From the Week

From the Week

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photo by julie70

A good seminarian brother of mine has been in the hospital for the past few weeks with some health issues. What started as an overnight stay turned into day after day of questions and few answers. Hopefully he is getting better, especially after surgery a few days ago, but please keep him in your prayers.

--2--

God always seems to bless situations even like the one mentioned above. It has been an opportunity for me to see how the priests of this house exercise their spiritual fatherhood. One of them has visited him every single day and when he went into surgery a couple days ago, he spent the whole day there. Another has dropped in quite often, always encouraging him and giving him a blessing. This may not sound so significant but for priests here at the NAC who are constantly asked to do so many things, taking time out to visit their own brother who is suffering is a sign of true fatherhood, an earnest desire to share the love of Christ. It's been an inspiration and a great witness for me.

--3--

photo by rene_ehrhardt

We had our final BBQ of the year last Sunday and we were joined by the Legionaries of Christ who brought over some of their men from Regina Apostolorum to play a few sports against us. After having a clean sweep last year in all 3 sports, we fell to the Legionaries by losing 2 out of the 3. We got beat badly in basketball and frisbee. They have some amazing athletes. Luckily, we beat them in the American classic...well not baseball...rather softball. 14-3. So at least we can glory in one blowout victory.

--4--

I headed up our hall dinner this week. We have a real nice student kitchen on our 5th floor that we can check out every once in a while to make a nice meal, either for a small group or something a bit bigger like a hall dinner. We put together a very American meal - 3 types of meatloaf (NY, Minnesota, and California), twice-baked potatoes, buttered garlic stringbeans, spicy chicken taters, salmon and cream cheese on crackers, and, for desert, brownies and chocolate cake. It was a good time but I think we all need to run off the cholesterol. :)

--5--

This week our NAC soccer team takes on Sedes Sapientia in the first round of the Clericus Cup playoffs. Let's hope for a win!

AMDG

This week at St. Patrick's

We're in the middle of finals week here in the States. This morning our academic dean, Fr. Bud Stevens, gave an excellent homily as he usually does. When he started out as academic dean at St. Mary's in Baltimore, the then rector asked him if he could teach a course called "theology of God." You're surely thinking that that comes from the redundant department of redundancy. The study of God of God? But consider that back then traditional courses on the Trinity had been crowded out by the likes of dream interpretation, theology of politics, and the theology of culture. Now those are important (well, probably not dream interpretation) but they're losing sight of what it's all about: God.

This semester I took a course on the philosophy of Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman. In one of his sermons, he said that worldliness means accepting the values of the world which tell us that this life is the only one there is. I wonder how many of us Catholics are worldly without even knowing it? We worry endlessly about which school we'll go to, what career we want, finding a spouse, etc. If we don't listen to the right music, or watch the right movies, or have a house of our own by a certain age, then we think of ourselves as misfits or failures. But where does God enter into our thinking? Should we not always be trying to please Him more than the world?

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking about seminary as just another secular university. We study hard and get good grades so the bishop will send us to Rome after we're ordained, so we can become canon lawyers, so we can eventually become bishops ourselves some day. That is NOT how one should approach the seminary. We study hard in order to understand what the Church teaches. We want to understand what the Church teaches because some day, God willing, we will be teaching God's people what the Church teaches (and nothing but.) We teach them what the Church teaches all for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

If you're discerning whether God calls you to the priesthood, that is what you should always have as your primary motivation: the love of God and neighbor, and a great zeal for souls. Being the fallen creatures that we are, we all come to the seminary with other motivations thrown into the mix, but always ask God to grant you greater love of Him and His commandments. Study hard, do well on your tests and your papers, but never forget why you're doing so.

France's Recruitment Efforts

Associated Press just put out an article on the Catholic Church in France and their priesthood recruitment efforts. It brings up some tough questions facing the French Catholic Church today.

Among the questions the author Katie King proposes are the challenges of celibacy, the permanency of priesthood, and the low income.

I have talked quite a few times about celibacy myself on this blog so I will put it aside for now. The permanency of priesthood is an interesting question. I have come upon the idea of a temporary priesthood both in articles online and with people in the hospital here in Italy. It makes sense if the priesthood is what many characterize it as, another career. Except for the fact that it is not a career choice. It is a life choice.

