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.

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...

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.

Bonfire Game

Tomorrow is the annual Bonfire football game between Notre Dame Seminary and St. Ben's Seminary in Covington, LA. This event has been going on for many years and is a good way for the two communities to come together and have a day and night of fellowship.

Completed Evaluation

My evaluation is over, and it went about how I would expect it to go. Everyone was very supportive of my vocation and I felt good about the whole process. There are challenges from the staff which I need to work on... but this is life, there are always challenges! I'm so happy to be here discerning God's will. If guys only understood the blessing it is to be able to come to seminary, learn all about your faith and discern the gift of the priesthood, we would have more people taking up the call of Christ to come and see.

Evaluation Week

So... it's about that time again. Every year we seminarians here at NDS are subjected to an hour (sometimes more) long question and answer session by the administration. This exercise has been noted as being rather annoying to some while others find it "not bad." I personally have had pretty good evaluations in the past however each year they get a little tougher. Tomorrow, at around 3:00 (the hour Christ died on the Cross- according to Tradition) I will enter into a room where there were be a group of faculty sitting in circle and they will welcome me to join them. Because I have no choice as to be present or not, the welcoming must simply be a formality. Next, they will ask me if I need something to drink, a gesture to assure my comfort as if what I am about to undergo is going to be emotionally painful. I will politely decline and then we will proceed. The rector will then go through a litany of praises telling me of all the wonderful strives I have made, and all the growth they see in me. He may ask me a question about how things are going, I will answer with the usual response, "They are going great Father, thank you for asking, I am so happy to be here, etc., ect., ect." Then he will likely turn to our Academic Dean, who will look down at my evaluation, muster some phrase of praise (lasting no more than 2 maybe 3 seconds), and then proceed to ask me in what year did Irenaeus leave Lyons for his pilgrimage to upper Germany? I will then shift in my chair, throw out a fake cough, and ask him to repeat the question. All of these actions are not because of my current discomfort, but rather I am buying time to make sure I do not say something like "1532." The extra time I just bought will allow me to remember that Irenaeus was an early Church Father who died early in the third century. I will proudly state, "Well, I'm not sure about which year, but I believe it was likely circa 180." At this point, everyone in the room except for the academic dean will nod with approval... thoughts will abound along the line of, "that a boy Vincent... you answered that well!" Then the academic dean will proceed to tell me that Irenaeus never went to upper Germany and that I need to do a better job of assimilating the knowledge I have learned here at NDS.

At this point there will be an uncomfortable laugh by everyone except from myself and the dean. The dean will have a smirk on his face while I start to sweat. Next, he will proceed to ask me how I am integrating all of what I am learning here at NDS in which I will give a rehearsed response. He will not like the response because I did not use the word Homoousis, however, it appears as though I painfully survived his section of the interview. The rest of the hour will be spent somewhat in the same format with different heads of different areas of formation, however, none of the questions will be too difficult to answer. It will end with another litany of praises by everyone except the dean and it will be on to next year. Luckily I only have 2 more evaluations to go before ordination... which is the biggest blessing about getting past tomorrow's evaluation.

Happenings at Notre Dame

So, I am in my room right now prolonging the inevitable reading of Hispanic Ministry: Three major Documents. It's not that I do not like Hispanic Ministry, although I am very limited with respect to it, it's that I do not particularly like the paper we have to write every week. However, that does not change the fact that it must be done tonight. Speaking of tonight, Fr. Bryan Jerabek is flying in from Huntsville to visit us Birmingham guys. It is actually good timing as I am not as normal and completely swamped. Having the priests come is great; it shows us that they support us, but more importantly there is a unwritten obligation to take us out to dinner. I suppose I will enjoy this at least for two more years, then I will be the one paying. But it is totally worth it. Then on Friday, Fr. Bryan Lowe is coming down; he is our vocation director and will be in town for Kevin Liner and my own evaluations. Having to endure evaluations earns a pretty hefty meal at a nice restaurant. That reminds me... Kevin and I need to shop around to see where we want to eat Friday night.

Saturday, the New Orleans seminarians along with some other guys are getting ordained to the Deaconate. This is awesome!! I love ordinations for obvious reasons, and I am happy for these guys. Of course, Auburn is playing Georgia during this, so I will miss some of the game. However, this year that isn't as big of a problem as it has been in the past as Auburn is pretty bad.

Okay... I think I've blogged enough...