I am gonna make it through this year

Made it through my first week at seminary. I freaking love it here already, and as with all loves, I know I'll grow to hate it too. The first couple days were just the agonizing orientation, which left me rather disoriented (it's very surreal for me to be here, living this way, striving for this goal) but at the closing of the orientation, Rector Fr. Benedict gave a stirring speech that made all the drudgery worthwhile. He gave us three simple pillars upon which we should focus our energy. First, to grow in prayer, to spend time with Christ who is present in the Eucharist. Second to be present and grow in our participation in liturgy and community prayer, especially the Eucharist. And third, to grow closer to Christ by meditation on the Rosary, and by imploring the BVM's intercession as her sons in Christ.



This is my dorm, St.Michael's. It's supposedly haunted but St.Michael takes care of us. More pics later, gotta go to class.

all heart's get broken

I had my last day of work on friday; I might actually keep up with some of the people
I worked with, it was an ok job.
I had my last spiritual direction meeting with Fr.Cook; a holy priest if I ever met one, I've been attending Mass at St.Pete's most of the summer, Fr. is alive in faith and it's an inspiration to see. If I join St.Pete's they'll have five seminarians (more than any other parish in the US).
I had my last big party; all my friends threw me a going away party over at Zak's. We grilled, we reminisced, we drank, we played bored games. Mike got "hilarious"; (good Catholic kids don't get drunk (of course)).
I sold the lexus to Patrick; I had to clean it out and I found all sorts of stuff that I'd been looking for (but not the title, I'll have to visit the courthouse tommorow).
I said goodbye to my buddie Charlie; he leaves for lawschool in MI later today.

A rather strange thing's happened the past few weeks. I'm so happy to be going to seminary, that for the first time in my memory, I think I'd actually be a little bummed out if God said it was time to go. I feel like a little kid thinking about his new toy or something. So happy just to wake up and have the joy of it's presence, except my joy is sparked by thought of the eternal God and serving Him. Hopefully that won't wear out like my rollerblades or my bike I got in 8th grade.

I'm just starting to realize that I'm really gonna miss being in town with my friends, seeing them and being around them. God is good to me in the people He's let me meet. Something that's really broadsided me though, was the realization that I can't have a girlfriend while in seminary. Not that I've had a serious girlfriend in awhile, but damn. That's ironic. Guess it's one of those "grass is greener" things but I'm just laughing at myself now cause I was all cool about "yeah I could live without a girl", but now that I'm actually embarking on this whole thing, I'm second guessing myself; that will be a hard aspect of discernment to come to terms with. (not that I have to figure that out now).

According to my brother, it's all a bunch of crap anyways.

Ave Maria

I want to explore the thread of my prayer life as it's wandered it's way through the past several years, and brought me to this day: I just found out today that I've been accepted by Conception Seminary College in Conception, MO and I'll be starting in two weeks as a seminarian for the archdiocese of Omaha. I was very happy today to find that Mass was said in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary (to whom I owe my life and vocation) in memory of the dedication of St.Mary Major in Rome (one of the oldest Marian churches dedicated soon after the 5th century decree of Pope Sixtus III, whom declared Mary Mother of God at the council of Ephesus).

Growing up I always participated in family prayer, and I never left the church, always went to Mass and occasioned confession, but I didn't really wake up spiritually and develop my own prayer life or devotion untill I was 19 or 20 but God had already been making deep inroads in me through things I was already interested in, in music I began to find God. There were days and weeks and months when I became more and more depressed, sleeping more, avoiding people, but ever since highschool when I began to sneak into my brothers room to play his guitars when he was out socializing, I'd found quiteness and peace and beauty in playing guitar; it was like putting a tap in my heart and letting out the pressure.

I began to pray to recieve that sense of relief, selfishly for consolation, I'd pray the Rosary on my drives home from work; I worked in west Omaha and lived in Council Bluffs, a half hour drive every day at about midnight. I've come to terms with the fact that several times over the past three years I turned to prayer out of sheer desperation, and I turned to Jesus by imploring His mother to pray for me, and so I eventually came to pray the Rosary daily. I realize now that even though I came to God desperate and empty and wanting to die, despising His gift of life, that in His wisdom and mercy he's let me experience these things to bring me closer to Him, that my prayer is imperfect, that all I can give back to God is my weakness. I thank Him for the ministry of His Church and His mother to bring me back with such love, to show me that it is possible to be loved and to know God. No pain no gain I suppose.




This summer has been one of the most painful and yet rewarding periods in my life, and my prayer life has bloomed, to contemplate Christ's life, in His presense in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, to ask for the intercession of His mother, to recieve absolution through the ministry of His church and finally to recieve Him in Communion is an honor of which I will never be worthy, and yet, without stain of dissonance, participate in daily. I would never have been able to grow through the doubt and sickness of depression without my relationship with Christ, and my experience of His call to have life more abundantly, without his presance in my life; a presance manifested to us through His mother, the Immaculate Conception, to whom Conception Basillica is dedicated.

I'll be honored to call it home.

in due time

I've got no time to think about everything, I probebly won't get to untill I'm down at conception awhile and then realize where I am.

One thing I have thought about, almost half way through my last two weeks with my current employer, the fact that I'll never have to take another phone call and waste my empathy on software problems. God willing I'll never have another job I hate as badly as I do this one.

The people are cool, thank God, (I've never had to deal with coke heads and or thieves at work like Joe and Brian) so that's something I have here, and they've all been pretty cool about what I'm doing, even if they don't understand it at all.

Technically I haven't been accepted by the school yet, and I'm getting a little antsy that my vocations director hasn't called and said "everythings cool" yet, but all in due time.


At Dan Greene's prompting, I setup a flickr account to dump my misc pics onto, I have my other blog for pics, but I like to have some meaning or purpose to each picture I post there, flickr's good for randomness.