decisions that had to be made.

I came back to Winona after that and kind of took it easy for a day or two other than a few chores around the house. On Friday I volunteered with the foresters back at the Corps of Engineers that I worked with during college. I was working with the students that they have working for them this summer. I helped them repair some tree tubes on an island where the flood had pushed them over. Obviously the trees can’t grow in tubes that are lying down. It was oh so very hot on Friday. We were all drinking water constantly. The students were glad to have me there because with the extra worker we were able to finish up by noon and boat back to the landing. We were then going to take lunch in the air conditioned truck before heading back to the office, but I recommended that we stop at the Corps office right near there to use their air condition. I had worked with those guys some times when I had been in the area before; it was good to see them.

I left from there and drove to Stevens Point to help out at the Masses over the weekend. On Friday night Fr. Tom and I went to the house of a couple of parishioners for supper. A couple of other parishioners were also there. It was a great night of conversation and company. I really enjoyed it.

On Saturday I had some chores around the church and the rectory to get done. I cleaned up at the church and did some setting up for other events this coming week. I also trimmed all of the shrubs at the rectory for the summer. It is fun to be doing outdoor work again, no matter how little. After Mass Fr. Tom and I went out to dinner with a couple of parishioners who are also neighbors to the rectory. We followed that up by going to the parish picnic of another parish in Stevens Point. We talked to a few people there, including the priest at that parish. In the coming changes he is going to be taking over another nearby parish too. He is working to figure out how all of that will work.

I came back to Winona after Mass on Sunday. After a while I drove down to Holmen thinking that I was going to the Knights of Columbus meeting, but it turns out that the meeting is next Sunday night. Today I spent time cleaning my truck. I also waxed it and cleaned all the windows in addition to vacuuming and shampooing the carpet. I really liked doing that, it had been a while and it was nice to take care of my truck like that.

I think that this has me caught up since my last post. I hope you are all doing well.

Peace,
Adam

First week of summer break 2011

2011-05-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,
Well, it is the first week of my first summer break from seminary. Finals actually went pretty smoothly. I was honestly a little surprised at how well I felt that they went. I guess that we’ll see if my assessment is accurate when grades come. I don’t even know if I’ll get my grades before I go back. The past two quarters the grades were delivered to my campus mailbox but I do hope that they mail them so that I’ll see them this summer.

I managed to get everything moved over to my new room and get on the road as scheduled. I made it up to La Crosse a couple of hours before the wedding rehearsal so I stopped in at the store that I worked at while in high school to say hi to anyone that still worked there that I know. I found out that one of my friends there died of cancer a month or two ago… that was quite sad, she was a great lady.

The wedding rehearsal was very fun. The groom is one of my best friends from school. He and I used to shovel driveways together and do a lot of hanging out together. I do think that he is quite possibly the hardest working man that I know, and he really enjoys it. The wedding on Saturday was very nice too. The reception afterwards fit the couple greatly. It was held in the machine shed of one of the members of the groom’s family. They have a big area where we were able to set tables for supper and then a smaller area with a concrete floor where the DJ set up and the dance was held. It was cool to catch up with so many people from high school and to celebrate this special day with my friends.

On Sunday I went to an early Mass before going to the Lutheran church that the wedding had been at with the new couple and the groom’s family. I am very happy that they are making faith a strong part of their lives. After the Lutheran service I found out that one of my dad and his wife’s brother-in-laws had died. He lived in La Crosse so my dad and step-mom headed out here from where they live in Montana. I was able to see them today. And will see them a couple of more times before they head back.

Yesterday I had a meeting with the chairman of the Catholic committee on scouting, the vocation director, and the camp director for the Boy Scout camp that I will work at this summer. I am pretty excited about this. I will lead a chapel service every day that the scouts are there and arrange for a priest to come in for Mass once a week. I have some training for this starting this Saturday through next Tuesday.

Yesterday I also was able to spend some time with a good friend who is about to enter the novitiate for the religious community that she has been a postulant in for almost a year. She is both excited and nervous about this. It was great to spend time with her and her family. I really enjoy their company.

I think that this is about what has happened for the last week. So have a good one.

Peace,
Adam

Finals Week Spring quarter 2010-2011

2011-05-17T18:21:00.001-05:00

Hello again,
First a note that I hope to keep updating this blog during the summer, but I’m not sure what sort of internet access I will have during this time. I may type up posts and then have to upload a few at a time, sorry, we’ll have to see how it goes. This summer I am going to be a chaplain at a Boy Scout camp in Holmen, WI. This is the camp that I went to most of the time when I was a scout growing up, so I am very excited about it. I don’t really know what all my duties will be; I’ll have to write more about that as I find out more.

This is finals week. It is hard to believe that in less than a week I will be done with my first year of seminary studies. Wow, has this time gone fast. When I try to think back on all that I have done this school year I am amazed that it has been fit into such a short period of time. I feel that I have grown in many ways. This includes the academic, the practical, and the spiritual. I think that I had a pretty good spiritual life coming into here, but I have grown in my appreciation for the formal liturgical celebrations of the Church. I think that practically I’ve grown in quite a few ways.

Academically I have so much greater of an understanding of a wide variety of topics. As I have said before, these first two years are focused on philosophical studies, and I have seen the development of where human thought developed (western thought mainly) to the point that we were able to better understand religion and divine revelation. I am sure that I will continue in this next year. I have also had a pretty good overview of churchy type of topics, such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church and introductions to both the Old and the New Testament studies. I have even struggled through a year of Latin studies… I have done my best and have only the final to go in it. I am not very proficient, but I believe that the goal of exposure to Latin has been met.

My finals schedule isn’t really that overloaded. I am supposed to have two tests Thursday and two on Friday but I was able to move one from Friday to tomorrow (Wednesday). I did this because I have to get on the road since one of my best friends is getting married on Saturday. I am the best man in the wedding so I really should try to be there for the rehearsal. I am pretty excited about this wedding. Although I have been in the wedding party at many weddings, this is my first time as the best man.

One thing that is making this week even busier is that I am moving rooms. I can’t remember if I wrote about this or not. To help a guy get used to seminary they have those of us who are new to the seminary process live on two hallways (cams) together. After this year we move to a place where we will be for the next five years. I have been packing up all of my stuff little by little and moving it over. Thankfully the room that I have been assigned for next year is unoccupied already so I don’t have to wait for a guy to move out before I can move in. I am not able to set up the room as I will have it because there is a project this summer to install fire sprinklers in all of the rooms to bring them up to the code that will be implemented in Illinois in 2012. So I have been just piling stuff in an area out of the way, not setting it up as I’d like to, but that is the way it goes.

The last week and a half has been kind of interesting around here. Since the class of 2011 has graduated it is interesting to see which guys have already taken off to get ready for their ministry and which are spending time here, either working on further degrees or just using this time for preparation. Some have known where they will be assigned for a while now, others are only finding out a day or two before their Ordination. Please keep them all in your prayers as they work to fulfill God’s call in their lives.

Peace,
Adam

Reflection for the third Wednesday of Easter Year 1

2011-05-15T15:24:00.003-05:00

Here is the reflection that I gave at the nursing home last Wednesday. One note on these is that while I write them out, I tend to add or take stuff out depending on how it goes, and it is tough to go back and put it just like that... but this is close.
As I normally do, the readings for the day are attached below.

Peace,
Adam
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As Christians our first priority should be to do God’s will. This is what Christ did, as he said, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” Our will should be God’s will.

In the first reading we heard of a tough time for the early Church. Stephen had just died, Saul was trying to destroy the Church. Believers who hadn’t been killed were either scattering or hiding.

These believers were doing God’s will too. The ones who were scattered throughout the known world were doing God’s will through preaching the Gospel to those that they encountered there. The believers who were in hiding were doing God’s will by not denying Him and by strengthening their own faith. It is said elsewhere in the Bible that God wills all to be saved… so by strengthening their own faith that is indeed doing God’s will.

How can you do God’s will? You probably aren’t going to be asked to die for your faith. You probably won’t be sent to the corners of the world to preach God’s Word. But there are plenty of little things that we can do. We can comfort the sick or sorrowful. We can rejoice with those who are rejoicing. We can open a door for someone, or just spend time with them.

These are the little things, but they are also God’s will. I forget who said it, but there was a Saint who said, “We sanctify the things that we should be doing when we do them for God’s will.” It is an attitude with which you do things.

One more thing that we can do for God’s will is what we will be doing in a few minutes. Receiving the Eucharist. Christ said that when you see Him you see the Father. He said that He is the bread of life. He also said to Do this in memory of Me. Christ is God, His will is God’s will. So when we receive communion here, or at Mass, or any time do it because it is what God wills.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter

Reading 1
Acts 8:1b-8

There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem,
and all were scattered
throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria,
except the Apostles.
Devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lament over him.
Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the Church;
entering house after house and dragging out men and women,
he handed them over for imprisonment.
Now those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
Thus Philip went down to the city of Samaria
and proclaimed the Christ to them.
With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip
when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing.
For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice,
came out of many possessed people,
and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured.
There was great joy in that city.
Ps 66:1-3a, 4-5, 6-7a
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1) Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Shout joyfully to God, all the earth,
sing praise to the glory of his name;
proclaim his glorious praise.
Say to God, “How tremendous are your deeds!”
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
“Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you,
sing praise to your name!”
Come and see the works of God,
his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has changed the sea into dry land;
through the river they passed on foot;
therefore let us rejoice in him.
He rules by his might forever.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Jn 6:35-40
Gospel
Jesus said to the crowds,
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
But I told you that although you have seen me,
you do not believe.
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.”

Racing to the end of the first year

2011-05-10T18:24:00.001-05:00

Hello again,
I am sorry that I didn’t get up a post later in the week last week about what had been going on at the seminary since Holy Week. I was just overloaded with meetings and such. I will post this tonight and since I also have to write a reflection for the nursing home for tomorrow I will post that in a couple of days.

So Austin and I made it back to the seminary in the early evening of Easter Sunday. Monday was the day that people had to return so it was nice to kind of have the area quiet for getting things done. I was looking forward to seeing my friends, but it was nice none the less.

Class and the hectic schedule started again with a vengeance on that Tuesday. It was the start of a three week mad dash to the finish of the quarter. The weather was also starting to turn really nice which made me want to be outside. It is days like that when I really get to missing my forestry job since those were the days to enjoy walking in the woods. So I have made a lot of walks on the road around the lake that is on campus. The road can be either a 3 mile or a 2.5 mile loop depending on what exact route you take. I really enjoy that.

Class has been pretty standard, quizzes, lectures, and homework. We do a lot of reading for each class and it overwhelms some people, but it is manageable. I manage it by figuring out what needs reading, what can be skimmed, and what can be ignored. I think that I have this down pretty well. Probably my biggest study issue is the Latin class. In this I am so confused that I feel like I am spinning my wheels when I study. One nice thing about the lady that is teaching Latin this quarter is that for the quizzes we have had she allowed us to retake two of them with her taking the best grade from each quiz. So I did that today and it really felt like I think that Latin is finally starting to sink in. I guess that is good since I only have two classes plus the final left.

This is the time of the year that people are starting to ask if I am coming back to seminary next year. I say that I am unless God speaks clearly to me before then. It is up to Him. During the winter quarter I had a week or two period where I was really starting to question it, but that passed without me ever thinking that I was for sure going to leave seminary. Last week one day I had one day in which I really thought I was going to leave. There was nothing in particular; it was just that on that day I really started to think of how I was going to leave. I think that this is probably normal, Satan works through causing doubts. I was over it by the end of the day and even more convinced that I am staying. This is a part of the discernment and I imagine that times like this will come and go. Before starting seminary I set in my mind that I would take it a year at a time. I committed to this year. When I start in the fall next year I will be committing to that year. I am thinking that this will help me to evaluate if I am truly discerning out of seminary or just having a bad day or two.

This past weekend was the seminary graduation. Some of you may think that I typed wrong and should have written Ordination, but this is a University at which guys are issued degrees. The graduation is separate from the Ordination. An Ordination takes place with the Bishop of a guys home diocese but this was just like a commencement at any other university (although smaller no doubt) except that there was of course a Mass of celebration before hand.

There is a group of guys in my class who have been working out together. As you know from my previous posts I had thyroid cancer a couple of years ago and gained significant weight during that time. I had lost 10 pounds from my peak before starting seminary and as of this morning I have lost 40 since starting seminary. I peaked at 307 pounds and started seminary at 297, today I weighed in at 257, I am sorry to brag about something like this but it is something which I am proud of. I have about another 70-75 to go before getting to my goal, but I am very happy to be going in the right direction.

That is enough for now. I hope you all have a great week.

Peace,
Adam

Holy Week 2011

2011-05-03T18:54:00.001-05:00

So, it is Tuesday night again so I'm going to try to write a blog post. I know I don't get to one every Tuesday, but I try.

I think that the last time that I wrote about what was actually going on was before Holy Week. Wow, that seems like so long ago, even though it was only three weeks ago.

First of all, an update on Matt, the seminarian who had the heart attack. Matt is doing wonderfully. They put in an internal difibulator on the Friday before Holy Week and he was able to get out of the hospital on Saturday. He was released from the rehabilitation center on Holy Thursday morning and was back in his hometown for Triduum. He came back to the seminary when we all did and is taking it easy working back into a full schedule. Prayers have been answered, but more are of course needed to complete his recovery.

Back to what I have been up to...

On the Friday before Holy Week I headed up to Stevens Point to be there for the whole time. I was able to invite one of my classmates (Austin) to go along with me. He is from the Atlanta Archdiocese so didn't want to spend the money to go all the way home for just a week. He seemed very glad that I invited him so that he could get away from the seminary for a while. I was happy that I would be able to show off my parish.

The drive to Stevens Point was pretty uneventful, but longer than normal, once because of me missing a turn and once because construction had the exit I wanted closed, but we made it. We went to dinner with Fr. Tom so that those two could meet. Austin and I then went to the house that we were staying at. We stayed at the house of an elderly couple of parishioners who welcome anyone into their home and their lives. They have a large house because of when their kids were home so they want to see it used as much as it can be. I have stayed there a couple of times, including Holy Week when I was a freshman in college because it was spring break and the dorms were closed but I was helping out at the parish. This couple gave us a key and even the garage door opener so that I could park in there and we could come and go as we pleased. They had breakfast with us and a couple of other meals during the week. I always think that their welcoming is how people should be, I know a few others that are like that, but not a lot. It really lives up to what St. Benedict said about seeing Christ in anyone at your door.

The Palm Sunday stuff was pretty uneventful. I helped out as a Eucharistic Minister (distributing communion) and Austin sang with the choir.

On Sunday night Fr. Tom left for a one day retreat to get ready for Triduum and Austin and I went to visit some of my friends. This is the couple that I have stayed with on many occassions that has two wonderful kids. I think that we were there talking until after midnight, it was great to catch up with them and Austin seemed to enjoy it too. Monday was pretty slow, we gathered some items for decorations and went to the gym. Austin and I each bought a one week pass to a gym in Stevens Point so that we could keep working out.

Tuesday Fr. Tom, Austin, and I drove to La Crosse for the Chrism Mass. This is the Mass every year where priests restate their commitment and the liturgical oils are blessed by the Bishop. It was a nice Mass, but the weather was getting pretty bad. I drove us back to Stevens Point and probably only averaged 45 mph the whole way, much slower near the end. I saw 5 vehicles in the ditch in the last twenty miles, so it was indeed slippery out.

Wednesday was fairly uneventful. We probably studied some and spent time with people in Stevens Point, I think we also had a walk through for the parts of Holy Thursday that were outside of the normal. Holy Thursday things really got going. We had a beautiful Mass of the Lord's Supper at 7:30 with a footwashing portion and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament afterwards.

Good Friday is always special. Our main service was at 1:00 and included the beautiful veneration of the Cross and the reading of the Passion story. I don't like to say that I enjoy the Good Friday service, but it means a lot to me. Good Friday is a day of fasting in the Catholic Church, but the definition of fasting does allow for one meal to maintain strength. A Newman Parish tradition is to get the students helping out together at the house of a parish couple and have a simple meat free meal that has been prepared by one of the students. This is always an enjoyable experience for me because it is the students who are active in the parish during Triduum who are there. I was also thrilled that Fr. Tom had invited an alumni couple to help in the meal prep. They both had been students when I was there.

Holy Saturday started out with decorating the church. The arts and environment comittee at the parish always does an amazing job with this, and I am happy to have been a part of that for many years. There was then a large portion of the day that was free for prayer and preparation.

The Easter Vigil started at 8:00 PM. This tradition dates back to the Jewish tradition of the day starting with the sunset the night before. The Easter Vigil starts with a fire (outside) that is blessed and the Easter Candle is lit from this. There is then a procession into the chapel where each person has a candle that is lit from the Easter candle. This candle is to symbolize the Baptismal candle which represents Christ being the light for our way. The Easter Vigil contains many readings and much joyful singing. I got to read the reading from Romans this year, as I did last year. After the Gospel reading and Homily is the time when new people are welcomed into the Church. We did not have any adult Baptisms this year but there were two adults who had been Baptized in other Christian traditions who joined the Church through the reception of their First Communion and the sacrament of Confirmation. There were three others who had not recieved the sacrament of Confirmation that recieved it at the Easter Vigil.

After the Vigil Mass Newman has a tradition of a large banquet dinner (started at about 11:00PM) for celebration with all those who helped at the Triduum and all those who were welcomed into the Church and their families. This is a joyful time that I look forward to every year.

