Happy Thanksgiving!

I realize that I am only 23 years old, but every Thanksgiving I come to recognize just how much more I have to be thankful for than the year before. And this year is no different. The Lord has definitely been keeping His eye on me and my family, and I can't thank Him enough for His goodness to us.

I also wanted to give a big thank you to you all: my faithful readership. Thank you for being companions "on the way," and for your prayers and support.

I am also especially thankful for my brother seminarians and faculty at the NAC. I pray that the Lord will continue to abundantly bless them, and finish in them the great work that He has started. And while this is the first Thanksgiving away from home for many of them, don't feel too sorry for them: they probably ate better than a lot of us will!

(Also, say a quick prayer for the New Men. This weekend is really their weekend. They have the New Man dinner tomorrow, the New Man variety show on Saturday evening, and the Spaghetti Bowl on Sunday, in which they will face--and vanquish!--the Old Men in what's sure to be an epic football game!)

A brief update: I'm doing very, very well. No doubt through the prayers of many faithful souls (which includes, I'm sure, many of you), I've not only found and purchased a reasonably priced used car, but also full-time employment. As is obvious nowadays, having found a job is nothing less than a miracle. I'll do a slightly more detailed post in the near future.

Again, may the Lord bless you for your friendship, and may you and yours have a very happy Thanksgiving!

With Crooked Lines

As usual, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. So—as far as old habits go—not much has changed.

That being said, there have been some rather dramatic changes in my life since my last post: many of them difficult, but all of them positive.

Before moving on to the details, I would just invite you to pause for a moment and pray the Angelus. I’m serious! The news I’m about to share might be a little shocking, so pray that Our Lady will ask the Lord to send us the Gift of His Spirit, so that we, too, might recognize and embrace God’s will when it is shown us.

The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Spirit. Hail Mary…
“Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.” Hail Mary…
And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Hail Mary…
Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray: Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts. That we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ Thy Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may, by His Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

In a previous post, I told you how profoundly powerful my retreat was in Greccio a few weeks ago. At the retreat, I was drawn to a level of comfort and intimacy in my prayer that I had never experienced before, and was blessed to view the contours of my discernment in this new light. But like any bright sunrise, the same light which drives away the fog and illumines the waking landscape also identifies those things that stand in its way by the length and depth of their shadows.

What I learned from this newfound clarity, I brought to (very) regular spiritual direction and prayer. As classes began and life at NAC picked up its yearly rhythm, my spiritual director and I continued to discern. Ultimately, this discernment led to a judgment: I should continue to discern, at least for a time, outside of the seminary context.

As you may be able to tell from this blog, I have enjoyed every moment of my time at the North American College. And, as I mentioned in my letter to the NAC community, I don’t think that I could have come to this realization if it wasn’t for the zealous and prayerful young men who—by their very presence—encouraged me to dive deep into prayer, study and community. In other words, it was the overwhelmingly positive experience that I had at the North American College that allowed me to hear, understand, and carry out the task God has given to me.

It goes without saying that the joy I experienced in Rome has made it all the more difficult to leave. But I leave with a profound admixture of peace and courage which I can only ascribe to the work of the Holy Spirit, since—in all honesty—I have no idea what I’m getting myself into!

What has given me the deepest consolation in this entire affair, paradoxically, has been its unpredictability: something that I’m beginning to discover is something of a hallmark of the God we call our Father. Our obedience to His will doesn’t lead us down the well-worn, oft trodden road, but rather onto the path that He has marked out for us. Everything changes when the Living God breaks in to our lives, and—if we dare to follow Him—we are in for nothing less than an adventure.

Oddly enough, I seem to have anticipated something similar in the small “about me” section of this blog when I wrote: “If everything goes exactly as planned, I will be ordained to the diocesan priesthood in June 2014. But while nothing is impossible with God, He often has things turn out very differently than we plan them!”

Believe it or not, as I write this post I am already back in the Southern Tier. Once I had notified all the proper authorities of my discernment, I decided to leave sooner rather than later, and the process of packing up and shipping out moved very quickly. While currently still reeling in the wake, I’m beginning to re-acclimate to real autumnal weather and the North American solar schedule. I also have a head-start on job and car hunting (before all the college kids get home!).

But what’s going to happen to this blog? First of all, I am still officially a seminarian for the Diocese of Rochester, albeit “on leave.” Just to reiterate: I do hope that, after this period of discernment, I will be returning to Rome for my theological education. Ultimately, it's in God's hands. In the meantime, however, “work, prayer and study” are in order. I can’t promise that any of these will be as exciting as they might be in Rome, but I will certainly continue to keep y’all updated if I’ve done/seen/heard anything post-worthy.


Being in Rome was an absolute blessing and was not a mistake. The people, places and events created a “constellation” that clearly demarcated the next step on my own path towards the Father. While my immediate future lies shrouded in mystery, I go forward in peace, taking comfort in the Good Shepherd who, no doubt, is leading me to my destiny.

Please keep me in your prayers, and I promise to keep you in my own!

PS: It is Peter Van Lieshout’s birthday today (Friday, November 13th). Be sure to wish him a happy one!

Greg at the Greg 2, et al.

As you may have guessed from my conspicuous absence ‘round these parts, the schoolyear has begun! We’re moving through the material at a reasonably fast clip and it makes for a lot of work outside of class. But no more excuses… Avanti!

