Saturday afternoon and Sunday of the experience in Burkina Faso with Catholic Relief Services

Hello again,

Happy Easter to everyone.  I was away doing stuff at the parish for Holy Week and had a great time.  Now back to the trip to Burkina Faso with Catholic Relief Services.

After leaving the SILC project we went to see a community garden.  Not just a community garden, as the whole place is a farm during the rainy season.  We went to see an area where CRS had helped put in irrigation for a small patch.  This area was about 8.5 Hectare and included 170 plots given to different families.  Burkina Faso has only about a 3 month rainy period with the rest of the year being dry and inhabitable to crops.  This project allows the Burkinabe to grow a small amount of crops year round.  With this they are able to help themselves, rather than needing handouts during the year. 

One thing that people told us that this irrigation project really helps with is to keep the families together.  Often time when the dry season hits some members of the family have to travel to other parts of the country or other countries to find work to help them get through.  With this project they are able to stay together and be a family.  After seeing the community garden we split into small groups and went to various house areas where people live.  Many times the houses in Burkina Faso are little compound like structures, but they are where everything happens.  Livestock wanders in and out and food is stored in the same area where they have a small spot for sleeping or cooking.  I went with a couple others to the house of Kouka Oumenga.  Kouka is a widow with 8 children.  She works hard and 6 of her children are able to be in school studying, she is unable to afford school for the youngest two at this time.  The area where Kouka lives doesn’t have its own school yet, she has to send her kids away and this is very expensive for them.

We left the community garden and our group split into three to stay at various parishes for the night.  I stayed in the village of Tougouri.  Tougouri is actually 42 small villages with the one main village where the church is.  28 of the villages have Catholics in them, but there are only two priests to serve them all.  They have a great program of Catechists to serve these outlying communities and the priests go around as they can to offer Mass.

Father Samuel, the pastor of the parish was there, the other priest had to go into Kaya for a meeting so we didn’t get to meet him.  Fr. Samuel is a man with a strong, calming presence.  He seems truly concerned for the people around him and gives whatever he can to help them.  He told us a story of spending his own money to drive people to the hospital when he can, a huge sacrifice since he doesn’t get much of a salary and the hospital is a long ways away.

Father Samuel told us that he feels that the social and human development projects that his parish has are a strong part of evangelization.  People have to be fed physically before they can be fed spiritually.  While at his site we were able to see some of these projects.  He runs a center for children that have been rescued from working the gold mines.  The gold mines are dangerous jobs and children work them almost as slave labor.  The center that Fr. Samuel runs helps these children get an education and skills training.  They are trained in sewing, or mechanics, or masonry, or woodworking.  We may balk a little bit at the age that these children are working these jobs, but these are skills that will support them for a lifetime and they would be working in the dangers of the gold mines without this.  The parish also has a warehouse where it distributes food when it can get food in.  They even have their own irrigation project of a sort.

Father Samuel also runs a center to train the catechists to work in the rural villages, this is a long training process and those going through it support themselves by growing crops and doing other jobs as they can. 

I really enjoyed my time in Tougouri.  The people were so welcoming and it was great to be able to walk around and observe some of the normal daily life, rather than the big, planned receptions we had been shown at other places.  On Saturday night we were even able to look in on a wedding reception that was going on.  The wedding receptions aren’t that different than here, they are playing music and dancing and simply celebrating.

On Sunday morning we attended Mass at the church in Tougouri.  The place was packed, and people were sitting outside looking in.  I wouldn’t even attempt to guess how many people there were, but it was well over 500 and maybe over 1000.  There were many great things about Mass.  The first thing that really hit me was the collection taken up.  Rather than passing a basket as is normally done in the States they place baskets at the front for people to come up and put in an offering.  EVERYONE came up and gave something.  I am sure that what they gave caused them to miss a meal or two, but they saw the importance of giving to the community.  I went up near the end and glanced in the basket, it was all small coins except for one bill of 500 xfa (about a dollar).  I put in a 10,000 xfa (20 dollars) and felt like I had given far less since I wouldn’t go hungry because of it.  I felt some sadness when I thought about that and one of the stories that Jesus tells in the Gospel of rich people putting in out the excess and a poor old lady putting in out of her need.