On Easter Sunday I was the server at the Mass and it was standing room only. It is always great to see that many people at church. There are some people who are bothered by this because these people only come to church on Christmas and Easter. I do wish that they would be at church every weekend, but I am happy to see that they realize the importance of it at least at those times.

After the Easter Sunday Mass there was a small lunch for a few people at Fr. Tom's house and then Austin and I headed back to Mundelein. We came back so soon so that we were able to get a few things done before the last four weeks of the quarter started on Tuesday.

I think that this is long enough for now. I will write about the time since coming back to Mundelein soon. Maybe even a non-Tuesday post.

Peace,

Adam

Reflection for Wednesday April 27 2011

2011-04-26T20:27:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone,
Here is the reflection that I will be giving at the nursing home tomorrow. As normal I have attached the readings for tomorrow after the reflection so that you can see what I am talking about if you wish.
I know that I haven't put up a post in two weeks. Sorry, but I was very busy last week with Holy Week stuff. I will try to write about that soon.
Peace,
Adam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although these readings are obviously great stories of joy I always find them a bit of a downer during this Octave of Easter. While they both have great results they also both contain some quite disturbing and sad pieces. The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles has a man who has suffered his whole life with a crippling disease. For this whole time he has had to be carried by his friends, probably not a joyful task for them, so that he could beg for the meager gifts from those going to pray.
Jesus, rather than simply talking to the disciples on the road to Emmaus about the glory of God and the meaning behind the resurrection points first to the suffering that He had to endure.
There is an old saying that we wouldn’t enjoy the beautiful weather if not for the cold, the snow, and the rain. But the good days don’t come about because of the bad, they are good in themselves.
The crowds in the first reason weren’t amazed just because of seeing a crippled man; this is an all too common occurrence in our world. They were amazed to see him walking.
In the case of Jesus, we don’t gain our salvation through His suffering; we are given this wonderful gift because of His resurrection.
This is true, but He did have to suffer, because we have earned this suffering through our sins and He wanted to pay this price for us.
The glory of Easter is in the rising, but it follows closely from the suffering. We can do this too. There is a theological understanding that we are able to offer our pains and sufferings for others. When we are in pain, yes, we want to get rid of it. However, while it is there you can ask God to show you the Grace to suffer with dignity. You can ask Him to use the Grace from suffering with dignity to open the hearts of others to His love.
Our suffering isn’t the cause of this joy; we can do this same thing through our prayers. Our suffering isn’t the cause, but it can be turned into a good, just as the resurrection of Jesus or the crippled man’s ability to walk.
We are still in Easter time, let us celebrate that, and if we are suffering we can offer it for the salvation of all the souls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

Reading 1
Acts 3:1-10

Peter and John were going up to the temple area
for the three o’clock hour of prayer.
And a man crippled from birth was carried
and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day
to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple,
he asked for alms.
But Peter looked intently at him, as did John,
and said, “Look at us.”
He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.
Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold,
but what I do have I give you:
in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”
Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up,
and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong.
He leaped up, stood, and walked around,
and went into the temple with them,
walking and jumping and praising God.
When all the people saw him walking and praising God,
they recognized him as the one
who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple,
and they were filled with amazement and astonishment
at what had happened to him.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Lk 24:13-35
Gospel
That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them,
“What are you discussing as you walk along?”
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?”
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”
They said to him,
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his Body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but him they did not see.”
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, “Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the Eleven and those with them who were saying,
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”
Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Praying for Matt

2011-04-12T19:33:00.001-05:00

Wow, what a week.

Last week started out as normal as can be. I was writing papers and preparing for and taking midterm exams.

On Thursday that all changed. When I got done at the library a little before 4:30 I was looking forward to a night of cramming for my medieval philosophy exam when I got a phone call. I answered it and was surprised that the first words out of the guys mouth were, “Adam, have you heard the news?” Needless to say, that got my attention. When my friend on the phone told me that another of my close friends had been working out and had a heart attack I think I swore at him that you shouldn’t kid about something like that… sadly he wasn’t.

Matt, one of my Diocesan Brothers (what we call others from the same diocese) had been working out on the exercise bike when he just fell over with no pulse and no breathing. He doesn’t work out real, hard, he even reads while working out so it seemed particularly odd. Thank God that there were others down in the workout room while he was there, we have all been talking about how often we are alone down there, depending on our schedules.

One guy immediately started CPR while another ran to get help, from the school nurse and calling 911. As Grace would have it the one going to get help ran into a seminarian who had been a doctor before starting here, and he grabbed the AED off the wall and went down. The doctor had just happened to get out of class early at that time. Matt had to be shocked twice with the seminaries AED and once with the paramedic’s AED here and then twice again at the hospital. The paramedics were here very quickly since the fire station is close by.

In addition to immediately starting CPR and sending the doctor down a priest was sent down to perform Anointing of the Sick, one of the sacraments of the Church. This sacrament is often called “Last Rites” but that is a secular misnomer. Anointing of the Sick is for healing as well as a blessing at the time of death, whichever way God wills it. It is simply a sacrament of God’s Grace. This would have been a part of a total of last rites given at the bedside of a dying person, along with a final sacrament of Reconciliation and a final reception of the Eucharist. That is why society misunderstands this sacrament.

Prayers for Matt started immediately, a group of seminarians were praying the rosary in the hallway as the paramedics were working on Matt. All of us took a break from whatever we were doing to say a prayer for him. We were all calling people, e-mailing people, and posting to our Facebook pages asking for prayers for Matt. Through connections that I’m not sure that I follow how they all happened Matt was an intention in the Mass offered by the Pope on Friday morning. Matt has been in seminary at various levels for a long time, so he has many connections. A Cardinal from the Vatican called the hospital to get an update on Matt, so prayers were very abundant.

I went over to the hospital at about 6:30 Thursday evening and was able to see Matt in his room in the ICU at about 8:40. He had been put into an induced coma so that his body wouldn’t be straining while trying to recover.

I saw him a couple of more times on Friday while trying to also go about a somewhat normal day. Friday evening we had a special holy hour for praying for Matt. The vocation director, Fr. Hirsch, from the La Crosse Diocese came down to lead that. We were told on Friday that at about midnight they would start trying to bring Matt out of the coma.

On Saturday morning I went over to the hospital and while pulling up in my truck I saw Matt’s mom walking in. I asked her how he was doing and immediately knew that it hadn’t gone well. The doctors hadn’t liked what they saw in Matt’s numbers so they put him back into the coma. I didn’t go see him then because I figured it was best for just his family to be with him. The same thing happened once more on Saturday. Sunday morning they were able to bring Matt out of the coma.

When I went over on Sunday I was told that he had been able to flutter open his eyes, but not keep them open. Another La Crosse seminarian and I went into the room and talked to Matt a bit, but he didn’t wake up so we went to just praying silently. After a while he opened his eyes. We talked to him for a minute about how well he was doing before telling him to go back to sleep and rest. A while later one of Matt’s good friends came in and woke Matt up on purpose. He had him try to squeeze his hand, and he could do it!! He could only do it with one hand due to swelling, but it was very exciting. The next thing he asked Matt to try was to wiggle the toes on one food. He could do that, and even follow directions of right and left. I was so overjoyed to see that.

After that it has been a steady rise up for Matt. They pulled out the ventilator tube and the first question out of his mouth was, “Can I still be a priest?” Because he is more alert now, but still weak they are asking for no visitors. Matt is the kind of guy that won’t rest when people are there because he wants to entertain them… so it is good to avoid it and let him rest.

Tonight we had a scheduled address by the formation dean here. Instead of that he brought in the chief nurse from the ICU to talk about Matt (with the family’s permission). She said that his recovery so far has been the best she’s seen in 34 years of nursing and truly gives the prayer credit for that. She was very excited at the way that this all is going. Tonight Matt is scheduled to be moved from ICU to a regular room. They will see where it goes from there if he can go home or has to go to a rehab center.

Matt is by no means fully recovered yet so any prayers are appreciated. But at the greatness of his recovery we can sure see that the prayers so far are being answered.

Peace,
Adam

Class retreat

2011-04-05T20:00:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone,

It is midterm week, and I have exams in three of my five classes and another exam next week. So, needless to say my nose is in a book most of my free time.

Last Friday my class went to a convent in Racine, WI for a short retreat. Most of the seminarians here have a cam retreat (remember, a cam is the hallway that people live on). Since the first year Pre-Theology guys like me all live on two cams, and some years one, ours is done as a class retreat. It was a very, very short retreat. From the time that we left until the time that most guys got back was only a bit over 21 hours… and two of those hours were driving, plus sleep time.

The convent that we went to is called the Siena Center, at least on the side that is open for retreats, other than that it is the motherhouse of the Racine Dominican Sisters. It is a very nice set up for a retreat.

We ate supper and prayed evening prayer together at the seminary before heading out. When we got to the convent we took a little bit of time to organize our rooms and then met for a talk by a couple of my classmates. The theme of the retreat was “Who do you say that I am?” which is a quote from Jesus talking to St. Peter. The first talk was on the biblical images of Jesus.

After that we had a bit of free time and then prayed night prayer together. After night prayer I was leading Taize prayer. This is a musical prayer in which a simple verse of prayer is repeatedly sung as a guide towards meditation. Some of the guys had never prayed using Taize prayer, they seemed to like it. Taize is one of my favorite forms of prayer so I was glad that I could lead that.

Some guys went to bed, while some took a walk down to Lake Michigan which the convent’s property touches. A few of us just sat around playing cards and relaxing in each other’s company without school or obligation time immediately hanging over our heads.

In the morning we prayed Morning Prayer and had Mass before going to breakfast. After breakfast was another talk, this one on the priestly image of Jesus. We followed that by a break for relaxation and games. I went and sat by the lake for a bit in prayer before returning to the group room and joining in a game of charades. We all gathered together and prayed a rosary together while going for a walk outdoors. The rosary ended right about the time for lunch. After lunch was one more talk on where we are going in our growth towards trying to be as much like Christ as we are able. The retreat ended with a short closing prayer.

Since I was in Wisconsin already I had decided that I would go and visit one of my good friends for a bit after the retreat. I went over and had some homemade chili and watched a bit of the semi-final game before heading back to the seminary to study.

Sunday I was visited by a good friend. She had been not too far away visiting some family so decided to stop in at the seminary for Mass on her way through. We also went to breakfast at the refectory and I gave her a tour of the campus before she headed home and I went back to my studies.

Aside from prayer time, class time, work at the library, and studies the only other thing that I give quite a bit of time to is working out. We have a nice little weight room on campus and a gym with an indoor pool too. In addition to that the loop around the lake on campus can be either 2.5 or 3 miles depending on if you go the outer loop or not. As I have said I had gained quite a bit of weight with the thyroid cancer a couple of years ago. I am happy to say that I had lost 10 pounds from my peak before coming here and as of this morning I have lost 30 pounds since being here. I had hoped for a bit more, but at least it is going in the right direction.

Well, back to the books.

Peace,
Adam

Reflection 3rd Wednesday Lent Year 1

2011-03-29T19:20:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone,
Here is the reflection that I will be giving tomorrow at the nursing home. As in the past I am including the Scripture readings for the day below it.
Peace,
Adam
-----------------------------------------------

In today’s first reading we heard Moses telling all the people to obey the Law. Then in the Gospel Jesus told us that He didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.

So the Law is important right? Yes, it is. Sorry, but I am not going to leave it at that point, I am going to go on a bit longer. Is it the Law that is important or what it comes from and the point of it? Both. Jesus wants us to obey the Law in the commandments, not necessarily in the dietary and purity rules, but in the stuff that affects life. However, when thinking about following the Law I was reminded of a quote from the book The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. The quote says:

“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself… as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.”

That is the old issue of missing the forest for the trees. Jesus doesn’t want us to see the Law as simply an end in itself, but as a means to that end. The Law will bring us closer to Him. When we don’t worship false idles it isn’t because we don’t do this that makes God happy, it is the fact that we know that He is the one. When we don’t covet our neighbor’s goods it isn’t because he is that worried about those material things, it is that by coveting our neighbor’s goods we are disrespecting our neighbor, failing to love him or her. We are also disrespecting God when we do this because our neighbor was made in God’s image, just like we were.

So it while it is important to follow the details, the point isn’t in the details, it is in doing what is right for our faith.

-------------------------------------------
Reading 1
Dt 4:1, 5-9
Moses spoke to the people and said:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
Therefore, I teach you the statutes and decrees
as the LORD, my God, has commanded me,
that you may observe them in the land you are entering to occupy.
Observe them carefully,
for thus will you give evidence
of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say,
‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’
For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?
“However, take care and be earnestly on your guard
not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen,
nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live,
but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.”

Ps 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20
Responsorial Psalm
R. (12a) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
He spreads snow like wool;
frost he strews like ashes.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

Mt 5:17-19
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

Third week of Spring quarter 2010-2011

2011-03-22T21:03:00.000-05:00

Hi again everyone,

So somehow it seems that not much has happened since I wrote last, but at the same time it seems like so much has happened. What has happened is pretty routine for the life here at the seminary.

I guess one thing that happened which doesn’t happen every week, but does go on twice a year here is that Cardinal George, the Archbishop of Chicago came out and gave an hour long talk last Wednesday and then celebrated the Wednesday afternoon Mass.

Cardinal George was talking about mainly was “listening”. He talked about the different ways that a priest is to listen. These ways would include (in no particular order): listening to his staff about what is going on in the parish, listening to his parish council to understand what the parishioners want, listening to his finance council to see what they can afford to do, listening to the local bishop in regards to what he wants done, listening to the larger church in regards to what is taught throughout the world and in tradition, listening to God in the Sacred Scriptures, listening to God in his private prayer time, and among the more important listening to individual parishioners when there is something they want to say.

Classes are very busy, I counted it up last week and I spent well over 50 hours between time directly in class and time studying. This doesn’t include my time at field education, meals, Mass, group prayer, or other meetings. When I say that seminary is like college on steroids I mean it. I do observe that it seems to get better after this year, meaning that the class load gets lighter, but they also seem to possibly have more work per class, so we will have to see.

Over the weekend I did take some time away and went to the driving range with 3 other guys in my class. One of them is a pretty regular golfer so he was giving the other three of us tips the whole time which was great. I didn’t do nearly as well as I had been at the place that I went with my mom over break, but I had fun and will try it again. After the break I had almost thought I could start going out on a course right away… not so much, the driving range it is for a while.

My class of eleven made it through the first two quarters with everyone staying in seminary. One guy decided to leave after the second quarter. He didn’t speak English well so although I could be nice to him and tried to talk to him I didn’t get to know him very well. I do hope that if language difficulties were the reason he decided to leave that he pursues seminary studies back home, because he is a great guy. If he just discerned that the priesthood wasn’t for him than God Bless him for being open to it and figuring out to some extent what God wants.

This past week another from my class announced that he was leaving. He doesn’t know for sure that seminary isn’t right for him, it just isn’t right for him at this time. I know that he didn’t take this decision lightly and I wish him great Blessings in whatever he chooses to do. He has given it a shot and is open to wherever God takes him, so you can’t ask for more than that. This will be more difficult on my class because he is a very outgoing and well liked guy, one that was always able to organize some fun activities and keep the group having a good experience. We all wish him well and told him to stay in touch since he lives not too far from the seminary. He will be gone completely within a day or two. I am kind of surprised that he doesn’t just finish out the quarter, but he wants to try to get on with whatever God is calling him to.

One thing that I have thought of with these two leaving is being thankful for modern technology. I’m not positive but I would imagine that without it a lot of time wouldn’t have to pass before I would lose touch with them. Because of modern technology I can have their contact information even as they move. Even more specifically I have them both as friends on Facebook, so I can see what they put up. Maybe someday I’ll even read Spanish so that I can read what the first is posting.

Well, I guess that a lot did happen. I hope you all are having a good Lent which is drawing you closer to God.

Peace,
Adam

start of spring quarter 2010-2011

2011-03-16T20:46:00.000-05:00

Hello again,

So my third quarter of seminary is off to a pretty good start, a crazy sort of busy, but I think that I’m starting to find out that that will be par for the course here. Speaking of par, I forgot to mention in my last post that while on break I swung a golf club for the second time in my life. I enjoyed it and thought that I did pretty well. I asked my step-father, who golfs a lot, if he had some old clubs that I could bring to the seminary since we get to use the golf course on the seminary owned property (independently managed) for free… I haven’t gone out with them yet, but we’ll see how that goes.

So, I have a 17 credit load again this quarter, two credits for my field education and 3 for each of my 5 classes. My classes seem pretty interesting on the whole, so I am excited.

My first class on Mondays and Thursdays is Latin III. We switch instructors this quarter which I find a bit odd after the first two with the other instructor. This is my first class taught by a lay person at the seminary, but there will be others. I enjoy the new instructor’s style and look to finish out my study of Latin forever after this quarter.

After Latin III I have the priest that taught Latin I and II now teaching “Intro to the Old Testament”. I enjoy scripture study so I am looking forward to this course a lot. One of the first things that was clarified, although I’ve read this before, was the truth behind the different stories of why Catholics and Protestants have different lengths to the Old Testament. The truth is that neither truly dropped or added books. Since the Old Testament is the Jewish Scriptures it would be easy to look at what they use. The problem is though, that by the time of Christ the Jews had two different sets of scriptures, one in all Hebrew with 39 books (what Protestants now use) and one in Greek with those 39 plus another 7 (what Catholics now use). The authors of the New Testament reference all but one of these 7 books in a scriptural context since they were mostly in Greek speaking territory (or evangelizing to Greek speaking territory). The canon (list) of books used fluctuated a bit for the first 400 years or so of Christianity but was pretty well standardized after that until the Protestant Reformation at which time Luther decided to go back to the Hebrew text for the Old testament.

