So these guys are from Baton Rouge and they run this Catholic Podcast. It is good listening if you want something int he background.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Catholic Underground
So these guys are from Baton Rouge and they run this Catholic Podcast. It is good listening if you want something int he background.
Lent Reading
Father Bryan Jerabek, a priest of our diocese, put together this Lenten Reading Plan. It looks to be very good if you can find the time.I love this image of Christ. When I reflect upon this image I am moved by the face of Jesus. It's as if Jesus is crying, agonizing and suffering, with a deep penetrating gaze of love which he has for me.
A Handbook for Marriage Prep
So I read recently that the Vatican will release a marriage preparation book for the Church universal. This will be helpful and I hope it comes soon. As for our diocese , and I'm sure many others, marriage preparation has been very subjective for the last how many ever years.
Here is a link reporting the story.
Here is a link reporting the story.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
11:45
That what time it is right now. I read quite a bit tonight and then went and prayed a holy hour. Now for some reason I can't fall asleep... I guess there is a lot going on. Obama was sworn in today and I'm a little worried that he is going to try and push FOCA soon. If it passes, and I pray it does not, my heart which already goes out to unborn as it is, will break completely. I can imagine Mary in Heaven crying out for her children and I wonder how long Jesus will allow the innocent to suffer before he returns. I know he desires Mercy... but his justice will be swift. I pray for the conversion of the world tonight.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Back in Ordinary Time
The regularity of my blog posting is less than stellar, but maybe that is not a bad thing. At any rate, I am back at Notre Dame Seminary here in New Orleans awaiting the beginning of the Spring Semester. This semester kicks off on Tuesday morning with my Christology class. Over all, I am taking 5 classes for credit and auditing one for personal enjoyment. The classes that I am taking are as follows: Christology (the study of the nature of Christ), Prophets (those in the Bible), Homiletics (learning how to give Homilies- "according to the teacher of the class"), Bioethics, Pastoral Counselling, and finally, the audit Human anthropology and Eschatology (Man, Grace, and Salvation). I will be very busy this semester but at this point in my seminary formation I am use to such things.
Next, I want to mention that the Christmas holidays were very nice and somewhat uneventful. I believe that God gave me the time I needed to get well rested because the next year or so is going to be very intense. I know for a fact that I will probably have a total of 3 weeks off until next Christmas. You may think that is a lot of time but in the life of a seminarian, it is not that much, because our breaks (especially around Easter) usually consist of service in some form (not that I am complaining, that is what we are called to do as Christians, I thank God for the opportunity).
Next, I just finished our annual silent retreat in Chatawa, MS. We went to Our Lady of the Pines retreat center and I must say besides the modern religious art (which was hideous), I thought the setting was very nice. The retreat master (person giving the retreat) was a priest from St. Paul, MN. He presented the retreat around the questions that Jesus asked in the Gospels. So he would present us questions for example, "Do you love God? Does God love you? Do you trust God? How do you see yourself as a future priest, How do you see yourself as a layman (now)?, etc. Then he would give us a series of questions that Jesus asked in the Gospel to the various people he was talking to. Then we would reflect on the question given and the questions of Jesus. It made for a very interesting retreat and I thought it was well done. Often times God speaks to us and we cannot hear it because we have so many noisy distractions both exteriorly and interiorly. The purpose of a silent retreat is to be able to pray (communicate) with our Lord without all the noise of everyday life. We leave the world behind for five days and have intimate conversations with our Lover (Jesus). In this silence, I found myself experiencing a wide range of feelings from loneliness to joy, and overall I feel I learned a lot and grew closer to Jesus. A good retreat for me leaves me with a resolve to continue growing closer to Christ which generally manifest itself in a number of ways. This year I have a desire to continue to practice holy detachment from anything that would distract me from God, my source of joy as well as learn to love my brothers and sisters in Christ (everyone) as I love God and myself. For if you do not love God, and you do not love yourself, how can you love your brother?
Finally, I've been reading G.K. Chesterton lately and let me just say AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME. The man is a genius and you do not have to be Catholic to appreciate his writings. He is the prince of common sense and I would suggest anyone pick up some of his writings and read. I am not surprised but yet disappointed that we were not introduced to him in high school. I went to a public high school and although it was good in a lot of ways, I now feel that the curriculum was lacking. How can you teach someone the basics of science without ever teaching them philosophy and logic. Anyway, read Chesterton.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. day here in the US. I am appreciative of what he stood for in his fight for equality for all humans. I feel that he represented part of truth which is unappreciated on a lot of levels. Jesus Christ is Truth and Dr. King certainly stood up for that Truth in a lot of ways.
Barack Obama will be sworn in on Tuesday in DC. He is the first black president of the United States and that is a great accomplishment. However, I also believe he has dangerous ideas on many fronts and so I will pray for him that he makes smart, intelligent decisions which respect the dignity of the human person from conception to natural death. On Thursday, hundreds of thousands will March in the annual pro-life march in DC. This march, which has being going on since Roe v. Wade is taking place two days after the inauguration of one of the most liberal thinkers of our time. This should be interesting. I decided to skip it all this year mainly because of the mass hysteria that will be Washington.
