Seminarian retreat 2011

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

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

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

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