My last class on Mondays and Thursdays is Metaphysics. This is kind of the basis for all philosophy, often summarized as the “Study of Being”. It is looked at in the processes used by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Tuesdays and Fridays I start with the class “Intro to the New Testament”. This will talk about the whole New Testament, but it seems like we are going to focus pretty heavily on the Gospels, especially the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew since they are what is called the “Synoptic Gospels”, meaning that they line up and it is actually thought that the authors of Luke and Matthew based some of their writings on the already written Gospel of Mark, but added in the oral tradition from the area that they were writing for.

My last class of the quarter is Medieval Philosophy. This is going to be an overview of writers form St. Augustine, to St. Thomas Aquinas as far as I can tell. It will be good to see the development of Christian thought in this period, so I am actually looking forward to this class somewhat.

So as this quarter started we also started Lent, it doesn’t always work that way with Lent being based on the date of Easter which is movable. I shared the reflection that I had written for the nursing home for Ash Wednesday. It turns out that in addition to there I ended up giving the reflection at the parish of the Deacon from the nursing home since he was running the Ash Wednesday service at Noon there.

I went over to the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois on Friday into Saturday to visit some of my friends from when I lived there. Other than that the quarter is pretty much picking up where I left off before break.

Peace,
Adam

Finishing "spring" break 2010-2011

2011-03-15T18:22:00.000-05:00

Hello again,
I hope that everyone’s Lent is off to a great start, that you are using this time to come closer to God. I can’t believe that it has been a week since I last posted, and over two weeks since I’ve really written about what is going on in my life. I need to finish up what I had done on my last break before I can get into the goings on thus quarter.

I think that I had stopped on Thursday morning of the first week of break, after the all night prayer vigil had ended. I took a long nap on Thursday since I didn’t have anything really to do anyways. I probably slept for 4 or 5 hours, plus the hour I had gotten early in the morning. When I finally woke up I noticed that I had missed several phone calls (I had put my phone on silent). The staff at the parish was trying to get ahold of me to invite me to lunch, it turns out that a good friend from when I was in college was in town. His wife had some convention for work so he took off and came up with her to have a mini vacation. I had missed the call but did end up getting to see them for a late lunch on Friday after my next talk at the middle school and after her conference ended. Thursday night I went to a UW-SP men’s basketball game, it was the semi-finals for the WIAC, the conference for most of the public universities in Wisconsin.

My talk on Friday went well, it was in my friend’s classroom and actually it probably was the least of my talks since the students just didn’t give me as good of answers to work with, or questions. After the talk I had the lunch that I previously mentioned and then went over to the Newman Parish for a bit. Father Tom was taking a college student part way towards a “come and see” weekend at a convent in Eastern Wisconsin so he invited me and a retired priest friend to ride along and have a nice dinner in Appleton where we were meeting up with this girl’s parents who were taking her the rest of the way.

Saturday I got to go to another Pointer’s basketball game. This was the WIAC final which Point won very handily. To make the game even better my friend who I used to go to many of the basketball games with and her boyfriend drove up to watch the game with me, and then we went out to dinner and conversation at one of our favorite restaurants from our college days. These two have been dating for a while and I could tell that something was up by talking to her boyfriend and he did indeed propose to her less than a week later, so I am very happy for them.

Sunday I went to both of the Masses at Newman, I was the server (altar boy) for the Sunday evening Mass. I really enjoy the opportunity to do that when I back there, as I have said we aren’t allowed to serve or read at first here at the seminary because of the installations of acolytes and lectors.

Monday I had another talk at the middle school that I think went the best of all of them, and then I hit the road to head towards my mom’s. As far as I remember I took Tuesday as a down day, I think that I only went out to go to Mass at 12:10 in Winona. Wednesday I went to the morning Mass in Holmen and after that I met up with Fr. Malin for a light breakfast and to talk for a bit over an hour. It is great to see him when I am able to; he has had such an influence on my life. Some sad news that I found out when I was with him was that one of his brothers had recently died, so it was a bit of a toned down conversation, but still great none-the-less. Wednesday night I met up with my mom, her husband, my brother and sister-in-law, and my nephew for pizza. There is a unique restaurant in La Crosse that makes all sorts of pizzas with crazy topping combinations and brings them around as samplers, so we went there. I used to like it a lot, but all of that is a bit over the top for me now but my nephew enjoyed it.

Thursday I don’t remember what I did during the day but in the Evening I went to the house of some good friends for dinner and to spend time with them. We went out for a drink and then I headed back to my mom’s. Friday I packed up to head back to the seminary. I was meeting the same guy whose bachelor party had been about two weeks before and his fiancé for dinner before heading out. I am very much looking forward to their wedding this May. I picked up the same guy who I had given a ride home to and we headed out at about 6:30 I think to come back to the seminary. We had some rain to drive through and since the temperatures were hovering right about the freezing mark I took it easy in case it froze but we made decent time anyways.

Saturday was still break and I took the opportunity to head up to Madison to experience the historic protests against the so called “budget repair bill”. I am very glad that I was able to make that trip and stand up for what is right. I think that everyone acknowledged that all people have to give in on some financial matters, but simply that this bill went too far. I didn’t stay all that long as I had stuff to get done, but I really enjoyed my time at this protest.

Well, that pretty much finishes out my break, I will write about the classes for the new quarter soon. In fact, I may write it now and just wait a day or two to post it so I’m not overloading.

Peace,
Adam

Ash Wednesday 2011

2011-03-08T20:31:00.001-06:00

Here is the reflection that I am giving tomorrow at the nursing home. As with other reflections I've posted I am including the readings for the day afterwards if you are interested. I know that I still have to write a post about the rest of my break and starting back up here, I hope to do that soon.

Peace,
Adam

-------------------------------------
March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday

Here we go again… another Ash Wednesday means another Lent is starting. In just a few minutes you will all be marked with ashes on your forehead.
The readings for today all tell us how to go about our Lent, it is clear to us why the Church gives us these readings for today. The second line of the first reading says that we are to return to the Lord with all of our heart, this is the essence of all that we do during Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These are the keys to Lent to help us return to the Lord with all of our heart.
But Lent isn’t just about showing that we are in Lent, and returning to the Lord for just these 40 days. It is about returning to him, turning away from our sin, for all of our life. We all stray, God welcomes us back, but hopes that we don’t stray again. However, when we do, He will indeed welcome us back again.
Go about your Lent in a way that is an example to others. The idea that Jesus talks about with not being flashy with our prayer, our almsgiving, and our fasting isn’t that others shouldn’t notice it, but rather that we shouldn’t flaunt it and make it seem like we deserve something for doing it.
God wants us to use this time to prepare for Easter, and for the rest of our lives. If you flaunt what you do, that is unsustainable, live your Lent in a way that you can continue in the future. Live your Lent so that your life can be an example for others.
Today we are being marked with ashes so that we can signify that we are in Lent. What about tomorrow or the next forty days, will people notice a difference in you? Will they see that you are improving in Lent? Find a way to make this Lent special and to move forward with it into the rest of your life.

Reading 1
Jl 2:12-18
Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.
For gracious and merciful is he,
slow to anger, rich in kindness,
and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent
and leave behind him a blessing,
Offerings and libations
for the LORD, your God.
Blow the trumpet in Zion!
proclaim a fast,
call an assembly;
Gather the people,
notify the congregation;
Assemble the elders,
gather the children
and the infants at the breast;
Let the bridegroom quit his room
and the bride her chamber.
Between the porch and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep,
And say, “Spare, O LORD, your people,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
with the nations ruling over them!
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land
and took pity on his people.

Ps 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17
Responsorial Psalm
R. (see 3a) Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
“Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.”
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

2 Cor 5:20-6:2
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
We are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
Working together, then,
we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says:
In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.
Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.

Mt 6:1-6, 16-18
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
When you give alms,
do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
“When you pray,
do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
“When you fast,
do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”

Break February 27, 2011

2011-02-27T16:21:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone,
Break is flying by, as those things tend to do. It is always amazing how slow time can seem to go at some points and so very fast at others.

I finished up the quarter pretty well. I think that my tests went about as I expected them to if not a little bit better. I won’t know my grades from last quarter for a while, but they haven’t called and said that I failed out, so that is a good sign.

After my last final on Friday I waited a little bit for one of my classmates to get done so that I could give him a ride home too. We had to go a bit out of our way so that I could pick up something at the Newman Parish in Stevens Point that I was borrowing for the weekend. I was still able to drop him off at home at about 7:30 and I managed to get to my mom’s at about 8:15 or 8:30 at night, truly beginning break.

My nephew had spent the night at my mom’s house and it was great to see him and play with him for a bit both Friday night and Saturday morning before I got to take him home. He is so much fun to be around, I really enjoy the time that I get to spend with him.

After taking Alex home I spent a good part of the day preparing for a friend’s bachelor party that I was hosting since I am going to be the best man in the wedding. Obviously when you have a seminarian planning your bachelor party it is going to be fairly low key, but that is what he wanted anyways. It was a bunch of fun to get together with him and some of our other friends.

Sunday was pretty much just church and hanging out with my mom and her husband. On Monday I got up and went to Mass in La Crosse with a wonderful lady, the one who helped me to be able to begin seminary this year. It was great to be able to see her and attend Mass with her. I didn’t get to spend much time with her because I had a doctor’s appointment to get to. This was my big check to make sure that the cancer hasn’t come back. Due to switching insurance companies when I left my job I had to switch hospitals so the doctor spent a bit of time getting to know me and what has gone on and then I had an ultrasound of the area that the cancer had been and some blood-work done. Everything came back clean, so that is great.

On Tuesday I went to St. Elizabeth’s in Holmen for Mass and then stopped at my old office in La Crescent, MN to see people before heading over to Stevens Point for a while. It was great to get back to Stevens Point and see the wonderful people here.

I didn’t do a whole lot on Tuesday but on Wednesday I gave the first of three talks that I am giving to the eighth graders at St. Peter’s Middle School. I have a good friend who is an eighth grade teacher and asked me to come in and talk to her class so I am talking to all three of the eighth grade religion classes. Since they meet at the same time it has to be on three separate days. I gave one on Wednesday, but Thursday is the school Mass so that takes the place of religion class so I gave my second one on Friday and will give another one on Monday. My talk is just a general vocation talk, for people to figure out what vocation is right for them and I also take some time to tell them a bit about the life of a seminarian. The kids really seem to get into it, so that is fun.

I ended up substitute teaching for the religious education at the Newman Parish on Wednesday night, another fun experience for me. Wednesday night also has the late-night Mass which is attended by somewhere between 40 and 60 students from the University. I really enjoy the energy and enthusiasm at that Mass. The parish had an all-night prayer vigil for peace and justice in the world after the Mass. There was adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with Exposition (meaning you can see the Body of Christ while praying). I was asked to spend the whole night incase someone who had signed up for an hour didn’t show in the early morning hours. We had some organized prayer times throughout the night such as a period of Taize prayer, night prayer, the Rosary, Memorare, the Magnificate, and morning prayer. The vigil ended with Benediction (taking down the exposed sacrament) and the morning Mass on Thursday. I had been up all night but when more people started showing up at about 5:00 am I started thinking about taking a quick nap. I went upstairs at about 5:30ish and was planning on getting up at 6:25 since I was scheduled to do a reading during morning prayer. I know I set my alarm, but am not sure if I didn’t turn it on, or if I turned it off without fully waking up but I woke up at 6:59 and raced downstairs for the 7:00 morning prayer, cutting it very close.

I think this is long enough, I’ll write more in another post in a couple of days.

Peace,
Adam

Finals week winter 2010-2011

2011-02-15T18:41:00.001-06:00

Hello again,
So it has been an interesting week and a half since I last wrote. We are now in finals week so I had a lot of papers to write and many other things to get done… which is the reason that it has taken so long.

One important thing that happened since I last wrote was of course the Packers winning the Superbowl. Every year one of the cams on campus hosts a Superbowl party in one of the recreation halls. They had both the normal big screen TV that is in the room and they rigged up a projector with a sheet on the wall to watch to, giving more space. It was very cool, they ordered in a bunch of pizzas and had snacks and iced cream for all that wanted it (I didn’t partake more than a couple of slices of pizza because I am trying to lose weight). I am sure that the party would have been even bigger if the Chicago Bears had made the Superbowl, since they are the hometown team, but there are many Packers fans here too, plus the guys who just like football in general it was great fun to watch the game with a big group.

I spent a lot of time writing papers over that weekend and since as I said. One of the more interesting papers that I wrote was analyzing the use of the atomic bombs during WWII based on the Principle of Double Effect. The Principle of Double Effect is a method in which one can systematically look at an action and determine if a negative effect is allowable from the performance of an action. It includes 4 points to analyze, each of them must be met. The four points are: 1) The act must be good in itself or at least neutral 2) The good outcome may not be obtained directly because of the evil effect 3) The evil must not be intended for itself but only tolerated 4) The good must be proportionally grave to outweigh the evil. As I said, an act must meet all 4 points to be justifiable, I found that the use of the atomic weapons could reasonably be seen to meet points 1 and 3 but failed on point 2. I determined that the 4th point was completely in doubt and too murky to know, and a neutral on one of the points equates to a fail. So in my paper I argued that the use of the atomic weapons was not justifiable, however, that is easy to say in hindsight and may have been different at the time based on what was known.

The flu really hit the seminary hard over the last two weeks or so. I guess that is to be expected with us all living in such close quarters and so many of us going to hospitals and nursing homes for field education. I had gotten the flu shot last fall, and thought that I wasn’t getting the flu. I did end up being pretty sick Thursday through Sunday but am pretty much over it now. Last Wednesday the guy that I go to the nursing home with was down sick so he didn’t go, rather than risk infecting those that we are ministering to. He had been scheduled to give the reflection during the communion service, so I had to figure out something to say on Wednesday morning. I didn’t have time to write it out word for word as I have shared here in the past, but I put down a few notes on the thoughts that I had and I think that it turned out pretty good. I may try to reconstruct it out of my notes so that I can share it, but I’m not sure if that would work so well… we’ll have to see.

Last Wednesday we had a Mass to install Acolytes. For the most part people would know acolytes as servers or altar boys/girls. There is a bit more to the official ministry of Acolyte. An acolyte is primarily one who assists in preparing for the celebration of the Eucharist and in the purification of the sacred vessels after the distribution of the Eucharist (communion). As I discussed in the post where I talked about the installation of Lectors many of these duties are allowed to be performed by laity now, but it is still an important time for those who receive this installation on the way towards priesthood. A unique fact about Acolytes is that at least in the old Canon Law (I’m not sure if it still is or not, but I think so) they are allowed to bless fruit. I assume that this goes back to blessing the grapes that would be turned into the wine for consecration, but it is allowed for all fruit.

Tomorrow I am going to the nursing home again, but am going to allow Matt to give the reflection since he missed out last week. I have 2 final exams on Thursday and 2 more on Friday before being able to go on break. It is nice to be able to look forward to another break so soon. It will be a great chance to catch up with people and just relax. I am hoping to be able to go in to the class room of one of my friends who teaches at a Catholic middles school and talk with the students. I am not sure yet what she will want, if she will want me to give a vocation talk, talk about life in the seminary, a combination of both, or something else altogether, but that is exciting to look forward to as well.

Well, I’m going to get back to studying, I hope everyone is well.

Peace,
Adam

Blizzard of 2011

2011-02-04T21:29:00.001-06:00

Hello again,
This has been a very fast week and a half. I am surprised that it has been that long since I’ve written this time.

This past weekend was a very cool event. There was an inter-seminary basketball tournament held here at Mundelein Seminary. I think that it was eleven or twelve other seminaries from across the Midwest that participated. It was a great deal of fun to watch my brother seminarians both from Mundelein and other seminaries enjoy this friendly competition. Mundelein seminary has won the tournament each of the last three years, however, this year they lost in the semi-final round. Mundelein was able to win the losers bracket game very handily to finish third in the tournament.

The Mass on Sunday was a great experience. With so many seminarians from so many places it was very energetic and just a wonderful Mass.

There had been predictions about a big snow storm coming in over the weekend that made people a little nervous with the teams having to return to their home seminary after the basketball games, however this storm didn’t come in until Monday afternoon and really didn’t get to full force until Tuesday mid-day. This turned out to be the third largest snow storm on record for Chicago. Lake County, where Mundelein sits actually closed all of its roads on Wednesday so that the crews wouldn’t have to deal with traffic when trying to clear the snow.

On the seminary we had a great time with the snow. Everyone chipped in on shoveling the walks as we were able. Field education was canceled on Wednesday since we couldn’t drive anywhere so I was able to get a bit of my homework done and to help with shoveling some times. The parking lots were very snowed in. The maintenance crew’s first priority was of course to work to make the campus accessible for emergency vehicles, followed by clearing the parking lot of the conference center so that the visitors could get out and return to their lives away from the seminary. With my truck being a four-wheel drive I was able to drive around in the parking lot, but didn’t have a major need to go anywhere so I didn’t do that too much. It was fun to see the guys all working together to dig out everyone’s cars once the plows made a path through the seminarian’s lots so that we could move our vehicles to another lot while they finished in our seminarian lots.