I wonder whether if people took the promises of baptism seriously, they would not see the lifelong priesthood as something so far outside their desires or capabilities. Ultimately when we are baptized, we take on the promise to live forever in relationship with God and in service of His people. It's permanent, just like the priesthood. I think what we really have a problem with today is the ability to make a commitment, to sign a contract with permanent ink. We prefer the pencil. But the Christian life, as the call to priesthood, religious life, or marriage, require and demand life long commitment.

Perhaps the only way out of this sense of temporary priesthood is a deep formation in the Christian faith, an understanding that we are called to live our lives completely for Christ. The priesthood is one unique way to live out that calling. Should it be temporary? No, because like any vocation, it requires its permanency to allow for a complete gift of self. Would you tell a spouse before a marriage, "Well, this does not need to last forever right?" You destroy the very reason for marriage. Love, that is absolute, uncompromising, till death do us part love, and the priesthood, flows from this same idea. We marry our spouse as well, the Church, and we do it in a complete and absolute sort of way. Temporary priesthood takes that all away.

This other idea of income is, well, kind of funny. It is funny, in part, because I have never met a priest who was lacking, at least stateside. The Church and most especially the faithful take great care of their priests and even their seminarians. And two, because history, man's search for happiness, has proven that material goods never satisfy the deepest yearnings of man for fulfillment, authenticity, purpose, and ultimately, the one thing goods can never do, love! There are few greater ways to encounter and give love than the calling to priesthood, religious life, or marriage in a quite permanent way. With permanence, love comes to full fruition. You can trust the other because you know they are in all the way just like you are. There is no escape route. You enter in for the long term, all the speed bumps included. You can offer everything and know that it will be completely returned in love. Who needs money? :)

King finally concludes:

"Pourquoi Pas Moi?" or "Why Not Me?" is the slogan for the recruitment campaign — which today may prove a tough question for the Church to answer.

I could not agree more. That is, it is a difficult question. But it is not for the Church to answer. She presents the challenge to the young men of this generation and it is up to them to answer that call. It is up to them to ask, "Why Not Me?" God needs good and holy men to give their lives for the sake of the Gospel. The words of Jesus, "Come, follow me" never grow old but in each age beckon forth another generation of priests ready to offer everything to bring one more soul to God.

AMDG

Priestly Vestments

This is from Pope Benedict's Chrism Mass Homily from 2007 and explains the rich symbolism underlying the vesting of oneself in the amice (although today this is not necessarily used) and the alb. It was passed on to be by a fellow seminarian as we prepared for acolyte installation.



"I would therefore like to explain to you, dear Confreres, on this Holy Thursday, the essence of the priestly ministry, interpreting the liturgical vestments themselves, which are precisely intended to illustrate what "putting on Christ", what speaking and acting in persona Christi, mean. Putting on priestly vestments was once accompanied by prayers that helped us understand better each single element of the priestly ministry.

Let us start with the amice. In the past - and in monastic orders still today - it was first placed on the head as a sort of hood, thus becoming a symbol of the discipline of the senses and of thought necessary for a proper celebration of Holy Mass. My thoughts must not wander here and there due to the anxieties and expectations of my daily life; my senses must not be attracted by what there, inside the church, might accidentally captivate the eyes and ears. My heart must open itself docilely to the Word of God and be recollected in the prayer of the Church, so that my thoughts may receive their orientation from the words of the proclamation and of prayer. And the gaze of my heart must be turned toward the Lord who is in our midst: this is what the ars celebrandi means: the proper way of celebrating. If I am with the Lord, then, with my listening, speaking and acting, I will also draw people into communion with him.

The texts of the prayer expressed by the alb and the stole both move in the same direction. They call to mind the festive robes which the father gave to the prodigal son who had come home dirty, in rags. When we approach the liturgy to act in the person of Christ, we all realize how distant we are from him; how much dirt there is in our lives. He alone can give us festive robes, can make us worthy to preside at his table, to be at his service. Thus, the prayers also recall the words of Revelation, which say that it was not due to their own merit that the robes of the 144,000 elect were worthy of God. The Book of Revelation says that they had washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb and thus made them white and shining like light (cf. Rv 7: 14). When I was little, I used to ask myself about this: when one washes something in blood, it certainly does not become white! The answer is: the "Blood of the Lamb" is the love of the Crucified Christ.

It is this love that makes our dirty clothes white, that makes our clouded spirit true and bright; that transforms us, despite all our shadows, into "light in the Lord". By putting on the alb we must remind ourselves: he suffered for me, too. And it is only because his love is greater than all my sins that I can represent him and witness to his light. But with the garment of light which the Lord gave us in Baptism and in a new way in priestly Ordination, we can also think of the wedding apparel which he tells us about in the parable of God's banquet.