The Mass was incredible with the music and singing too.  They even used liturgical dancers to emphasize the importance at certain parts.  Then we got to the celebration of the Eucharist.  I wondered how that would go and was amazed beyond what I expected.  During the prayer of consecration the people were yelling with joy and then as the priest genuflected they were stone silent in reverence, they truly get the meaning of the Eucharist.

We spent Sunday looking around the village and spending time with Father Samuel.  We then went back to our hotel but I was forever changed for this experience. 

I will write about more experiences on the trip later.

Peace,

Adam

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning of my trip to Burkina Faso with Catholic Relieve Services

Hello again,

I’ll get right into continuing on with the description of my trip with Catholic Relief Services to Burkina Faso.  In my last post I covered the orientation, the arrival in Burkina Faso, and meeting with the staff at CRS Burkina Faso headquarters.  This only got me to the middle of the first day.

After the meeting at the CRS Burkina Faso headquarters and having lunch we went to our first site visit.  The site that we visited is one that sadly doesn’t get as much support as CRS would like to give.  The sad fact is that CRS doesn’t have enough money to help everyone that they would like to and they have to prioritize as best as they can.  We had a couple of the CRS Burkina Faso staff with us when we went to this site and I could see that they wished they could do more, but they just couldn’t.

The site was the Delwende center.  This is the center that I mentioned in a previous post that I would be going to.  This center is a refuge for women who have been accused of witchcraft. 

A little bit on the culture of Burkina Faso is in order.  The best statistics I can find put the religions in the country as being about 50-60% Muslim, about 15-20% Catholic, about 5% Protestant and the rest being part of the traditional animist belief systems.  However, there is a saying that in Burkina Faso 50% are Muslim, 50% are Christian and 100% are animists.  Despite their being part of more formalized faiths most Burkinabe still hold some of their traditional beliefs.  This is in part because for them these beliefs explain certain things in a way that is easier to understand, and the formalized religions use a bit more modern understanding of the world within their system.

One of the areas that the animist religions show through is in the understanding of early deaths.  Despite its sad commonality there is a struggle for the Burkinabe to understand when a child dies.  They look to their traditional beliefs which say that the soul of the child must have been stolen by a witch.  This is obviously more common in the rural areas and less so in the more developed cities.  When a child dies they look for the witch that must have stolen their soul.  Once an accusation is made it is assumed to be a true accusation.  Most of the time the accusation of being a witch falls on an older woman, typically either unmarried or widowed.  Most of the time this woman is childless, but occasionally she does have children of her own.

Once the woman is accused she is run out of the village with only what she has on her at the time.  Her house is burned down and she is not allowed back into the village.  Many of these women will die out in the bush; it is a very harsh climate.  A lucky few are able to find their way to a center that some charity runs for these women.  But even then their life is hard.  They have to deal with the fact that they have been exiled from what they knew.  They are not able to ever contact any family that they may have.  And they are looked at with suspicion even by those who are more educated in the society.

The centers scrape by on donations and limited income opportunities.  At the Delwende center they make thread out of cotton that they buy and they grow a garden, both to feed themselves and to sell the excess.  The Delwende center does have a nurse come in for healthcare, but with the age of these women it could never be enough.  As I said, CRS used to support the Delwende center to a great extent, however, as budgets are tightened and restrictions are placed on some donations they have had to cut back.  They still give what they can, but it would be so much better if they could do more.

At the Delwende center we met a German nun named Sr. Maria.  She has given 40 years of her life to the people of Burkina Faso and has been at the Delwende center for much of this time.  Sr. Maria was an example of love and self-giving, an amazing woman.  When she spoke to us she spoke of course of the need to provide essentials for these women, but was even more emphatic on the need to help educate the people of Burkina Faso so that this culture will not continue to harm these women in this way.  That was also the wish of those who were living at the Delwende center as best as I could tell.  The women living there don’t expect their lives to get much better, but they hope that something is changed so that others don’t have to go through this in the future.