Tonight I was going to go to a “casino night” fundraiser here on campus. Every year one of the cams hosts this fundraiser for some charity that is picked. In it people buy in for a certain amount and get a set amount of “casino night cash” which can then be wagered on table games as well as a faculty boxing tournament (using a Wii now, but historically using a rock ‘em sock ‘em boxing game). At the end of the night any gains can be used to bid on donated items. I ended up not going to this because one of the other guys who was scheduled to work at the library was asked to do something at his home parish this weekend and wanted to travel there tonight. He could not find anyone else to cover his shift so I said that I would. So I am sitting here with almost nobody in the library but it is open for the couple of guys that are here.

The charity that is benefiting from the casino night this year is a charity to help the “gunpowder children”. I believe that this one is based in Guatemala. I don’t know a ton about this, but from what I know it is a charity that helps to provide tuition and nutrition for kids in Guatemala. These kids live in such poverty that often their families can’t afford tuition or food. Many times these kids will have to quit school to work assembling fireworks. This is obviously a dangerous task, which pays very little. This charity helps to provide for the needs of these children so that this isn’t their only option.

Well, that is all I’m going to write for now. I hope you have a great weekend.
Peace,
Adam

Christian Unity Week 2011

2011-01-25T19:39:00.001-06:00

Hello again, time for another post,

This has been an interesting week here at the seminary. The first interesting thing since my last post was last Wednesday we had the “Reader Mass”. During this Mass the men in first year theology studies are installed as “Lectors”. This doesn’t mean as much now as it did in the past. Throughout much of Church history it was only the Ordained who could proclaim the readings from Scripture. Over time and I am not sure exactly when, it was seen that this could also be done by a man in training for the ordained ministry. So along the way they had what are termed “minor orders” or steps in what you are allowed to do in the Mass. The two most visible ones that we still talk about at all are “lector” or reader, and “acolyte” or server.

The Church no longer limits the reading of Scripture during Mass to men who have received this minor order (it isn’t really an ordination, but an installation)… but we still have a special Mass for these men in the seminary and try to follow the use of only those installed as much as we can here. It was nice, and is a nice pick-me-up for the guys that received this installation since it is another step in the process.

For the past week (ending today) the Catholic Church has celebrated “Christian Unity Week”. This is the week when we make extra prayers for understanding and commonality amongst all Christians (interreligious week is at another time). To emphasize this point we even has Mass on Sunday celebrated in the Byzantine Rite. A Rite is more than just another way of going about the process of Mass. A Rite is another tradition, but in communion with the Pope in Rome. This is different from other denominations that don’t recognize when Christ appointed St. Peter as the leader of the Church and his successors. There are 5 main rite that are accepted within the Catholic Church and Byzantine is the second largest (after the Latin Rite, which is what most people in the US are familiar with). One of the priests on campus is “bi-ritual” meaning that he is authorized to celebrate Mass in either the Latin Rite or the Byzantine Rite. He set up to have a Byzantine choir come to lead us, as well as giving us a worship guide and setting up the sanctuary. It was a great experience. I hope to pray in this form again some time, as I felt that I did miss out on some of the prayerfulness due to the novelty of it.

Sunday afternoon was of course the important Packers-Bears game. Living in the Chicago Archdiocese I was a minority rooting for the Packers, but they are of course heading to the superbowl.

Also over the weekend into today a large group of guys was gone to the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. This is the event to commemorate the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court which made abortion legal throughout the US. This sad decision has cost the lives of at least 38 million babies, and some estimates put that number as high as 55 million in the last 38 years. I went to the March last year, so I decided not to go this year. Hopefully it won’t be needed next year, but if it is I may go then… we’ll see what my class schedule is looking like.

Peace,
Adam

Reflection for Wednesday 19 Jan 2011

2011-01-18T19:00:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone, here is the reflection that I will be giving at the nursing home tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it. There are some things that I may or may not change, and if I do I will post an updated version. As I ussually do, the readings for the day are below the reflection, incase you are interested.

Peace,
Adam

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesus heals, Jesus turns water into wine, Jesus raises people from the dead, but most importantly Jesus saves. He saves us from the evils of the sins we have committed.
When does he do this?
WHENEVER WE NEED IT!!
Many people have pointed to this Gospel reading, and the one we heard yesterday about the disciples of Jesus picking grain on the Sabbath to eat, as a way to show that the rules of faith don’t matter. Those people would be wrong in reading this in that way.
Jesus isn’t telling us to disregard the teachings; in fact, I think that he is telling us just the opposite, that the teachings on loving one another and providing for another’s needs are also in play.
Jesus was concerned about the Sabbath rule and didn’t want to ignore it. However, He wanted to make the point that the Law was to be applied in a loving way.
In the first reading today we find the story describing the priest Melchizedek. It talks about another priest who is to be raised up “not by a law expressed in a commandment concerning physical descent, but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.” This obviously refers to Christ, but did you know that it also applies to you, and to me. You all know that Matt here and I are studying to become priests, but we all are already priests.
When we were all Baptized we were Baptized to be priests, prophets, and kings. We are kings in our inheritance of the eternal kingdom, we are prophets in that we are supposed to talk to others about our God and our faith, and we are priests in our service to God and his people.
A priest isn’t just one who knows about the faith, it is one who serves, and we all do that and are supposed to do that, it is what we are called to do through our Baptism. Jesus shows us the example of this in the Gospel. He was doing good to be in the synagogue on the Sabbath, but he saw the need of his ultimate priesthood to serve someone in need.
You and I may not have the power to work great miracles as Jesus did, but we need to think about what we can do in service of our God and our fellow children of God. We need to do these things whenever we are able. How are you able to help one another through your priesthood of the Baptized and from the example that our Lord gave to us.

Reading 1
Heb 7:1-3, 15-17
Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High,
met Abraham as he returned from his defeat of the kings
and blessed him.
And Abraham apportioned to him a tenth of everything.
His name first means righteous king,
and he was also “king of Salem,” that is, king of peace.
Without father, mother, or ancestry,
without beginning of days or end of life,
thus made to resemble the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
It is even more obvious if another priest is raised up
after the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become so,
not by a law expressed in a commandment concerning physical descent
but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.
For it is testified:
You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Gospel

Mk 3:1-6
Jesus entered the synagogue.
There was a man there who had a withered hand.
They watched Jesus closely
to see if he would cure him on the sabbath
so that they might accuse him.
He said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up here before us.”
Then he said to the Pharisees,
“Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger
and grieved at their hardness of heart,
Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
He stretched it out and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel
with the Herodians against him to put him to death.

Midterm Week Winter Quarter 2010-2011

2011-01-15T18:06:00.002-06:00

Hello again,
Well, I am halfway through my first year at Seminary. We had midterms this week in the classes that are having midterms. I only had two midterms, plus a paper, so it wasn’t too bad. The oddest part about it for me was coming back, only having two days of classes last week (due to ministry seminar and field education) and then getting into finals week. I tend to prefer to be a bit more into the swing of things before taking tests, but it wasn’t too bad.

The midterms that I had were in Latin and Ancient Philosophy. Latin is Latin is all that I can say about it. I feel like I am understanding it when in class, but the minute I get on my own to study I am so lost that I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. However, when I look at what I do know I realize that it isn’t as bad as I think. The Ancient Philosophy exam was pretty much what I expected, so I think it went well.

I guess I’ll reflect a bit on the seminary experience after halfway through this first year. I will start by saying that it is pretty much what I expected, but in a better way than I expected. I anticipated the busy class schedule, the busy schedule of times for other activities, and all that is going on for actual activities and such. It is better in all of the intangibles.

The people that I am with are far better than I expected. I think that I have mentioned this before, but it still fits, especially in my class (those that I know the best). I had expected that there would be good guys here, I mean, who else would be expected to be in seminary. I did expect however, that there would be some people that I could only “get along with”, but that I wouldn’t really want to be friends with. That is the real world, so I don’t think it is a pessimistic view, simply reality of life. I have found however that at least in my class I could see myself being friends with everyone in my class for the long term, what a great feeling that is to be spending so much time with such wonderful people.

I can’t really describe the nature of why this is. I think that it definitely isn’t that we all are the same person. It is more that we all respect where we have differences and are fine with it. We all seem to be pretty decent at reading people and knowing what is appropriate for each different guy. The guys aren’t all uptight as you may be imagining, we relax and joke around as everyone else does. We all know that this isn’t a competition; we are trying to help each other. If we find that one guy is struggling with personal issues or academics or anything else we see what we can do to help, and people are willing to allow themselves to be helped, it is amazing. When I first started paying attention to seminary and considering it I heard people use the term “brother seminarians” and I thought it was some sort of old cliché, but I have found that it truly fits. It is incredible.

The faculty here is great as well. For many of the same reasons as above, they want to help us to succeed, they are real people and not uptight overly pius people. I find that they take a true interest in each of us and want to know if they can be of assistance in any way. They don’t make the classes too tough (this is important of course). The material that they cover in class is challenging, but by no means unachievable.

The Masses are faithful but with a relaxed feel. I had worried about the Masses here being overdone and not fitting what we find in the real parish world, but it is indeed what we find in the real world. This is seen in the music selection (I would have some difference with it if I picked it, but it is still good), it is seen in the faith and belief seen in the homilies, they aren’t all stellar homilies, but on the whole they are pretty good, it is seen in the way that we celebrate the Eucharist, a faithful reverence without any distracting trappings.

So, in short I am still very happy with my choice to enter seminary. I ask you to keep me and all seminarians in your prayers. If you know a young man considering this as a life path please be encouraging (but not pushy, it isn’t for everyone). Please pray for a willing response to God’s call by those that He picks.

Oh, one story to make you smile before I end. Obviously one aspect of Christianity that is important is charity. We do many little charity things during the year, I haven’t mentioned them much. A humorous one this week that we have is an “Underwear Challenge”. Got your attention with that didn’t I? One way to focus donations for the needy is to be direct in what is needed. When you think about it, most donated clothing is used, and people aren’t likely (I hope) to donate used underwear, so that is something that is actually a desperate need. So, by cams we are competing to see who collects the most new underwear. My cam decided to collect money and then go out and pick up underwear. I volunteered to do the money collection with one other guy and go out and buy the underwear. So a couple of hours ago I was in the Target (cheaper than Walmart for this) buying 14 packages of underwear, this is 100 pairs, you can imagine the looks I got from other customers.

Peace,
Adam

Back from Christmas Break 2010 Happy 2011

2011-01-04T18:44:00.001-06:00

Wow, what a couple of weeks that break was.

We got done with classes on Friday the 17th of December, but I decided not to leave until the following morning. I had to get some cleaning done, write some thank you notes for gifts I had received already, and wrap the gifts I had yet to give. When I finally left on Saturday I headed to Green Bay to meet up with my extended family on the day we were getting ready for the Christmas celebration with them.

The extended family Christmas went great, except for the fact that four of the eight cousins were missing. It was so nice to be able to get together with family that I don’t see too often. We did the normal stuff of a meal, exchanging a few gifts, and just generally having a good time enjoying each other’s company. I stayed in Green Bay until Sunday, when I went to Mass there I ran into some people that I know from that area but haven’t seen in a couple of years. I was able to catch up with them for a bit and sit with them for Mass before going back to my aunt and uncle’s for brunch and then heading to my mom’s house.

The last week of Advent was both busy, and not having much big stuff going on at the same time. I had a doctor appointment on Monday, saw some friends, went to Mass and the normal routine stuff the rest of Monday and on Tuesday. Wednesday I was able to meet up with a great friend for lunch, followed by the Diocesan Seminarian Christmas party in the evening. That was a pretty simple affair, we had a Mass celebrated by the Bishop and then a dinner where we were all introduced along with our family that was there.

Thursday morning I went to Mass at the parish I grew up in before heading over to Stevens Point to help out with the Christmas Eve and Christmas Masses. As always it was great to go to Stevens Point. The Masses all went smoothly and it was great to spend time there with that community that has meant so much to me.

On Christmas after the last Mass I headed back to my mom’s where we were getting together for Christmas, the only one missing that day was one step-brother and we were even able to set up a computer with a webcam and have him there in that way.

Since the day after Christmas was a Sunday it was still a day to go to Mass. I went to an early Mass at a church near home, but then also attended a Lutheran service with one of my friends from growing up. I am going to be the best man in his wedding this spring and wanted to see his church before that day. It was a nice service, and his pastor is a very nice man. I enjoyed it, but it still wasn’t Mass.

I went out for a dinner with people (or at their house) Monday through Wednesday but aside from that didn’t do all that much in that week (I tried to study, and did some, but not as much as I’d like to have done). Friday I again went to Mass at my parish from growing up before heading to Marshfield to a couple of friend’s house for a New Years get together. This was a very nice get together and I enjoyed spending time with them and the other friends that were there.

On New Year’s Day I headed back down to the seminary. I didn’t have to be back quite that early, but it was nice to come back and relax here for a bit, not something I’m used to with the fast pace that we go when classes are in session. Many of the guys started trickling in Saturday and Sunday even though we didn’t have to be back until Monday evening. We watched some football, accomplished a few things and mainly just hung out together.

Monday I heard some sad news that my dad and his wife’s dog died, it was very sad because they are both close to her. I actually spent quite a bit of the day thinking about what a gift from God our pets are and how much they mean to us… I may write about that in the future.

Today (Tuesday) we had a ministry seminar. I guess this is something that they do here every year. The presenter was John Allen, a writer for National Catholic Reporter, Vatican Correspondent for CNN and author of a few books. The topic for the day was based on his latest book Future Church. This book and the talks were about trends affecting the church currently and those developing that are going to have a major impact on the future.

Some of these trends included the globalization of the church, “tribalism” within the church and society, interreligious relations (especially with Islam), ecological issues, and a few other things that Allen identified.

The globalization of the church talked about the fact that the Catholic population growth is outpacing world population growth, but the center of Catholicism is moving/has moved from the Western world to the Southern Hemisphere, namely Africa and Latin America. This shows the needs of us truly identifying ourselves as a universal church (Universal is actually the definition of the word Catholic). Also it was discussed how the line of thinking of the Church in these regions is going to shape the future of the Church to a large degree.

The tribalism of the Church describes what is commonly referred to as polarization, but not just the fact that there are some of different opinions on issues but also the fact that as there are different opinions they are supported by people forming “tribes” of those who are like minded. This was talked about both in the Church and society and with no answers to this problem given it was talked about as something that we will need to work to address in our ministry.

Interreligious relations was also a big issue. With the globalization there are now large pockets of Catholics in areas where the cultural history is not based on Christianity so we need to figure out how to work on dealing with that and how to work together with other faiths where it works to do so. As Pope Benedict XVI has said, the major problem in the world isn’t the divide between Christian and Islam, it is the divide between belief and unbelief. During this part of the talk Allen talked about how without abandoning work with Judaism there has been an obvious shift towards dealings with Muslims. This is seen partially because Christians and Muslims are living together more, and there are large instances of oppression, but also the obvious reason for this is that the two groups combined make up more than half of the human population.

Allen also talked about ecological issues being a rising trend in our Church. This is obviously true throughout society and makes for some interesting parings in political issues when environmentalists are teaming up with the Church. The Catholic Church has long held that protecting the environment is a very important thing… after all it is God’s creation and one of His many gifts to us. Another angle that Allen mentioned that I hadn’t thought about with this regard is tying environmental issues in with Natural Law, such as the right to life and respecting others. Obviously we have to protect the environment to respect those who come after us. But also the environmental issues show that there are absolute truths and that man can’t just do whatever he wants. This will lead some to accept that there is a natural law in the order of things, a very interesting take for me to think about.

I hope that everyone had a Blessed Christmas season and that 2011 is off to a wonderful start for you.

Peace,
Adam

Reflection for the Third Wednesday in Advent

2010-12-14T16:53:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone,
I figured I'd give you all a sneak peak into what I am giving for a reflection at the nursing home tomorrow during the communion service. As I have done in the past the first part is my reflection, after that I have included the readings which are prescibed by the Church to be read tomorrow. These readings are what I have based this reflection off of, so if you are interested you can read those too.