In the homilies of Gregory the Great, I found in this regard a noteworthy reflection. Gregory distinguishes between Luke's version of the parable and Matthew's. He is convinced that the Lucan parable speaks of the eschatological marriage feast, whereas - in his opinion - the version handed down by Matthew anticipates this nuptial banquet in the liturgy and life of the Church. In Matthew, in fact, and only in Matthew, the king comes into the crowded room to see his guests. And here in this multitude he also finds a guest who was not wearing wedding clothes, who is then thrown outside into the darkness.

Then Gregory asks himself: "But what kind of clothes ought he to have been wearing? All those who are gathered in the Church have received the new garment of baptism and the faith; otherwise, they would not be in the Church. So what was it that was still lacking? What wedding clothes must there be in addition?" The Pope responds: "the clothes of love".

And unfortunately, among his guests to whom he had given new clothes, the white clothes of rebirth, the king found some who were not wearing the purple clothes of twofold love, for God and for neighbor. "In what condition do we want to come to the feast in Heaven, if we are not wearing wedding clothes - that is, love, which alone can make us beautiful?", the Pope asks. A person without love is dark within.

External shadows, of which the Gospel speaks, are only the reflection of the internal blindness of the heart (cf. Hom. 38, 8-13). Now that we are preparing for the celebration of Holy Mass, we must ask ourselves whether we are wearing these clothes of love. Let us ask the Lord to keep all hostility away from our hearts, to remove from us every feeling of self-sufficiency and truly to clothe ourselves with the vestment of love, so that we may be luminous persons and not belong to darkness."

AMDG

From the Week

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If you want a easy way to increase morale in the seminary, try this. 3 weekends in a row with a BBQ and softball game. My morale is very high. :)

This past weekend we had a BBQ and a softball tournament with teams divided by the university attended. Santa Croce lost big time to the Gregorian but once again, the Angelicum held off the Gregorian in the final game 10-9 to continue their dominance.

--2--

We won. We won. We won. We're in the playoffs! We beat the French College 1-0. If you don't know what I am talking about, then look here. The Clericus Cup tournament starts in another week so we have this weekend off to rest up and prepare for another championship run.

--3--

I always like to say one of the advantages of NAC is the cultural experience. We get a sense of the universal Church (then again I already get this in California) but also the local Church, that being the United States. One most recent example was a conversation I had with a number of non-west coast seminarians. They mentioned this little critter called a chigger. I have never encountered one but supposedly they dig into your skin and if they are females, they plant eggs in you!

Admittedly, they are not as big as the picture below suggests.

--4--

A big congratulations to Fr. Avram Brown, a priest from the holy Diocese of Sacramento, who just completed his thesis for his license in Biblical Studies. Now if he can just get through the comprehensives, he will be back in the diocese in no time. I believe June 18th is the big day so consider saying a prayer for him.

--5--

Tonight is the big Cal-Neva social and dinner that gathers California and Nevada cardinals, priests, sisters, seminarians, and brothers from all across Rome. It should be a good time.

--6--

And lastly, for those who might care, there are ONLY 4 weeks left in the semester. That said, I believe my brothers at St. Pat's and Mount Angel are weeks away from finishing out their semester. Good luck and God speed as finals approach.

AMDG

Do Not Despair

Do Not Despair

This address was delivered at the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, Houston, Texas, April 13, 2010 by Most Rev. John R. Quinn, archbishop emeritus of San Francisco.

I am here to pay tribute to you, the priests of the United States. You stand on the front line. You meet the angry or confused or troubled people at the Sunday Masses in your parishes and missions. You have to try to answer their questions about the worldwide crisis caused by priests and bishops around the world. You are the ones out there in the parishes whose...

To view the rest of the article, click here.

AMDG

Good Shepherd Sunday

Good Shepherd Sunday is kind of like the day of priestly vocations and it just passed us yesterday. Here are some words from the Pope:

"On this day of special prayer for vocations, I particularly encourage ordained ministers, stimulated by the Year for Priests, to feel a commitment 'to interior renewal for the sake of a stronger and more incisive witness to the Gospel in today's world'; to remember that the priest 'continues the work of redemption on earth'; to pause 'frequently before the tabernacle'; to remain 'completely faithful to their vocation and mission through the practice of an austere asceticism': to make themselves available for listening and forgiveness; to undertake the Christian formation of the people entrusted to their care; and to cultivate 'priestly fraternity'".

AMDG