After the Delwende center visit we had a couple of hours to go to get to the hotel that we were staying at for the night.  The next day was a great day of seeing what CRS does.  One thing to note is that while CRS of course does emergency relief and helps provide for immediate needs such as food and shelter, there are a lot of places where it focuses on development assistance, projects that will help the people to help themselves.  In Burkina Faso it does all of these.  I didn’t see any immediate emergency situation needs, but they are gearing up for that because towards the end of the last rainy season the rains didn’t come so the crops were significantly less, if not complete failures.  All the weather models show that a drought period is starting in that area so CRS is gearing up for that, above and beyond what they do all the time.  During my trip I witnessed more of the everyday things that they do.

One development project that I was very, very, very impressed with was what we went to visit the morning of our second full day in the country.  We were greeted as we arrived in the village by singing and dancing of what had to be most of the village.  They were excited to greet us, both simply for being strangers, of whom they are a welcoming people, and the fact that we were representing CRS.  In this village, named Retkuilga, they knew how much they had been helped by CRS and were very thankful.

In the village of Regkuilga we were visiting a SILC.  SILC stands for Savings and Internal Lending Community.  This is a project that CRS runs that has had great success and is very popular.  Word spreads about it and CRS gets requests to help set up SILCs in other places. 

A SILC is a microfinance operation, but not the microloans that you may be familiar with, where money comes from elsewhere and is paid back to elsewhere.  In a SILC there are between 10 and 30 members, most often women, but not always, and they meet every week.  They set an amount that each person will save each week, and then give loans out of that to members of the group that will help them to prosper, or at least have opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

There is so much more to the SILC.  Each group is run by its members.  CRS doesn’t provide any start-up funds, but what they do provide is a strong box, some locks, and the ledgers to keep track.  CRS also provides the format, and in the village a person trained to help guide the groups, there can be many groups in one village.  Each SILC runs for about 10 months, from the end of the rainy season to right before the next rainy season.  Any savings and interest is dispersed at the start of the next rainy season so that people can buy essentials, such as seeds, to help them make survive, and maybe make some money.

So, what happens is that each group sets the minimum amount to save each week, every member of the SILC has to be at the meeting each week.  There are three different locks on the strong box, the box is kept by one person and a key by each of three different people.  They gather and after the box is opened each person comes forward and puts in their savings.  The amount at the group I was at in their first year was 100 XFA, about twenty cents.  Each person can save up to five times that in any given week.  The amount saved is tracked in a ledger, since most people in Burkina Faso are illiterate they track it with stamps in boxes.  Once the money is set aside they hear loan requests and decide what may be a good project to loan money to.  This could be something like buying a sheep or a goat to raise to sell.  If the group decides to loan the money it will later be paid back at a set interest rate.  If they decide that the loan isn’t a good idea they work together to advise the person on how to make it better.

Now a really amazing thing with the SILCs, each group is required to have a social fund that everyone contributes to.  This is money set aside to simply help the other members of their group.  For example, one woman mentioned that she had been helped by the social fund allowing her to go to the city for medical care, she returned from that to be a productive member of the community.

While saving seems obvious to us, we heard constantly how much the members of the SILC appreciated being taught about saving.  With the poverty rate they hadn’t saved before, so they didn’t have money to buy seed when they needed it and the cycle went on.  With this savings and the ability to get loans the members mentioned that they truly are living better.  So much so that in this, the third year that the group is running they have tripled the amount of savings that they do each week, they now save 300XFA, about 60 cents as the unit, again someone can save up to five times that.  I glanced at some of the ledgers, most are saving between 2 and 4 times that amount weekly, so $1.20-$2.40 on average, impressive savings rates when the national income averages just $345 per person per year.  This is truly a program that helps people to help themselves.  CRS has minimal investment, but provides the things that are necessary, especially guidance, to help people.

The village was so very thankful for our visit, the people danced and sang as we were leaving too.  Then they stopped us and gave us a gift to show their thanks.  The gift was a goat, an amazing gesture on their part, to the level that we really don’t comprehend.  We took it, as telling them to keep it would be in insult.  We later gave that goat to the Delwende center to help them out a little bit.

I will write about the rest of that day in a later post.  I hope you are enjoying my experience.