Peace,
Adam

-----------------------------------------------------------
(Sung to tune)“You better watch out, you better not shout, you better not cry, I’m telling you why…”
We all know how that song goes. Why are we being told to behave? Because Santa Clause is coming to town. Obviously it is very important to prepare for the jolly man in the red suit to get here, he sees us when we are sleeping, he sees us when we are awake, and worse yet he knows when we’ve been bad or good, so we better be good for goodness sake.
I don’t know about you, but that song always kind of made me think twice before doing something when I was a little kid. But we need to remember that Santa doesn’t come just any old day of the year, he comes when we celebrate the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ. What do we do to be ready for His coming? John the Baptist was trying to get everyone ready for the coming of the Messiah. John knew that his job was to prepare the way of the Lord, as is said in Isaiah. John called on the people to repent of their sins, and to start living for God.
John knew what this meant, and the Jews of the day knew what it meant, they had all been taught the words of Isaiah that we read today. Isaiah was repeating what he had heard from God, that God had made everything, and that He had made it to be lived in, not to be wasted. God does want us to go about our lives, embracing our loved ones, doing good for them, and doing good in general. As is quoted in Isaiah’s writings, “Only in the LORD
are just deeds and power.” We are also given very clear instructions on how to prepare for Christ’s coming, “Turn to me and be safe, all you ends of the earth.”
John sent some of his followers to Christ to ask if He was the one who is to come. Jesus didn’t answer it in so many words, but we know that He is indeed the one who was to come, and we know that he will come again someday.
So we need to remember among the hustle and bustle of this Advent season, prepare for Santa, laying out your milk and cookies. But even more important, prepare for the Lord, repenting of our sin and doing good works for Him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading 1
Is 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25

I am the LORD, there is no other;
I form the light, and create the darkness,
I make well-being and create woe;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above,
like gentle rain let the skies drop it down.
Let the earth open and salvation bud forth;
let justice also spring up!
I, the LORD, have created this.
For thus says the LORD,
The creator of the heavens,
who is God,
The designer and maker of the earth
who established it,
Not creating it to be a waste,
but designing it be lived in:
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
Who announced this from the beginning
and foretold it from of old?
Was it not I, the LORD,
besides whom there is no other God?
There is no just and saving God but me.
Turn to me and be safe,
all you ends of the earth,
for I am God; there is no other!
By myself I swear,
uttering my just decree
and my unalterable word:
To me every knee shall bend;
by me every tongue shall swear,
Saying, “Only in the LORD
are just deeds and power.
Before him in shame shall come
all who vent their anger against him.
In the LORD shall be the vindication and the glory
of all the descendants of Israel.”

Lk 7:18b-23
Gospel

At that time,
John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask,
“Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
When the men came to the Lord, they said,
“John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask,
‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’”
At that time Jesus cured many of their diseases, sufferings, and evil spirits;
he also granted sight to many who were blind.
And Jesus said to them in reply,
“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:
the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised,
the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

Back At It, Winter Quarter 2010-2011

2010-12-09T20:09:00.000-06:00

Hi there,
So, as it seems I often am in these things I am going to apologize for the length of time between posts. As I said in my last post, I was on a break from classes. It was a great break; I got to spend time with many wonderful people and to do a bit of hunting, and just a little bit of other relaxing. By the end of the break I was indeed ready to get back to the seminary and get moving on with my studies and formation.
I came back on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as classes started the following Monday. With this being a new quarter, there are new classes and a new schedule. I got heavy into it with 4 classes on Monday. Those classes are, Humanities I, Latin II, Ethics, and Logic. Tuesday is a light day with only one class, that being Ancient Philosophy. Wednesdays I am again going to the same nursing home as before, that will go on this whole school year. Thursdays are only three classes: Humanities I, Latin II, and Logic. Fridays I have two, those being Ancient Philosophy, and Ethics.
Humanities I, seems like it will be a bit of a literature course with finding the lessons and aspects of the faith in various aspects of famous pieces. So far we have ready the plays “Everyman”, and “A Man for All Seasons”. “Everyman” is a mid-evil piece that shows a man who encounters “death” and this causes him to examine those things in life that he thought were good, but were truly harming to him and then he encounters ways to live a better life. This appears to have been written by a priest of the era with its homiletic style and the fact that the clergy was the literates in the time. “A Man for All Seasons” is a piece from the mid-20th century but based on the story of St. Thomas More during the English breaking from the Church under Henry VIII. Thomas More was the chancellor of England who although he wouldn’t speak against the king’s divorce he was strategically silent and would not affirm the kings claim of supremacy over the Church. St. Thomas More was eventually beheaded for this. He is one of the more famous martyrs of this period.
Latin II is simply a continuation of what we have been studying in Latin. It is very difficult, but the priest that teaches it makes it at least interesting while we are there.
Ethics is the philosophical pair of Moral Theology. We are told that the difference between Philosophy and Theology at least in this case is that philosophy can be attained by pure reason, while Theology relies on revelation. So in Ethics we are talking about the reasoning way to deal with many of the same issues that we will encounter in moral theology.
Logic is a bit tougher for me to understand what we are going to be studying. Logic is also another branch of philosophy, dealing with how to properly make connections and how to make items make sense, at least I think that is what it is, ask me about it later and I might understand.
Ancient Philosophy is just as it sounds, the philosophy of the ancients. This goes from the earliest recorded philosophical topics into the beginnings of the Christian period of history. The first philosophers tended to be most concerned with what the world is made of, and ideas along those lines. The better known Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, which we are also covering were concerned with the ideas and definitions of virtues.
In addition to the classes we of course have all of our spiritual direction, formation advising, prayer times, and Masses.
This past Wednesday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Even many Catholics tend not to know what is being talked about when we mention this… so I will explain a little here. Most people think that it is about the time when Mary found that she was carrying the child Jesus. Although that is of course a great act of God, that is celebrated with the Feast of the Annunciation. That is not the Immaculate Conception (I.C.)
I.C. is the teaching passed down from the early Christians that when Mary was conceived the Holy Spirit intervened and prevented her from bearing the stain of Original Sin (the sin of Adam and Eve disobeying God in the garden, which gives us all a tendency towards sin). This is a teaching of the Church that although it is not found in sacred scripture it can be found very early in Sacred Tradition. It was a belief held by most Catholics though-out the world for ages. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that it was declared to be an official Dogma of the Church. I.C. is the patronal feast of the seminary (as well as the patronal feast of the United States) so it was naturally a big celebration here. We had a morning of prayer, in which all field education and classes are canceled so that we can spend the morning in prayer, then we had a fancy celebration lunch followed by the afternoon free.
Late last week most of the guys in 3rd year Theology left us. They are spending this quarter doing their studies on Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I pray that they are having a great experience and growing during their time walking in the same lands as our Lord did.
I think I have mentioned that we get a lot of time off from here during the school year. This is partially due to the quarter system and the two week breaks between each quarter, but also the fact that as a seminary it is important for us to help out in our parishes when we can. So although we just had two weeks off, we will only be back for three weeks before getting another two weeks off for Christmas.
Well, I think that is enough of an update. I will try not to be so tardy with my next post.
Peace,
Adam

Fall Break 2010

2010-11-17T14:27:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I am now on break.

Finals went very well… well, what I took of them did. I had a friend from Holmen die the weekend before finals so I went home for that. The funeral was on Thursday with visitation on Wednesday night so I tried to see if I could leave on Wednesday after my field education at the nursing home. I checked with the academic dean to see about rearranging my final times and he was all right with it. I had one final scheduled for Thursday and one for Friday so I had to get them both arranged to avoid having to make the long drive back on Friday just for one test before break. The final on Thursday was for my Catechism class and the priest that teaches that was willing to just do an oral final, in which he asked me questions about what we were going to have on the test. We did that on Wednesday after my field ed, but before I left. The final for Friday was for Latin, and since we are being taught to read it more than to speak it an oral final really wouldn’t work. The final for that also wasn’t written yet so I couldn’t just take it early. It worked out that I am going to take that final during the first week back after break. So technically I have received an “incomplete” in that for now, but will get a grade after I take the final. I had one person say that it was nice that I had two weeks more to study for it, I see it more as two weeks to forget what I knew.

So I actually kind of started my two week break a little early. We get two weeks off after every quarter. I stayed home after the funeral on Thursday and then came to Stevens Point on Friday. It has been a nice and relaxing time off for this. I haven’t had many obligations to do. I went to the Saturday evening Mass and then was asked to go out to dinner with three of the ladies who are active in the parish. That was very nice to catch up with them. I followed that up by going to visit my friends that I sometimes stay with here, we sat around chatting for a little bit. I am staying in the basement of the rectory (priest’s house) and think that I will probably stay there most of the times when I come up. There has been a futon down there to sleep on for quite a while, but we are making it a little bit more livable for down there. It has taken to being called the “seminarian suite” although it could be just a guest area at other points too. There is a guest room in the upstairs, but it is kind of nice to have the basement to myself, this way I have my own bathroom and a little bit more privacy. When I showed up on Friday I found that they had put a television down there and a recliner to sit in. I do watch TV in the evening upstairs with Father some, but it is nice to be able to just relax on my own too.

On Sunday I went to both of the Masses, I enjoy seeing all the people, but really enjoy the Mass experience at the 6:00 PM Mass on Sundays here. The student choir and the large number of enthusiastic college students is a real boost to my faith life.

Monday is Father Tom’s normal day off. He invited me to go over to the twin cities with him and another priest. They were going just for a trip to the cities, and to pick up some items for liturgies for the coming seasons. While we were there we stopped at the Ikea and picked up some furniture for the seminarian suite. We bought a dresser, an end table, and a coat rack, which a student here and I put together on Tuesday. It was a great trip to the cities, great company and conversation.

Tuesday after morning Mass I went and bought new tires for my truck and ran a few errands that I wanted to get done. I also picked up a few Christmas gifts. I had to pay attention to the price on these things a bit more than in the past, but that is not a bad thing to be doing.

Today (Wednesday) I have relaxed most of the day. A bit later we will have a student supper. I’m not sure if I mentioned that program at this parish before. It is great. Every two weeks on a Wednesday there is a supper cooked by stationary members (those that live in the area) for the student members. This starts at 5:00 and at about 5:30 a speaker starts. The speaker talks about whatever they want (based on what Fr. Tom has asked them to talk about). It is a great chance for the Catholic students to get together and socialize with other students who share their faith. The norm is somewhere between 50 and 70 students who show up to this, occasionally closer to 100. I think that this is a great turn out for college students with their busy lives to take time for an event at the church. At 9:00 tonight will be a “Late Night Mass” that is a week day Mass geared towards the students. I always really enjoyed these late night Masses because they are a great ways to take a break from the week and focus on what is important.

I will stick around in Point until tomorrow morning until after morning Mass and then head towards home. I am very excited because this weekend I get to go deer hunting with a couple of friends. I will relax there until after Thanksgiving. Fr. Tom has asked me to come back to point to be the server (altar boy for those who don’t know the word) for the Masses the weekend after Thanksgiving before heading back down to Mundelein Seminary for classes to begin that Monday.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

Peace,
Adam

Reflection for Nursing home 1

2010-11-09T19:19:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone,
I have been busy preparing for finals with studying and projects so it has been about a week and a half since I have written. I am leaving tomorrow after my field education and my last final of the quarter to go home for a visitation, and then a funeral on Thursday. So I don’t have time to reflect a whole lot on the ending of my first quarter of seminary. It is amazing that it is over already, only 17 more to go… I hope to write something next week for reflection on this, I can’t make any promises.

For the blog post this time I thought I’d share with you what I am sharing with the people at the nursing home tomorrow. As I have said I go to a nursing home every Wednesday and in addition to room visits and taking communion to people’s rooms we have a communion service with host that has been consecrated by a priest at a previous Mass. At this communion service we go through the Church’s prescribed Mass readings for the day, and then either I or the other seminarian offer a reflection. Since we aren’t ordained it isn’t considered a homily, although you would think it was a homily if you just looked at it.

Below I have copy and pasted the readings for tomorrow (except for the Psalm, since I don’t refer to that in here). The first reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to Titus, the Gospel reading is from the Gospel of Luke. I think it is obvious enough where the readings stop and my reflection begins. Enjoy, and feel free to give feedback if you want, I’m always looking to improve.

Peace,
Adam
Reading 1
Ti 3:1-7
Beloved:
Remind them to be under the control of magistrates and authorities,
to be obedient, to be open to every good enterprise.
They are to slander no one, to be peaceable, considerate,
exercising all graciousness toward everyone.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded,
slaves to various desires and pleasures,
living in malice and envy,
hateful ourselves and hating one another.

But when the kindness and generous love
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth
and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
whom he richly poured out on us
through Jesus Christ our savior,
so that we might be justified by his grace
and become heirs in hope of eternal life.

Gospel
Lk 17:11-19
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Gospel reading from Luke is so memorable that we could all almost proclaim it from heart. What am I going to talk about? The amazing act of Jesus’ miracle? Well, it is amazing, but no. Am I going to talk about how great it was of the one to come back to give God thanks, but terrible of the others to accept His gift without any acknowledgement? While there is truth in that, you have all heard those before…

I am going to speculate a bit on what those other nine did. Maybe they had been fighting leprosy for a long time and needed to go and check if their family was still intact. They may have had a shop that provided necessities to others in their community that they needed to see if they could salvage. These cured lepers may have gone to the temple to give thanks to God on their own, in the way that they knew. Maybe, just maybe they went to the priest as Jesus told them to. This was the necessary way for a Jew to return to society from these diseases, to show themselves to the priest to prove that it was gone.

I like to give these people the benefit of the doubt, sure they should have given thanks immediately, but maybe they did later to make up for it. Maybe they ended up squandering the opportunities that they were given by this second chance. But I like to think that this experience left them changed, and allowed them to grow in life.

These changes do happen. As Paul wrote in his letter to Titus, the first reading from today, even he was: foolish, disobedient, deluded, a slave to desires and pleasures, full of malice, envy, and even hate. Paul had an encounter with Christ and as he said “when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done, but because of his mercy…” he would become an heir to Christ, in hope of eternal life.

We all have encounters with God, let us be sure to take some time out of our day to thank him, as the one leper did, but let us also allow His grace to change us as it surely did to Paul and Titus, but also hopefully to the other nine lepers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Philosophy

2010-10-30T22:47:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone,
I have been thinking about what to write this week and I decided that I would post one of the papers I have written for class. This one is a personal reflection paper for my Anthropology class. In it we were asked to write about our ideas on a variety of topics about humanity. For example these might be: what is a human?, what is human happiness?, what is it all for in the end?, what is the role of religion in humanity? and such like that.
I assume that my thoughts on these topics will grow over my time in seminary and my whole life, but this is what I wrote for now.
I hope you enjoy.
Peace,
Adam
-----------------------------------
In thinking about this writing assignment I am fairly excited about it. I am going to write a bit about my personal philosophy of life. I do anticipate that my philosophy of life will change over my time here at seminary. I think that it will be very interesting to look back on this paper at the time of my Ordination, to see how my ideas have changed and how they haven’t over the time that I am in seminary.
My personal philosophy doesn’t get into all the tiny details of a definition; it is more a conceptual way of looking at things. When I say that I don’t worry about the definitions as much as some others do I mean that the definitions that I use may be a bit broader, and could be used to capture other items than just what I am defining. This look at definitions may be a challenge for some, but I tend to rely on a common understanding of the topics I am talking about.
One example of this outlook on more open definitions is the idea of what it means to be human. I don’t tend to worry about that issue since to me it is an almost intrinsic quality that makes a human. I think that someone either will recognize what makes a human on their own, or the wording of a definition won’t have much effect on them. My definition of a human is a sensing mammal created in the image of God with an eternal soul. There isn’t much there for people to go on who don’t have an idea of what that means already. I could get into the details of most humans being mobile biped creatures, but there are some other creatures that would fit this, and some humans that wouldn’t. I could describe our senses a bit more, but some people are lacking some of the senses while some other creatures have the same ones. The idea of a soul could be used as a distinguishing characteristic, however, there is much debate of what a soul is, and there is no way to say who/what has a soul other than saying that just humans do… a circular argument. Therefore, I think that the intrinsic knowledge of what is a human should be something that we can accept as known by others… if not, then we would be at a loss to go any deeper anyways.
The idea of human happiness may be even harder to define than that of what it means to be human. Assuming that we can accept a general idea of what a human is would of course be the first step. I think that happiness can come in so many forms. There can be happiness for some which others would find to be merely satisfaction. There can also be happiness which could seem to be joy. Happiness can appear to some as love.
I think that happiness is a bit more of a “catch-all” phrase for all of these. I think that at some times what others would term satisfaction can be true happiness, when it comes after a period of complete discontent. Happiness can also mean joy for some, a time when we experience pleasure in one or many areas of our life. I believe that these two forms, while being true forms of happiness are also quite temporary. I think that the greatest definition of happiness would be equated by some as love. This can be a romantic love, the love of friends, and the love of material or self. Even greater than that is a true sense of love for all that is around you, and all that comes from God, and thus a love for God himself. This is what true happiness is for humans. I think that the other definitions which I mentioned are mere reflections of this kind of happiness.
The role of humans in the whole of God’s creation is a question that we won’t find the answer to until the coming of God’s kingdom, if it is even revealed to us at that point. Our first and most important role is to love God and to help others to love God. In doing so we are to care for all of His creation and works. I think that this is the main niche that we fill here on Earth.
I don’t know how to begin writing about what roll we play in the creation outside of Earth. Maybe God did make other creatures similar to us in other parts of the cosmos, if so we wouldn’t be the only ones who are supposed to love Him. I think that we can’t rule that idea out, but need to simply accept the things we do know and understand that God will work with us in our own way.
I don’t think that anyone can answer the question of what our place is in the cosmos other than God Himself. We aren’t all knowing as He is so we just have to accept what we do know, and as we know more we have to grow to understand that this is how He works in the world.
On the question regarding what is this all leading to I can only go on what the Church teaches and I believe. I believe in the eternal life of the soul, in Heaven or in Hell. I believe that all who have faith will be raised up with Christ into the Kingdom of eternal glory. I really don’t know what that means or what it will look like, but I trust that it will be great. I believe as has been said, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has ready for those who love Him.”
I am truly not trained in the theology of salvation. I don’t have that great of a grasp on what is understood through millennium of teachings as to who can be saved and who can’t. I do know first of all that those who put their trust in Christ and his forgiveness will be saved. I think that the greatest way to show this trust and faith is through participation in the Sacraments of the Church that He founded. I also believe that while it may take more time in Purgatory all Christians, whether or not they participate in Christ’s Church will be saved.
My area of being unclear on what this all leads to is the thought of salvation for those who don’t have a strong faith in Christ. I believe truly what Christ said about Himself being the way, but I struggle with the idea of what that means for those whom haven’t yet made the choice to believe, as long as they don’t outright reject Him. I do believe that those who reject Him are choosing their eternity to be separated from God. Even the Church, in its enormous wisdom teaches that we rely on the mercy of God for those who haven’t been taught about Him. I question and struggle with what level of knowledge is enough that a person is seen as rejecting Christ. The God that I know and love will take into account those to whom he wasn’t presented in a sufficient way for them to accept His saving grace.
For me the idea of religious belief does play a huge role in humanity. Probably not in any individual as we all know people who have rejected all religious belief, but for humanity on the whole it is an essential. I think that God put the need for faith and religion in us as an essential part when He created us. This can be seen from the evidence that no society has ever grown up without having a religion, whether it be a monotheistic faith as in Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, or it be a polytheistic as in Hinduism or many of the ancient religions. I think that the need for organized religion even shows in traditions that base on the spiritual rather than a deity, most of those (of which Buddhism is a great example) eventually morph into a religious ideal with practices and/or some level of higher beings.
I think that religion is a strong part of humanity purely from societal reasons as well. I believe that the moral codes found in religion assisted humanity in survival during challenging points in evolutionary history. Although most religions have had times where violence was allowed to a certain extent, there is also a strong sense of peace and doing good for others in most religions. I think that this has helped humans evolve into the beings that we are. In society, those with religious beliefs may be more likely to help others survive, and thus someday that person might help them, assisting the species and society in growing into what it is today.
I think that God put the desire for religion in us when we were made so that humans would go through the full process to discover who He is. I think that he revealed the truth of His nature when He felt that we would be ready and able to accept and at least somewhat understand. When God started to reveal Himself through the Jewish prophets is when He thought that our societies had advanced enough to accept Him and move ourselves towards salvation. Obviously, there have been setbacks in this process, but God’s infinite mercy allows us to keep moving forward in advancing the Kingdom.

