Retreat Reflection

Msgr.Whalen gave our seminarian retreat this summer and it was awesome to hear the matter of fact manner in which Msgr.Whalen surrenders his life to Christ. I supposed that's what 50 years of priesthood can mature into, fierce humilty.

I made some notes between conferences and adoration:

Christ desires more than impassioned cries of joy or distress, act to give everything in time to He whom you hope to spend eternity with.

I happened to talk to a priest who is on Vox Clara and I think even on the CDF on the day that B16's Motu Proprio came out, I'm so excited about the future of the ministeral priesthood, I think that in a significant way, this document's impact will help bring Christ's priests closer to His sacred heart.
-pax

exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo

There’s something transcendent about creativity that has a certain mystique and mystery about it. Activity we throw ourselves into with all the idealism of one in love only to find that we’re often embarrassed by what we’ve created; like young parents we keep trying, like lovers we’re drawn back by something greater than ourselves, a place where we can hide with the one we love, if only for a moment. Like righteous married lovers, we are embarrassed by what we reveal about ourselves and a little ashamed of the things we’d like to do, but place hope in God that our bodies are not really as vile as they appear to be in mirrors. We try to continue our daily lives, but are pursued by conscience, at once rebuked and pitied. We revel in the secrets built into the chasms of our souls, places we explore only in books and music, bedrooms and churches, mountains and oceans.

The Warren Commision

Is there some subtle and conspiritous power that people unwittingly participate in? Jim Garrison thought that Earl Warren had been duped by, or maybe even chose to participate in a conspiracy to kill the president, am I equally paranoid to believe that many of the people whom I assumed were untouchably righteous are daily duped into participating in potentially even more deadly evils? "Who is like God?" cried St.Michael the Archangel as he thrust Satan into the abyss that he created with his arrogance. I'm certainly no saint, but I wonder too if I am not simply dissolusioned by the mere idea of holiness.

I'm a week away from the end of the semester and I have two enourmous finals (Fr.Isaac, and Fr.Abbot). If it please God I'll barely pass my OT course.

My righteous indignation arrises from the recent student body elections in which I really hoped for and expected some substantive talk about what a student body rep might do to make this a better school, to help our brothers in their discernment. Truth be told I may just be reacting to the fact that I didn't make it past the second primary... but I'm really disapointed in the idiotic political suck up routine that I heard from most of the candidates.

Agnus Dei

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Inspired by Samuel Barber's arrangement of his Adagio for Strings as an Agnus Dei (which may be the perfect song), I composed my own arrangment of the Agnus Dei and recorded a rough draft of it. Hopefully I'll be able to transliterate it to sheet music, get Enzo to play piano and some others to sing and perhaps pronounce the Latin correctly...

School's going quite well. The semester is almost over!

Seminary Sucks

How different are seminarians, in the history of humanity? A group of guys discerning a call to the priesthood. Discerning! That is, trying to determine God's will, how hugely arrogant! But what a gift even to have faith in God through which to partake of such an endeavor!

Seminary sucks. It's a rather crude thing to say, but it's the truth, it's hard to be a seminarian. To want nothing else but to please God and have 100 people tell you how you fail every day. Necessary in order to participate in conversion, awfully beautiful and awfully painful.

We come here, sponsored by the good people of God of the diocese and selected by our respective Bishops, men who've dedicated their whole lives to servitude, to priesthood, and yet I can barely get through a week here at sem. And our diocese's need us so badly! I just talked to a priest from home this past week who's struggling to do the job of three priests and contemplating how the diocese is going to select which parishes to close as older priests continue to retire and die.

I'm supposed to give a speech this weekend to guys interested in applying to join the seminary and discern the priesthood. 35 unwitting souls, God love 'em, I hope all of them give it a chance, but sticking it out is more intense than they can imagine. Intense, not because it's honestly that hard to get good grades or stay under the radar, but intense because by being invited into deeper relationship with Christ to determine God's will, one is invited into purification, the purgative way, and by definition and invitation to brutal bloody death to participate in glorious resurrection, childlike and reborn.

A couple of my best friends are leaving after this semester, it hurts allot. They'll do well in life, but I'm still sad to see them go. In the end I'm just that more determined, I'm not ready to leave yet.

Seminary is in fact amazing. There's 100 people here working every day to give me everything I need to grow in love of Christ and participate in his life, that's an enourmous gift that I can't even begin to live up to, but I'm trying by God.