Peace,

Adam

Beginning of the trip to Burkina Faso with CRS

Hello,

So, it has been quite a while since I’ve written.  Before my trip to Burkina Faso; which began over a month ago.  I am sorry about that, but I was really trying to figure out how to write about the experience.  It may take more than one post, so we’ll see how much I write tonight.

First of all, let me ask you all for prayers for the repose of the soul of my Aunt Gerrie who passed away yesterday.  I didn’t know her well, but I loved what I knew of her and I know that she was well liked by many people.  So please say a prayer for her.

Well, onto the trip.  It was an amazing experience.  I have done some international travel in the past, including to poor countries but every experience is unique.  As I said before I left, I have supported Catholic Relief Services for a long time, but was very happy to be going to see what they did first hand.

The trip started out with us going to Baltimore.  Baltimore is where the headquarters for CRS is at, so we were to have an orientation and meet the others who were going to be traveling with us.  In the group were 6 seminarians (counting me) from here at Mundelein Seminary and one of the priests from here, a priest from the Tucson, Arizona Diocese, and a priest from a religious order who is currently assigned out East.  There were also two staff members from CRS.  One of these is the director of the GlobalFellows program and the other works on Capital Hill in advocacy, a lobbyist. 

Our group hit it off right away and we enjoyed each other’s company even during the orientation sessions.  The sessions included topics such as CRS structure, general CRS programs, a briefing by the Western Africa coordinator at the headquarters and how to spread the CRS message.  We also heard about CRS’ US operations, how they spread the word to Catholics here in the US to get support.  This was pretty interesting, but mainly stuff that I was at least somewhat familiar with. 

One of the most common programs that people know about CRS is their Operation Rice Bowl.  This is a program that they run each Lent in which they give out this little cardboard “rice bowl” with some information on their programs.  The bowl is a little piggy bank type thing that people are encouraged to put money in as part of their Lenten almsgiving, but in addition to being a fundraiser it is hoped that it will get people to educate themselves about people in need and how CRS serves them.  Hopefully people will say a prayer for those in need whenever they can and be reminded to do this by the presence of the rice bowl.  One thing that I found amazing was that while 8.4 million rice bowls are given out each year the collection from them only amounts to $8million.  Less than one dollar per rice bowl, I was amazed, and disappointed by that.

After the orientation time we headed out for Burkina Faso, with a connection in Paris, the flights were 7-8 hours each, so it was quite a bit of plane time, but that was alright.  We landed there on Thursday the 16^th of February at about 5:30 PM local time if I remember right.

One thing that I go through each time that I go to a poverty area happened again as we were flying into Ouagadougou, the capital.  This is the earliest it has happened, but it does get earlier each time.  I was looking out the window of the airplane and saw what looked like a dusty sports field with people running around on it, they were kids playing soccer.  A little bit later I saw another field with kids playing soccer and then a third.  It hit me, as it does each time, that of course kids are going to be running around playing games, they should be.  Despite the poverty they still find ways to enjoy life, the kids play games and play with toys (maybe something as simple as a water bottle that becomes a toy) and adults sit around talking and joking.  I don’t know why this always has to strike home to me again, especially since I’ve seen it so many times, but it does, it isn’t what we think of when we think of places of poverty.

We didn’t do much that first evening, we went to a retreat center where we were going to be spending the night and settled in after dinner.  The next day the first thing we were going to do was to go to the CRS Burkina Faso headquarters.  We met the senior staff.  One thing that did surprise me was how much of the staff were native Burkinabe.  I guess that I thought that most aide organizations had a lot of staff from the country they are based out of.  The staff of CRS in Burkina Faso consists of about 100 people, only 4 of whom are American, the rest, including the country director, are from Burkina Faso.  The staff gave us a briefing on the programs and operation they have.  It was incredible listening to them, not so much in what they said, which was describing wonderful programs, but the pride they have in helping people, their people.  They see the good that CRS does, some of them have been served by CRS in the past and are happy to be passing on the good works.  The love that they have the ability to help, they are also helping to direct what happens in their country.

This is almost two pages long already, so I will end here and hopefully pick up soon with more of the trip experience.

Peace,

Adam

Finals week Winter 2011-2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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