Midterms Fall 2010

2010-10-18T22:47:00.001-05:00

First off, I’m sorry that it has been so long since my last post. As I have said before, life here is very busy, and I just didn’t get around to it last week.

So… after my last post I had a lot going on. I had the big Latin exam that I mentioned. It went pretty well. I made a couple of stupid mistakes, and there was some stuff that I just didn’t know well enough, but on the whole I was surprised. I ended up getting a B on it, so how can I complain.

I also ended up re-writing the paper that I had mentioned in a previous post. It was done, but I didn’t like it, and decided rather than chopping it up completely, which would be tough to make it flow, I just hit delete and started anew, it went pretty well, we’ll see what the grade did. I also had an essay exam for the same class last week; I feel that went pretty well too, I hope the priest that teaches it agrees.

Today I had an exam in my Catechism of the Catholic Church class. This was pretty easy. The priest in that class is teaching it as a fast paced overview into the Catechism, so that we know what is there to be able to look up details later. Because of this mentality the test was written to ensure that we retained the big ideas, very much geared towards my learning style, so I think that I nailed that test.

Aside from the tests and class work there have been a couple of cool things going on since I wrote last. On Wednesday of last week we had a Mass for the newly ordained. Those men who were ordained priests this past year returned (well most of them did, others had different obligations) for a Mass here. One of them was the presider at Mass, while another gave a wonderful homily tying the scripture readings to the experience of going through seminary and then being a new priest. It was wonderful to see the energy and enthusiasm that these men demonstrated. I think that one of the other great things about this Mass with the newly ordained was it being a reminder of what we are doing here. I often see guys making it appear as if the seminary is all that we are about… I don’t think that I’ve gotten to that point, but with the busy schedule it would be an easy trap to slip into. This Mass reminded us that there is a much greater goal in our time here, that of being out serving Christ and His people and bringing the Sacraments to them.

After that Mass I just had to get through the Thursday classes before having a three day weekend. I left right after my last class on Thursday and headed up to Stevens Point to spend time there. While I am truly loving my experience here, it is indeed nice to get away for a while. I got into Stevens Point about supper time, and got to hang out with my friends that I was staying with, and their two kids. I left after a while to go to supper with Fr. Tom, it was great to have that supper to talk about the experiences that I am having here at the seminary.

Friday I went to Mass at the Newman Parish and then spent most of the day just hanging out and relaxing, including a wonderful nap (it was great). I spent Friday Night with Fr. Tom and another priest going to supper again, and then going to a Play. I spent most of Saturday hanging out with the people that I was staying with and their kids. While I love their kids, and enjoy my time with them, I am not used to having a 1 and 2 year old running around, I excused myself for a while and met up with another great friend that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Sunday I got to go to both of the Newman Sunday Masses, it was great to be back with that community and talking to them about what is going on in my life. While I was talking to them I realized that I have absolutely nothing that I can complain about with my time here. My classes are wonderful, my classmates are wonderful, the living conditions are wonderful… I am amazed by the fact that everything is going so very well. It also kind of worries me, when I am I going to wake up from this dream? I hope that it continues this great, because I imagine everything being even greater after Ordination (still 6 years away, but I can think about it).

Well, with all the tests taking up class periods I don’t really have that much new material from my classes to talk about. I am preparing a presentation on Buddhism to give to one of my classes, a full 55 minutes. We are doing this with many other religions and other Christian denominations, just so that when we hear about them we have an idea of what is meant by each of these other faiths. It is not to refute their faiths claims or find ways to attack them, just to gain a better understanding of what they are about.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. God has answered our prayers. The classmate that I mentioned previously who’s sister and cousin were kidnapped from their school in Uganda have been found and returned. I don’t know the extent of any injuries they might have received, but they are safely home, thank you to all who included these young ladies in their prayers.

Peace,
Adam

In the groove

2010-10-06T20:08:00.001-05:00

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

Personal Prayer

2010-09-29T14:23:00.003-05:00

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

The busy life here

2010-09-21T21:45:00.001-05:00

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

Week 2

2010-09-16T05:31:00.001-05:00

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.

Two Days of classes down

2010-09-07T21:08:00.001-05:00

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

Silent Retreat

2010-09-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

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

Orientation Week 2

2010-08-29T20:58:00.001-05:00

Wow, what a crazy busy week it has been for me here… and it has been just orientation stuff. As I wrote about in my last post this consists mostly of business type stuff such as getting our schedule for classes, a schedule of other things going on, required and optional, and being told what is expected of us.

In addition orientation week of course had a lot of prayer time both for liturgy prayer and private prayer. This brings me to one of the things that I wanted to talk about based on a question I had… the question was in person, but I have mentioned a prayer that goes by many titles; “The Divine Office”, “The Liturgy of the Hours”, or “The Brievery”. These all refer to basically the same thing and are used interchangeably.

This is the book of prayers that is required to be prayed daily by the priests and religious throughout the world. It is heavily loaded with readings from the Book of Psalms, which are ancient prayers that are included in the Bible… a common prayer practice among Jewish people during the time of Jesus was to recite the Psalms, and we are taught that He took part in this prayer. In the Brievery is also: daily scripture readings, quotes from the Saints, hymns, and prayers written by others in the past. It is set up to be prayed at various times of the day I.E. : morning prayer, midday prayer (actually 3 different midday prayer times), evening prayer, and night prayer. This is to keep the focus of our day on prayer and Christ.

The question that I had was from someone who asked me how it can be prayer if it is pre-written down, and doesn’t come in our own words. I stumbled through an answer at that time, but wanted to address it a bit more… my thoughts on it, as I have said before, I am not teaching a Philosophy or Theology course here, although I might explain things that I find interesting.

Of course personal prayer, in one’s own words is a wonderful and very important way to pray. Silence is also important, listening to God, rather than just talking at Him. I love those forms of prayer and take part in them all the time. However, with the prayers written by others come many wonderful aspects. I can safely assume that at the time that I am praying any prewritten prayer that someone else, somewhere is praying with me. This gives me a wonderful comfort to know, maybe they are asking God to take care of all those who are praying with them, I know I do. I can also trust that I am praying the same way that people for a long time (with slight dialect changes) have prayed, many of those people are in Heaven with God now (Saints, both big “S” and little “s”), and may be focusing their prayers now toward helping those on Earth, including me. (As an aside, and I may talk about this later, when I say the big “S” and little “s” saints what I am meaning is that the big “S” are those that the Church has recognized as Saints and canonized them, acknowledging our belief and knowledge that they are in Heaven, a little “s” saint is anyone else who is in Heaven with God, but has not been placed in the canon, or list).

Another reason that I truly love prewritten prayers is that often times I am at a complete loss as to anything to say to God. This especially happens when I am praying in front of His real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. I am so in awe of the wonderful gift of salvation that He has given us, I want to praise him, but can’t find my words. At these times are times that I lean even more heavily on prewritten prayers.

Okay, enough of that for now. As I said orientation week has wrapped up. We spent a lot of time in the business sessions, and getting to know each other. I am amazed at how wonderful the guys in my class are, I don’t think that I could have scripted a better group of guys, wonderful personalities and enough diversity to keep it interesting.

One of the last sessions of orientation week was the Virtus training. Virtus is a national program on protecting God’s Children. Each Diocese has something in place for this, especially since the sex abuse crisis raised awareness of a problem, but this is the one that the Archdiocese of Chicago wants us to have to minister within their diocese. It is a wonderful program. Although of course anyone looking at the numbers knows that the abuse rate among Catholic Priests is actually lower than any other demographic group that someone can pick, any cases of it are too much, and the media attention to it drew an awareness that allows for the Church to protect the vulnerable even more.

Tonight we started a silent retreat. This will run until Friday mid-day. Of course there are recommended ways to implement this retreat it will truly come to whatever we make of it. I am allowing myself to write the blog post(s) that I may think of during this time and I will of course post them to my Facebook as always, but I won’t do much other Facebooking, or much other contact. If you absolutely need to get ahold of me for some reason call and leave a message, I will check those, or send an e-mail and put the word “important” in the subject line so that I will open it when it comes through on my phone… otherwise I will be available sometime early Friday afternoon.

One request that I have is that everyone keep the family of my cousin-in-law in your prayers. Several members of the family were seriously hurt in a recent car crash. And of course, please keep me, my class mates, all seminarians, clergy and religious in your prayers.

Peace,
Adam

Moving in/Orientation Week 1

2010-08-25T21:47:00.001-05:00

Hi there,

So I am now kind of moved into my room at Mundelein Seminary! I say “kind of” because there is still quite a bit of unpacking, organizing, and settling in to get done, but all of that can happen in good time. I have found that I definitely brought WAY too much stuff. My room is pretty good sized, but kind of difficult to organize.

It is especially tough to get organized this year because I am only in this room for one year, so there are limits on what I can do in the room. At one point in the past it used to be set up that a seminarian would move every year to a different room on campus based on where they were in the program of studies. This allowed people to be closer to facilities that would fit them, for example, those who were Deacons would be closest to the rooms to practice saying Mass (of course it wouldn’t be a valid Mass since they aren’t a Priest, but it would make practice easier). Now it happens that all of the guys in first year Pre-Theology (like me) are in one area, then after this year we will move into rooms mixed in with all the people at other points in their studies. We will be in those rooms for the rest of our time here.

When I get into my permanent room I will be able to do things like build a loft for my bed which will of course give me a great deal more floor space to organize stuff. For now though, I have to make do with what I can. It isn’t too bad, I have found in the unpacking that I brought a lot of stuff that I “may” want at some point during my time here. A lot of that is getting packed away again so that when my mom and her husband come down for family weekend I can give it to them to store in the rafters of their garage.

On Monday I went to Mass at St. Elizabeth’s as I always like to go to Mass and it seemed appropriate before heading down to Illinois. I also stopped at the DMV to get back my Wisconsin driver’s license and license plate… this made me very proud. I hope to never switch from WI again. Then came the drive down, routine and uneventful.

I got to the seminary and checked in. I already had my key and knew where my room was, so it was basically just picking up a packet of information with the schedule and details for this orientation week. I was very grateful to run into a couple of guys whom I knew from my Diocese who were here already and were very willing to help me carry my stuff up to my room. They also told me that it is allowed to drive on the sidewalk to the building to unload, making the whole process much easier than it could have been.

Although I didn’t need anything I accompanied these guys to the Target store just to hang out and basically procrastinate on unpacking. I did buy a pair of swimming trunks as there is a wonderful indoor pool on campus. I then got busy with unpacking, well, kind of… it was most difficult to figure out where to begin. I got a little bit put away and met a few of the guys who live in my hall way. These are some very wonderful men with amazing stories of what has brought them to feel that God is calling them to the priesthood.

On Monday evening I guess it is a little bit of a tradition (or so I’m told) to go on a “hotdog pilgrimage” basically running out for Chicago style hotdogs. I thought this sounded good, a way to get to know some more people and another excuse to procrastinate unpacking. I get there and we are loading up cars when I find out that the place we are going to is 45 minutes away… I didn’t expect that, but oh well. We went there and the hotdogs were indeed great. We got back and a few of us in my hallway (called “Cam” in seminary life… I’ll let you know when I figure out where that comes from) sat around chatting. I was growing even more excited for this journey based on the wonderful men that I will be going through it with.

Tuesday was more unpacking in the Morning, then Mass at 11:30. After Mass and lunch I unpacked a little more and then had to get dressed for my picture and a brief “business” meeting, just to go over the ins and outs of the business office here. They discussed the idea that each seminarian needs health insurance, and made sure that we had taken the program required by the Catholic Church to prevent abuse of minors.

Tuesday evening there was a welcome from the Rector and an introduction to quite a good percentage of the faculty, followed of course by a social to get to know each other.

Today, Wednesday, was the first full day of Orientation. We had the general sessions that everyone would expect when starting at a new school type setting. We also had sessions on living together in community, as we will be doing for the next few years. One session that most other schools wouldn’t have that we did was the one that discussed the liturgical practices here… basically what time and how Mass is set up here, and also the times and set up for praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the hours is a prayer book broken up throughout times of the day that is required for all priests and religious in the Catholic Church to pray… of course they want us to get used to it and develop and appreciation for it. I really like the Liturgy of the Hours, it is a scripture based prayer, heavy on Psalms and Gospel Canticles.

The last session that I feel worth really mentioning from today was the session on our field education. This is a program where seminarians go out to different sites to minister to people. We don’t have class on Wednesday, so we are expected to go to our field education site every Wednesday. At this point in my time we aren’t doing ministry within a parish, that is saved for those later in seminary. The opportunities available to me are various hospital, nursing home, and jail/detention center ministries. I am actually hoping for a jail ministry assignment as I don’t have experience in that field, it will be a good way to grow in my faith by stepping out of my comfort zone to minister to God’s people there. I will see what I get picked for when that comes up.

Well, this is pretty long again. Please keep me in your prayers, along with all seminarians, priests, and religious.

Peace,
Adam

Getting Ready 4---Moving tomorrow!!!

2010-08-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

Wow, so I’m going to have to get through this one by covering a bit of ground quickly as I move to Mundelein Seminary tomorrow.

After the weekend of my blessing at Newman University Parish and meeting up with a great friend on that Monday I returned to work Tuesday-Tuesday. Work was pretty routine for me, but my boss accompanied me on a few things so that he would know where they were at. I also limited myself to finishing up on things and getting them close to completion if not completed instead of finding new issues to deal with. I had a few things that came up from members of the public that needed to be dealt with that were new, but I didn’t do a whole lot of new inspections to find new problems that couldn’t be resolved before I left.

After that 8 day stretch of work I got up early on Wednesday and flew out to Montana for a week to see my dad and his wife. It was great to get out there since they have lived there for three years and I have yet to visit them. I had a wonderful time seeing their house, the area they live in, and one of the few parts of the country that I haven’t experienced. This was a wonderfully relaxing trip… a few naps were taken, I slept in a bit (as much as I can), and went out to eat a bit. I got to see some of the sites in the area, cut a few trees down in my dad’s yard, and mostly just hang out.

I returned for three days of work after my trip to MT. This was even more occupied with wrap up work as the end was quickly moving in. I did my outprocessing, answered all of my boss’s questions about what issues were on going, and cleaned out my desk. I managed to stay amazingly busy for all but about the last two hours of those three days… I was glad for this, as I didn’t feel like I was slacking, and the last two hours of slow time showed me that I had planned properly and wasn’t scrambling at the end.

During the final 3 weeks or so in Iowa I was donating a bunch of items and selling a bunch on Craigslist. On the Wednesday night of my final week I went to my final session of the Bible Study program that I had been taking part in, I had been so busy of late, and with the vacation I hadn’t prepared for the Bible Study. I went to listen to the other people’s discussion and to say good bye to them. It turned out that we mainly just had a going away conversation. It was great. Thursday evening was my going away dinner with a couple of friends. I wish that more people could have come out, but I planned it kind of late, and got to say good bye to most people at other times.

On Friday evening, after my last day at work I went home and about went crazy packing my final stuff. I somehow found that I had a lot more stuff left than I had thought. After donating a bit more at the night drop at the Salvation Army I managed to fit everything into my truck so that I could drive home… including stuff piled on the passenger seat so that I had to arrange it just right to be able to see out of my side view mirror.

I didn’t end up leaving until about noon on Saturday because of the final packing and cleaning of my apartment. I drove towards my mom’s. I stopped at my brother’s to visit him, my S-i-L, and my nephew. My brother had run to the store so I didn’t get to see him… but I had spoken to him on the phone recently. I then finally made it to my mom’s house and carried in a bit of laundry to do, and a couple of things that will need to be stored at her house.