Until Next time...
Next, I want to mention that the Christmas holidays were very nice and somewhat uneventful. I believe that God gave me the time I needed to get well rested because the next year or so is going to be very intense. I know for a fact that I will probably have a total of 3 weeks off until next Christmas. You may think that is a lot of time but in the life of a seminarian, it is not that much, because our breaks (especially around Easter) usually consist of service in some form (not that I am complaining, that is what we are called to do as Christians, I thank God for the opportunity).
Next, I just finished our annual silent retreat in Chatawa, MS. We went to Our Lady of the Pines retreat center and I must say besides the modern religious art (which was hideous), I thought the setting was very nice. The retreat master (person giving the retreat) was a priest from St. Paul, MN. He presented the retreat around the questions that Jesus asked in the Gospels. So he would present us questions for example, "Do you love God? Does God love you? Do you trust God? How do you see yourself as a future priest, How do you see yourself as a layman (now)?, etc. Then he would give us a series of questions that Jesus asked in the Gospel to the various people he was talking to. Then we would reflect on the question given and the questions of Jesus. It made for a very interesting retreat and I thought it was well done. Often times God speaks to us and we cannot hear it because we have so many noisy distractions both exteriorly and interiorly. The purpose of a silent retreat is to be able to pray (communicate) with our Lord without all the noise of everyday life. We leave the world behind for five days and have intimate conversations with our Lover (Jesus). In this silence, I found myself experiencing a wide range of feelings from loneliness to joy, and overall I feel I learned a lot and grew closer to Jesus. A good retreat for me leaves me with a resolve to continue growing closer to Christ which generally manifest itself in a number of ways. This year I have a desire to continue to practice holy detachment from anything that would distract me from God, my source of joy as well as learn to love my brothers and sisters in Christ (everyone) as I love God and myself. For if you do not love God, and you do not love yourself, how can you love your brother?
Finally, I've been reading G.K. Chesterton lately and let me just say AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME. The man is a genius and you do not have to be Catholic to appreciate his writings. He is the prince of common sense and I would suggest anyone pick up some of his writings and read. I am not surprised but yet disappointed that we were not introduced to him in high school. I went to a public high school and although it was good in a lot of ways, I now feel that the curriculum was lacking. How can you teach someone the basics of science without ever teaching them philosophy and logic. Anyway, read Chesterton.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. day here in the US. I am appreciative of what he stood for in his fight for equality for all humans. I feel that he represented part of truth which is unappreciated on a lot of levels. Jesus Christ is Truth and Dr. King certainly stood up for that Truth in a lot of ways.
Barack Obama will be sworn in on Tuesday in DC. He is the first black president of the United States and that is a great accomplishment. However, I also believe he has dangerous ideas on many fronts and so I will pray for him that he makes smart, intelligent decisions which respect the dignity of the human person from conception to natural death. On Thursday, hundreds of thousands will March in the annual pro-life march in DC. This march, which has being going on since Roe v. Wade is taking place two days after the inauguration of one of the most liberal thinkers of our time. This should be interesting. I decided to skip it all this year mainly because of the mass hysteria that will be Washington.
Until Next time...
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Long Time Coming...
Slacking with my blogs.... but like any good seminarian, I have an excuse. I am as always too busy to do anything other than study, eat and sleep.
Now, to let you the reader know the scoop... first, we were blown out by St. Ben's in the football game... but we stole the trophy the night before and painted their field, and thus in a way we sort of won. And really, even though we lost the football game, I did win my challenge in ping pong, which is a far superior sport.
Next, our last final is next week on the 11th. I am pretty stoked, as is the norm, about this semester coming to completion. I will be heading to Birmingham after my last final and am making plans to visit various parishes while at home. I look forward to seeing everyone in Birmingham; and by that I mean everyone that I normally see. The plan was to go on a trip to Colorado right after school was out, but I decided to cancel this because I really feel it is important to be in the diocese this Christmas break. I will not be back in Birmingham for any significant amount of time until summer of 2010 and I need to spend as much time with the people and priests as possible.
Now, to let you the reader know the scoop... first, we were blown out by St. Ben's in the football game... but we stole the trophy the night before and painted their field, and thus in a way we sort of won. And really, even though we lost the football game, I did win my challenge in ping pong, which is a far superior sport.
Next, our last final is next week on the 11th. I am pretty stoked, as is the norm, about this semester coming to completion. I will be heading to Birmingham after my last final and am making plans to visit various parishes while at home. I look forward to seeing everyone in Birmingham; and by that I mean everyone that I normally see. The plan was to go on a trip to Colorado right after school was out, but I decided to cancel this because I really feel it is important to be in the diocese this Christmas break. I will not be back in Birmingham for any significant amount of time until summer of 2010 and I need to spend as much time with the people and priests as possible.
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