On Saturday night I went to Kornfest, the festival in the town that I had grown up in. I got to see Fr. Malin, and Sisters Bridget and Jean whom I had known since I was just a little kid. I was glad to see them and be able to talk with them before leaving. I also got to see a couple of great friends. I had a great time getting back to Kornfest for the first time in a few years.

Sunday morning my mom and I went to church with a wonderful lady who has volunteered to help me with the issue of owing money on my truck. She is a lady my mom has known from work for a long time and who has a heart of gold. She very excitedly volunteered to give me the money to cover my truck. I don’t feel quite comfortable just taking the money as a gift at this point… it seems so odd to have something like that, but I am willing to take an interest free/no payment loan for the time that I am in seminary. I may be willing to take the gift as an Ordination gift at that point… we’ll have to see. We went to breakfast after church and it was great to get to know her, I will most definitely add her to my prayer list, not because she loaned me the money, but because she is a wonderful person who has asked for prayers.

Sunday afternoon I went back to my mom’s and did the laundry I had brought in yesterday. I will be leaving in the morning. I hope to go to Monday Mass at St. Elizabeth’s in Holmen, then I have to go to the DMV to try to register my vehicle in WI and get a WI license again for the first time in quite a while, I am excited about this, but not sure how well it will work since I haven’t yet received mail in WI so can’t prove residency… we’ll have to see.

After the DMV I am going to head down to Mundelein. I will get in and hopefully a few of the guys who are already there will be able to help me carry stuff to my room. I will then have to begin the crazy task of unpacking. I am guessing that as I go through the unpacking I will find stuff that I didn’t donate or store that would be good for that. My mom and her husband are coming down in early October for family day at Mundelein so I will be able to give this stuff to them at that time.
Please keep me and all those in seminary in your prayers.

Peace,
Adam

Getting Ready 3

2010-08-17T10:42:00.001-05:00

After I had let everyone know that I was going to seminary things started to move really fast. Everyone wanted a visit or to spend time with me before I leave. I understand what people are thinking, but it isn't like I will be locked away for a number of years. Although I will of course be restricted by finance and needing to get done all that needs to get done I will be free to visit people and see them even after I leave. I guess the one angle that I understand more on this is the people in the Iowa-Illinois area that I live in... I probably won't be coming back here a lot during my time at seminary.

Although I had started packing before being accepted to seminary it was now becoming even more serious. It was also very difficult... my last two moves were paid for by the government and professional movers had packed and moved all of my stuff... so I hadn't thinned out any of my property during that time. I also had a lot of stuff in my storage unit in Stevens Point, WI that had been just sitting there since I had sold my house two and a half or three years ago. So I had the long process of sorting through stuff. I had to decide what needed to go with me to seminary, there is limited room, so this had to be limited as well. I had to decided what stuff I wanted to keep and could store at my mom's house. Of the remaining stuff I had to figure out what could be sold, what could be donated, and what could be thrown away. This has been a long process.

I pretty much felt like I was preparing for any other move and career change... my faith life was already strong and I kept that up, but aside from that the preparations were pretty normal. At work I kept at all the stuff that I could and started to prepare turn over documents to give to my replacement. I hoped to be able to give these while training whomever it is before I left... However, there was too much interest from those internal to my project office so it has to go through a more formal hiring process with computer screening and interviews and such. This has caused me to rework the turnover documents ton an even more basic way to help the new person along.

Life started to change noticeably for me about mid to late July. The Diocese has a retreat for seminarians. A retreat is just a term for getting away from the day to day stuff to hopefully grow spiritually. I was truly somewhat disappointed by this retreat. It felt more like a seminarian conference than a retreat. A lot of very useful information was distributed, and there was great socialization with the other seminarians, but the talks and prayer time seemed almost just fit in, rather than the point of the retreat. I guess that maybe the other seminarians got more out of it and may have a different take, but this was my take on it. I had felt kind of odd going to this anyways. There were others in the same situation, but I felt odd because I hadn't yet started seminary. As I saw it, my primary focus should have been working to pay off my truck and preparing to go to seminary, probably not taking off of work for this, but I guess that is why I don't make those decisions, the Vocation Director does.

The weekend after the seminarian retreat was even more special. Newman Parish in Stevens Point, my home parish, was going to offer a blessing for me going away. On the way up there, I decided to see if I could take a couple of things to Mundelein Seminary to make it easier to fit my stuff when I finally moved. I got into my room and moved a bit of stuff in. I then drove on the Stevens Point where I finished emptying out my storage unit and took the lock off of the door.

The blessing used at the Masses on Saturday and Sunday was the same blessing that Fr. Tom's parish used when he left for seminary 20 years before... I thought this was pretty cool. My mom and stepfather and brother and sister-in-law came over for the Masses that weekend. After the Saturday evening we went to a wonderful couple from the parish's home for a little reception. Several good friends and some family were there, it was a very nice get together and celebration. On Sunday my aunt and uncle came to the Mass. They tried to surprise me, but I had grown suspicious since my mom had said that she wasn't going to go to their place despite being so close. It was great to see them, it had been a while. After that we went out to lunch and had a great time before all driving on our separate ways.

I had the Monday off, so on Sunday after lunch I headed over to my mom's house to spend the night. Monday I got together with one of my great friends who is also doing something special in her life, so it will be difficult to see her for a while. I then headed down for a stretch of work... my last long stretch.

This is probably too long, I'll write more later.

Peace,
Adam

Getting Ready 2

2010-08-15T09:13:00.001-05:00

Although by this point my work knew that I was leaving to go to seminary I wasn’t quite ready for it to get around for everyone to know… at least not until I had told a few more people in person. During the application process I had told most of the family that I am close to and I had told most of my friends that I am close to in Wisconsin and that area. The groups of people that I really wanted to tell in person before it got out to everyone was my friends and coworkers from my time in Kentucky and Tennessee.

I had a four or five day weekend due to working weekends on either end of a stretch and normal days off, so I decided that I would head to Kentucky first. I was going to leave after work one day, but I got everything wrapped up that I needed before the time off and asked my boss if he would mind signing a leave slip. He signed it and I hit the road. I drove and got to Kentucky in time to go to the Wednesday night Mass at St. Mildred’s, the parish I had attended while living there. I had always enjoyed going to the Wednesday night Mass there, it was a great way to break up the monotony of the week and bring my life back to being centered on Christ through the Holy sacrifice of the Mass.

At the end of Mass Fr. Mike made some mention to everyone that I was going to seminary… he had heard it from the two people that I had let know there, one is a seminarian for the Lexington Diocese whom I had been friends with while there, the other is the pastoral associate whom I had asked to write a letter of recommendation for my application process. After Mass I had a brief talk about the priesthood with Fr. Mike, it was very nice and as always good to hear another priest’s perspective on the life.

I drove to a nearby town where my friend the seminarian was working at a parish for his summer assignment. Him, and the priest at that parish had offered me a room in the rectory there for the two nights I’d be in the area. It was nice to meet this priest and to catch up with my friend. The next morning, after Mass at that parish I drove back to Somerset to see and talk to my former coworkers. I had let them know that I was coming, so many were able to make time to go out to lunch while I was there. It was great to catch up with them and give them the news that I was going to seminary. As is pretty common when I tell people, they didn’t necessarily understand the “why” of it, but were very supportive and happy because they do see it as a good thing when someone dedicates their life to God.

That evening I went to have supper with another former coworker and his wife. It was great. This couple is Baptist and him and I had talked about faith extensively when we were working together. There were the deep conversations on theology, as well as the friendly joking of each one putting forth that their denomination is better. We fell right back into our joking, and it was great. As I was leaving their place he promised to pray for me, I said “thanks, even though those Baptist prayers only count for about half credit.” We both had a good laugh over that one.

The next morning I headed down to Tennessee to see my friends there. Only a couple of them knew that I was coming. There was a get together scheduled for my good group of friends, so I thought that I’d just stop in and surprise them. It was great to see them and spend time with them. I was also happy to see their support when I told them that I was going to seminary. It was a great night of just hanging out with friends and celebrating my acceptance to seminary.

After that quick trip I was ready for it to be “public” for everyone who cared to know that I was going to seminary to study to be a priest. In this modern time the best way that I knew to get it out there for everyone to know was to post a note about it on my Facebook account. I got an amazing amount of support from all of my friends on that. As with others that I had told in the past, most of them that said something in private made a comment along the lines of, “I’m surprised, but really when I think about it I’m not.”

It was in private messages on the Facebook that I had people asking me to blog about my experience of the seminary, so that is what this is. I decided that if I was going to do that, it should be the whole experience, the discernment process, the application process, and the preparation for seminary before I even get there. I am hoping to post at least once a week while I’m at Mundelein, but my first priority will be the formation and academics there, so I apologize if it is a bit longer on occasion.

Peace,
Adam

Getting Ready 1

2010-08-13T16:59:00.004-05:00

So my review boards at Mundelein Seminary had been on Friday June 4th, 2010. Starting on Monday the 7th I waited anxiously for a phone call from the rector at Mundelein Seminary to let me know if I had been accepted or not. Although I was told by numerous people that these boards indeed are mostly formality, I wasn’t counting my chickens before they hatched. As I think I said in my last post the seminary normally lets a guy know through mail if he has been accepted. I had asked to have them call me so that I could give my work as much notice as possible if I was indeed going to leave.

I wanted to give my work as much notice as possible, in the hope that I could help train in my replacement. My job isn’t particularly difficult, but there are a lot of items to juggle and keep straight of what is going on. There are also a lot of issues that seem similar, but need to be handled differently. The last reason that I felt it would be beneficial for me to help train my replacement is the idea that on the Mississippi River there are only two people doing this job specifically north of St. Louis, and the two shops aren’t even run the same… so it would be nice to get a little time turning stuff over to my replacement.

On Monday the 7th I was in and out of my work truck alone all day and waiting on a call from Mundelein… it never came. On Tuesday the 8th I was still in and out of my truck, but my boss was going to join me mid-day. I hoped that the call could come in before he got in the vehicle so that I could answer it and actually talk to Fr. Lyle. It didn’t come, and then I met up with my boss and we started driving to the next site we were going to look at. About 15 minutes after he got in my phone started ringing. I looked at it, and it was the area code that I knew to be the seminary. I couldn’t answer that call since my boss was sitting right next to me, that wouldn’t be a very professional way for him to find out I was leaving, so I had to just let the phone ring.

At our next stop I got out of the truck for a bit, and we got started on our inspection. I made some excuse to go back to the truck and I listened to the message and got the wonderful news that I had been accepted. I was almost walking on air the rest of the day, but I had to keep it under control so that I could tell my boss in a more professional manner.

We headed back to the office on Wednesday the 9th. I had decided that I shouldn’t tell my boss in the vehicle while driving, that didn’t seem very professional to me. We were set to get back to the office in time that I could ask him to take some time to meet with me yet on Wednesday afternoon… but as we drove on my boss received a call that some personal issues had come up at home, so he had to leave right away when we got back… another stumbling block in the process of telling him that I was leaving.

A week or two before this, I had typed up a letter of resignation, and saved it on my computer at work. I took a little bit of the free time to make sure that the letter said what I wanted and that I had updated the dates in it.

On Thursday morning, I requested that my boss take a few minutes to meet with me in the library at our office. When he finally got in I said to him, “I want to thank you for the opportunity to work here, and to say that I do truly enjoy coming to work, the people I work with, and the work that I do. However, I wanted to let you know that I will be quitting in August to begin seminary studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary for eventual Ordination to the Priesthood.” He was obviously surprised as I started the statement, and surprised the whole way through it. I then handed him the letter and asked him to read it, and if he had any questions or issues with it.

In the letter I had written that I did have a vacation approved from August 11-17 to go to Montana to see my dad and his wife. Although I was only planning on quitting with three working days after that on the 20th I stated that I hoped I could keep my vacation and he assured me that I could. I also stated that I hoped he knew that I would intend to keep working at the high level he had come to expect and he made a statement along the lines of, “I wouldn’t have ever doubted that.”

The conversation pretty much wrapped up with him asking how I wanted to let the others know. I guess we decided that we’d leave it to him to tell the other supervisors, but that I could tell everyone else.

Most of my really close friends had known that I was applying for seminary, as had most of my family. But there was a few people that I wanted to tell in person still…

I’ll write more about this later

Peace,
Adam

Application process 6

2010-08-09T22:20:00.001-05:00

After my meetings with the diocesan review board and the Diocesan Administrator I was on to the actual seminaries application process.

The process of applying for the seminary was similar to applying for the Diocese. I had several standard paperwork forms, some of which I was able to just take the same answers I had given to the Diocese. Other questions required a slight reworking of what I had written since the questions were only slightly different. I don't remember many if any questions that were totally different.

The biggest difference was in the set up of the review boards. At the seminary there were three separate boards with two people each on them.
The first of these boards that I had was with the Rector of the seminary and the Dean of Formation. This one asked most of the standard questions that one would expect. Questions about why I felt I should come to the seminary and basic get-to-know-ya questions. They did say that they were the only ones there who had or would review the psychological evaluation, and asked a bit about my impression of what I remembered from that. The Rector of a seminary is basically like a president or chancellor of a normal college, of course with a little difference. So this board was mostly to see if they felt that my coming there would in any way be detrimental to the seminary (I guess they didn't).

The next board that I had was the academic board. This included the Dean of Academics and a member of the academic faculty... I forget what he teaches. In this one they were looking to see if they felt I could handle the academics involved in the seminary. They asked about my past coursework and how I had been challenged in it. I was asked about my study habits (and for some reason they are still letting me in). This was pretty straight forward, but also odd in the fact that I had never been asked some of their questions, so hadn't known much of what was coming.

The last review board that I had at the seminary was the formation board. This included the Vice Dean of Formation and another member of the formation faculty. While seminary obviously forms a man academically in the knowledge he will need for priesthood, this is so much more. Formation includes a man's prayer life, his life of service, and just how he lives as a good Christian. So in this board I was asked about my prayer life, what I had and where I felt I could improve. I was asked about my experiences in service to Christ, His Church, and His people. I was also asked about other aspects in my life so they could get a feel for where I was at in life.

I left feeling pretty good about my review boards. While their normal way of letting a man know if he has been accepted or not is by a letter a week or two later I asked for a phone call, since if I was accepted I wanted to give my work as much notice as possible.

That is enough for tonight. I will write more soon.

Peace,
Adam

Application Process 5

2010-08-04T21:59:00.001-05:00

After the review board at the Diocese is normally a meeting with the Bishop, so he can get to know you and you can get to know him. The problem in my application process with this is that the Diocese of La Crosse currently doesn't have a Bishop. Our most recent Bishop was transferred to become the Archbishop of Milwaukee.

So, in place of the Bishop I had a meeting with Msgr. Gilles (I'm not sure if I spelt his name right), the Diocesan Administrator. His job at this point is to run the Diocese until the appointment of a Bishop, he can't administer the sacraments reserved for a Bishop, but he does the typical administration duties.

Msgr. Gilles had also read all the documents which I had submitted and the letters of recommendation. As in the board review he asked a little about me and then asked questions that had stuck out to him from what I had written.

The one thing that he asked about that really sticks out in my mind was my answer to a question on one form about what I hope to see in the Church. I didn't even remember responding to that question but my response had been something about hoping to see a better understanding among the faithful and the clergy of what makes a valid Mass. To be valid in this case means within the understanding of the Church to allow for the sacramentality of the Eucharist. Msgr. Gilles asked me to explain what I meant.

What I meant by that answer is a hope to stop the petty bickering among Catholics as to who is celebrating better and to remove false perceptions that someone else is somehow worshiping "wrong". There are certain parts and ways of doing things in the Church that are required but there is also a lot of leeway in getting to that.

Some people are very traditional in their practices, while others are more progressive (many people use the words conservative and liberal respectively but those are too political for me in this). I have been in parishes who are very traditional and I overhear people (even the priest) mentioning something that a more progressive parish is doing and saying that it is a terrible thing and even saying that it is wrong when it isn't at all wrong, just different. I have heard people in progressive parishes saying the same things about the more traditional parishes. This pains me because it causes divisions in the Church that God gave us.

I am not saying that Catholics can do whatever they want in Mass, but a better understanding and acceptance should be brought about for those areas where there are legitimate differences.

The meeting with Msgr Gilles was great and I wish I had more time to spend talking to him. But he had another applicant scheduled so it had to end.

A couple of days later I heard from Fr. Hirsch that I was accepted by the Diocese, so it was on to the actual seminary's application process.

Peace,
Adam

Application Process 4

2010-08-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Okay then, I found out that despite hitting the triggers for trying to make a good impression (I wasn’t really doing that, I was being honest) that I was still going to be able to go on through the application process. I had a couple of friends who knew that I was applying for this and had been at the psychological testing. When they asked how it went my response was “I guess I’m crazy enough to be a priest, they say I passed.”

The next step was a little ways away, so I simply kept up on my prayer life, kept working at figuring out how to pay down/pay off my truck, and was enjoying my job and still going through life.

With my personality I normally get excited about any of the major life decisions that I have had (i.e. going to college, joining the air force, buying a house, which job I take, etc…) but a week or two after I make the decision I start to doubt myself, and doubt what I am doing. That doesn’t mean that those decisions were wrong, just that I have a personality that often second guesses myself in major decisions. I was, and still am amazed, that this wasn’t going on. I was truly feeling an incredible amount of peace with the decision to leave my job and enter seminary.

One thing that I was feeling bad about was the fact that I hadn’t yet told my boss that this was going on. I felt deceitful every time that the topic of doing something different next year came up. But I didn’t want to tell him until I knew for sure that I was accepted. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who waits until only two weeks out, but I wanted to know for sure rather than to shoot myself in the foot.

The next step in the process of application was what is called a review board at the Diocese. For most people I would compare it to a panel interview for a job, but it isn’t like there is a limited number of slots. It will be a thumbs up/thumbs down thing on whether or not the Diocese feels that it would be worth it to support me through the seminary process and if I would be a good priest for them later on.

Being me, I of course arrived way too early for the review board. So I sat around chatting with a couple of the people in the office there, while someone else was in on their board.

Finally going into the review board I wasn’t nervous at all. Whatever was going to happen is what was going to happen. On the board was Fr. Hirsch, the assistant vocation director, a religious sister, a lay doctor, a lay woman, and I think there was one other lay man, but I don’t remember for sure.

All the members of the review board had read the materials I submitted and my recommendation letters. I believe that they had read the psychological report, but I don’t know that for sure, the only thing that was asked was if I agreed with what the psychologist had told me the day of my testing. I told them that aside from the idea that I might have been misleading it for making a good impression I agreed with what he had said.

The doctor on the board of course asked about my cancer, what treatments I had been through, and where it was at. I don’t know if this sort of stuff would be normal in a regular interview for most positions, as I’ve never been asked it, but I fully understand and agree that it is necessary for something like this. The priesthood is a life, not a job, so they have to know that it won’t be detrimental to your health to live that life. Also, the diocese incurs an amazing amount of cost to support a man through seminary studies to Ordination, costs paid for from the donations of hard working people, they want to know that it will be worth it to do this. The doctor agreed with what my doctor had said, the type of cancer I had rarely has long term effects on a person.

Probably the only other significant question that was outside of routine was based on a comment in one of the letters of recommendation. One of my friends had written about concerns that I might be “too giving” of myself and not necessarily take care of myself because I was giving so much to others. Although the members of the board didn’t mention his name, I knew who this was because my friend had expressed that concern to me previously. I understand his point, but I think it is tough for a priest to be too giving, if people need help you are supposed to help them. It is true that if the priest is falling apart they aren’t much good to anybody. I think that I have always managed that aspect of myself very well. I can sense when I need to get away for “Adam time”.

In addition to my personal sense of taking care of myself the Church has a lot of that built in. A priest is required by Canon Law to take at least a week of retreat a year. Most Diocese have rules that a priest is entitles to 3 additional weeks of vacation a year if they choose to take it. In addition to time “off” an even bigger way to take care of yourself is of course through prayer. All the priests of the Church are required to pray daily the Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Holy Breviary. This is a series of prayers that are set up to occur at certain times of the day to keep your life focused on Christ. It is based heavily on the Psalms and various other scripture readings. It is set up for six different times of the day. Often priest have to condense down the frequency by praying more than one “hour” at a time (each takes normally 10-15 minutes but would be held at the various hour). There is so many other prayer opportunities that a priest can and should take, especially daily Mass that it builds in time to strengthen yourself.

Wow, this got long. In my next post I will write about my interview with the Diocesan Administrator for the Diocese of La Crosse.
Peace,
Adam

Application process 3

2010-07-27T22:36:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I had completed the interview with Fr. Hirsch and in that process completed the impediments to Ordination questionnaire.

The one possible hang up that Fr. Hirsch and I discussed is the fact that I still owe money on my truck. Although I am debt free in all other ways this could be a problem. As a seminarian I won't have many expenses since the Diocese pays for tuition, room, and board. But a seminarian is not allowed to work off campus and only receives a $250 a month stipend. So any debt could be a problem. We left it at just me working at it until I start seminary and then try to figure out what I have left if I will need to sell my truck or what may happen. I am now far enough ahead to have breathing room on this front.

After that meeting I got to meet up with one of my very good priest friends. Father Tom Lindner drove over to La Crosse to take me out to supper to celebrate my decision to apply for seminary. As I have said in previous posts he was very instrumental in the deepening of my faith and my discovering my vocation in life.

Father Tom and I talked about many things, toasted my decision and had a really great time celebrating this decision to follow His will. We hadn't gotten together since I had told him of the decision.

The next day I had my psychological evaluation as part of the application process. I had to take about 6 hours of book tests and the psychologist was scoring them as I went. We wrapped it up with a discussion on the results.

It turns out that I am an extrovert (shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me) while most people going into seminary and most priests are actually introverts. This surprised me based on the amount of interaction with people that a priest has... But it does make sense on the prayer and thoughtfulness side of things.

I also showed a strong sense of personal right and wrong while not being a very judgemental person, traits that don't often go together but I hope will be good for my life as a priest.

Another trait that the psychologist "found" (I could have told him all of this if he had just asked) was that I do crave the support of people and a need for interaction. Along with that I have a strong desire for affection and friendships, especially with females, while rating fairly low on the desire for the physical actions which so often in our society are assumed to go along with that. That is another thing that I could have told him as most of my really close friends are women.

One thing that the psychologist said that I took some level of offense to was that I had tripped the indicators for a person trying to make a good impression on the test. I had made it a point to go fast on the tests and not over think the questions so as to not get into wondering what they may be wanting in it. The answers I gave were as honest as they could get. I asked if it was possible that I really was those "good" ways, and he said yes, it is just some triggers that causes them to look twice.

Well, since I had forgotten to post last nights until today this is two posts in a day so I'll end here.

Peace,
Adam

Application Process 2

2010-07-27T13:42:00.001-05:00

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted here. I had a retreat for seminarians from the Diocese of La Crosse last weekend, then came back to a very busy time at work.

I was asked after my last post if I could post the forms that I had to fill out for the initial application process that I talked about in my last post. I don't feel that it would be prudent to do that, since it isn't my work. I am trying to keep this blog as my thoughts and my experiences… I'm not really sure what the rules would be if I started to put up whole forms like that. I do think however, that I could include a couple of the questions that were on the forms to give you an idea since there is an interest. So here they are.

When did you begin to think seriously of the priesthood?

Describe the process you have gone through in decision making from the time you began

to think of priesthood until the present time. How have your ideas developed or changed?

How would you define prayer? What part does prayer play in your life? How do you pray?

What is your view of ministry? As you look to the future and envision yourself as a priest,

what are you doing? Parish ministry? Teaching? Organizing people for social action?

If your interest in the priesthood could not be realized what vocation would you choose?

What is your attitude toward celibacy?

What qualities will you bring to the priesthood?

I think that gives a pretty good idea of the questions that were on there. The above were pretty much short answer sentences or paragraphs. In addition, as I said, there was the need to write an auto biography of my faith life and all aspects of life until this point. It covered a lot about family background, life experiences, and hopes in life. That sounds like a lot, but I do feel that it could have gotten into a bit more. I was asked to give 6 or 7 pages in the autobiography. I ended up giving both, for a total of 13. Sorry, bad joke.

After these documents were received by the vocation director, Fr. Hirsch, I scheduled an interview with him and my psychological evaluation.

The interview with Fr. Hirsch was a lot more than I had expected. I had thought that maybe it would be an hour of pointed questions repeating what I had already given them. There was a little of repeating the answers to those written questions, but to a great extent it was deeper than that.

Father Hirsch and I sat and talked for about two and a half hours. We talked about what I had written, expanded on it. He answered questions that I had about the process and the priesthood. Although I had most of the questions about the priesthood answered by numerous other priests it is always nice to get another perspective.

In addition to that Father Hirsch had some questions that the Church requires a vocation director to ask, and me to sign a form validating my answers. These questions were about the "impediments to Ordination." An impediment to Ordination is something that is in a man's personality or past that could make the sacrament of Ordination invalid. If you have these they need to be addressed early to see if Ordination is even possible. Some of the questions are pretty straight forward such as: Have I ever participated willfully in a homicide or abortion? Have I ever denied the Church's teachings or pronounced a creed in a non-Christian faith? Have I fathered a child? (Ordination wouldn't be possible until the child reaches the age of maturity in their society)

Others of the impediments to Ordination questions I was surprised by. I don't have any issues with them, but they did cause me to wonder about the details behind them. One of these was: Have you ever performed an act reserved for those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders (Ordination)? I wondered about that because many children "play Mass" growing up… that isn't what this is talking about. It is talking about someone who has attempted to deceive others into thinking that they were receiving a valid sacrament through their actions. Such as someone "hearing confessions" when they aren't really a priest and putting on that they are absolving the person's sins.

The other question that I was somewhat surprised about was: Do you have deep homosexual tendencies? This isn't a problem for me, but I had always understood that homosexuals were allowed into the priesthood as long as they simply followed the same promise/vow of celibate chastity as a heterosexual man. Or that a man who has "experimented" with it is in the same case as a straight man who has been sexually active. Again, I have never had any issues with this at all, but what I have since found out is that a man who has occasional homosexual attractions isn't a problem, it is a man who has deep seated tendencies to act out the homosexual attractions that it can be an impediment to Ordination for. Not passing or short term thoughts or actions.

I will end here since this has gotten long, in my next post I will talk about the psychological evaluation.

Peace,

Adam

The application process 1

2010-07-22T12:32:00.001-05:00

"What was I going to do about it?". I knew what I needed to do.

I was going to apply for seminary, that's what. God gives us free will to choose what we do in our life, but our life will be best, and happiest if we do His will.

The night that I made the decision to follow God's will and apply for seminary was wonderful. I was filled with such a sense of peace in my life that I can't even begin to describe it. This doesn't mean that there aren't question or that I didn't know about the challenges of what I was getting into, but that I knew He would lead me and guide me through.

A day or two later I sent an e-mail to the vocations director for the Diocese of La Crosse, Fr. Joe Hirsch. I also spoke on the phone to Fr. Hirsch and he e-mailed me the initial forms I would need to fill out.

Those forms included a standard application to get basic personal information. A questionnaire which wanted sentence or paragraph length answers to questions about my faith, church involvement, and thoughts on the priesthood was also involved. I had to provide a list of name and addresses of people who might be willing to write letters of recommendation for me.

The last thing that Fr. Hirsch wanted right away was for me to write a short autobiography. Although much of the information to be in the autobiography was already covered it was a format to expand on the ideas of my upbringing, life experience, faith experience, and thoughts about the priesthood and why I wanted to be a priest.

I got to work on these forms and the autobiography right away. Now that I was convinced of God's will being for me to go to seminary I was excited!

Peace,
Adam

What got me to this point 7

2010-07-20T21:58:00.001-05:00

So... I had joined a new parish and had a really great talk about the parish, the Church, and the priesthood. I was looking forward to getting involved at the parish.

I was still trying hard to figure out exactly what God wanted me to do with my life. I had recently gone to a discernment day event in my home diocese of La Crosse, WI. Although it hadn't had any ground breaking insights it was a good experience to meet others who were attempting to figure out God's will so they could follow it. Most of the people at this event were younger than me so while I listened to the discussion and prayed with them at the Mass I spent most of the time there in private prayer.

That event did give me some more thing to think about, and some more things to read that I hoped would guide me. Sadly, none of it had any glaring answers that said, "Adam, you should be a priest!" Or "Adam, you should get married!". I was still hoping for some big voice from the sky to tell me what to do. It didn't and still hasn't come, but it very rarely does.

Back in Iowa I was just going about my life and praying for guidance. I don't remember exactly the day, but one day I decided to sit down and write about the way that I felt. Not for anyone to see, I wasn't egotistical enough to think that anyone would want to read my thoughts (odd that I am now writting a blog, but people have asked me to).

What this writting turned into was mostly a listing in sentence and paragraph form of all the times I have gone back and forth on thoughts of the priesthood. It turned into a four page document on my computer.

When I was done with that document I sat and read it through a couple of times, even though I had just written it. Each time I read it I came to the same conclusion. Although at any given moment in time I may be thinking yes or no on if God was calling me to be a priest I could see that when I looked at it all there was no doubt. He was and is.

The next day I called the priest that I grew up with, Fr. Del Malin. I asked him if he could meet with me to talk about the priesthood. Although he is retired from pastoral duties he still says Mass quite often for the soldiers at Fort McCoy. We agreed on a Sunday that I was home to ride out together for Mass so we could talk on the car ride and over breakfast afterwards.

Although I was now convinced that God was calling me to the priesthood and I had been around priests regularly and knew quite a bit about it I wanted to know more. I also wanted him to read what I had written and see what he said about it.

Over breakfast after the Mass Fr. Malin read what I had written. His only question afterwards was, "What are you going to do about this?"

Peace,
Adam

What got me to this point 6

2010-07-18T21:56:00.001-05:00

So the decision to take the job in Iowa was pretty easy. It was also difficult for me because I was having such a good time in Nashville and had gotten to know so many wonderful people.

The work in Iowa was going to be more of what I always dreamed of doing. It would be easier to go home and see family and friends there. And if I was going to get married and have a family of my own it would be in my opinion a better place to raise a family. So I decided to take the job in Iowa and with a tinge of sadness started preparing to leave the wonderful friends I had made.

I got to Iowa and started the job. It was all that I could have ever hoped it could be. I found a couple of friends in Iowa and was looking at setting down some roots but was still unsettled about the possibility that maybe I was supposed to become a priest.

I started searching for a parish, and a spiritual director. A spiritual director is someone who will talk to you in strict confidence about your faith, the challenges with it, and give you some guidance on possible ways to deepen your faith. As happened in Tennessee I decided to try out the parishes in the area to see if I could find one that I liked and could get actively involved in.

One other thing I did shortly after moving to Iowa was to enroll in an evening class on Theology at the local Catholic university. I thought that it would be something I'd be interested in, something to do a couple nights a week, a way to maybe meet a few people, and also that it might help me in my discernment. It was very interesting, although very basic. It did give me something to do which was great. It was pretty much a bust on meeting people. It was mostly college freshmen who were taking it because they had to rather than they were interested in it. For discernment it did instill in me that I wanted to study Theology more, but didn't help me decide if that would be a for fun thing or a for the priesthood thing.

I quickly narrowed it down to three or four parishes but was really struggling to pick one. I decided that since I liked the Masses at each, and they all had multiple ministries that I'd be interested in getting involved it I could go with any of them. I decided to see how they offered the sacrament of Reconciliation and if I the priest at the parish was helpful with the advice in that. I ruled one out quickly that way. The sacrament was there, but the priest didn't offer advice to help me grow to overcome my sins. The next one that I went to was wonderful. I decided right then to join that parish.

I wouldn't normally have thought that it was good to decide on a parish just because of the priest because they get moved around and the parishes are so much more than the individual priest at the parish. However, as I said all other things were equal.

Almost right after joining the parish I set up a meeting with the priest. I wanted to talk to him to see about any ideas on discernment. I was also getting a feel for him in a longer, more in depth talk as I may have asked him to work with me on spiritual direction. That talk went great and I was planning to get around to asking him about spiritual direction, but was very busy for a little while so was putting it off.

That's enough for now. God Bless.

Peace,
Adam

What got me to this point 5

2010-07-14T06:16:00.000-05:00

I think I left off the last post with my move to the Nashville area.

My position at Old Hickory Lake was to be my "permanent" assignment. I would be there until I decided to leave. So I set about quickly to settle in and make the most of it. I found a couple of Catholic Parishes near my apartment that I thought I'd look at first. They were very nice, but I decided to keep looking around.

A short while after I moved to Nashville I had a setback in life. My wonderful relationship of just over three years came to an end. This was hard on me, I had begun to think that I probably was going to end up marrying her. The reason the relationship ended was actually a reason to be very thankful to God, but I don't want to go into that for her privacy.

Because the possibility of becoming a priest had been in my mind for so long and even during our relationship my first thoughts upon the breakup was that I should just do that. It took me a few days but I soon realized that would be one of the dumbest decisions of my life. I knew that even if I truly had a call to the priesthood I would question it in the future if I went in a reactionary way. So, I set myself to not even consider the priesthood for at least three months and until I had been on dates with at least two other women.

Before I could really get into any of that I had to finish my treatment for the cancer. The last step in this is a dose of radioactive iodine. That done I was stuck in my apartment for almost a week because I couldn't have any risk of passing radiation to others.

At the end of that week I decided to go into Nashville to the Cathedral for Mass. They have a "young adults" group of faithful Catholics based out of the Cathedral that I was interested in getting involved in. The Mass at the Cathedral was nice so I decided to go to the young adults Holy Hour the next night.

The young adults Holy Hour and the social dinner afterwards were great. Little did I know that I had just found my main social network of friends in Nashville. Aside from the monthly Holy Hours they got together regularly for socials, theological discussion, and service. Once I became active in this it was a rare night that I couldn't find something to do with someone from that group if I wanted.

I was greatly enjoying my off time in Nashville and the job wasn't bad. But I still longed to get closer to home. I had also accomplished what I had set before allowing myself to pray for His guidance on where my life should go. Sadly the discernment kind of fell back into the back and forth pattern of the last many years.

Early in the summer I was enjoying life greatly when I got a heads up about a possible job with the Corps closer to home, back on the Mississippi River, and a significant amount of my time being back to doing forestry work. It was a great opportunity, but with the wonderful life I had in the Nashville area I had a decision to make.

I guess that again that is enough for now... I'll write more when I can.

Peace,
Adam