NACers who attend the Greg have devised a system to help one another through the Italian material by assigning seminarians as notetakers and editors in each class. The so-called “Notes System” is organized like so:

Notetakers: While everyone is expected to pay attention in class and take notes, 4-6 notetakers are assigned to each class. The notetakers are generally our most linguistically talented brothers. They are responsible for taking notes in their assigned class and translating those notes into English (if they took them in Italian).

Redactors (Editors): The redactors assigned to each class are responsible for compiling the notes of 2-3 of its notetakers. He is also required to supplement or correct the notes based on the previous years’ versions.

Cappini: The cappini, the “heads” of each class, compile the two sets of notes created by the redactors, thus creating one set of notes for their assigned course.

Cappo: The one Cappo then gathers the 4 sets of notes (one for each course) and distributes them, on a regular basis, to all NAC students in the Note System.

I am a redactor for our course on the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. So far it’s going well (and I’m becoming very familiar with the material) but it takes a lot of time to compile and synthesize notes!

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I also promised fill you in on the “fun we had” 2 weekends ago:

A large contingent from the NAC attended the Canonization Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on October 11th. There, we witnessed the culmination of the Church’s meticulous and methodical process of publicly elevating her faithful to Sainthood with the Canonization of 5 new saints: Archbishop Zygmunt Szczesny Feliński, Rafael Arnaiz Baron, Father Francisco Coll y Guitard, Jeanne Jugan, and Father Damian of Molokai.

These tapestries are revealed at the holy men and women's beatifications. They are again put on display for the Canonization. From left to right: St. Rafael, St. Francisco, St. Zygmunt, St. Damian, St. Mary of the Cross (Jeanne Jugan). You can read some brief writeups on their lives here.

There were many Americans present for the Canonization of St. Damian because Molokai, the island leper colony where he lived and ministered, is part of the Hawaiian Islands. So while Damian is Belgian, I have some Hawaiians on my side when I say that we have a new “American” saint!

Also present were the Seminarians from the American College in Louvain, Belgium, where St. Damian studied, one of whom was Rochester’s very own Michael Costik. Apparently the video coverage of the Canonization Mass, at least on EWTN, frequently zoomed in on the Leuvenites (if I may coin a term).

If you look carefully, you can see Pope Benedict under the canopy, ready to begin the praying of The Angelus.

St. Damian, St. Zygmunt, St. Jean, St. Rafael, St. Francisco--pray for us!

Greg at the Greg

Well, folks--today was my first day back at school!

The Pontifical Gregorian University

The lectures were given in Italian (which was not a surprise) and I ended up comprehending quite a bit (which WAS a surprise). I have to keep in mind, however, that most of what was being talked about today was basic information about tests, lectures and theological approaches. But it was pretty cool nonetheless, and I'm psyched about beginning the other classes this week.

Since classes start at 8:30, the regular daily schedule looks a little something like this:
5:15- wake up
6:15- Morning prayer/Mass
7:00- Breakfast
7:45- Walk to the Greg
8:30- Classes begin
12:15- Classes end
12:45- Arrive back at the NAC
1:15-2:00- Pranzo (lunch)
2-6:45- Study/Free time
7-7:30- Cena
7:30 onward- Free time until bedtime.

As is to be expected at a lively institution like this one, those free time slots are often also filled with conferences, meetings and the like.

Just wanted to quickly fill everyone in. I'll do a post in the next few days about the fun that was had this past weekend!

Also, expect to see "Greg at the Greg" as a recurring segment here at Southern Tier Seminarian. It's too catchy a title to just use once!

Diaconal Ordination

On Thursday morning, members of the 4th year theology class will be ordained to the Diaconate in St. Peter's Basilica at the Altar of the Chair.


Peter and I are members of this year's Ordination Choir, so we'll be lending our voices to what promises to be an astoundingly beautiful Liturgy.

During the Preparation of the Altar and the Gifts, we will be singing this hauntingly beautiful Ave Maria by Franz Biebl (1906-2001):

(If you're giving this a listen, make sure to listen to it all the way to the end!)

Other pieces include:
Veni Creator Spiritus
Dicit Mater Ejus (Timothy McDonnell )
Panis Angelicus (Palestrina)
O God Beyond All Praising (M. Perry, G. Holst- with descant)

Pray for the ordinands as they approach the altar tomorrow morning and take this definitive step towards the diocesan priesthood!

A Veritable Miracle!

We've had to wait quite a long time for the results of the Italian Proficiency exam, but they're in! And if you haven't figured out how I did based on the title of the post, I'm going to sadistically keep you in suspense for a few more lines of text...




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I passed! As you can see from the post chronicling my feelings immediately after the exam, I was NOT expecting this. But Our God has always been a God of surprises. And, right now, I'm so glad that He is!

To anyone who prayed for me and my brothers as we approached the exam, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'll remember you all at Mass tomorrow!

ALLELUIA!

I will thank the Lord with all my heart
in the meeting of the just and their assembly.
Great are the works of the Lord,
to be pondered by all who love them.

Majestic and glorious his work,
his justice stands firm for ever.
He makes us remember his wonders.
The Lord is compassion and love.

He gives food to those who fear him;
keeps his covenant ever in mind.
He has shown his might to his people
by giving them the lands of the nations.

His works are justice and truth,
his precepts are all of them sure,
standing firm for ever and ever;
they are made in uprightness and truth.

He has sent deliverance to his people
and established his covenant for ever.
Holy his name, to be feared.

To fear the Lord is the first stage of wisdom;
all who do so prove themselves wise.
His praise shall last for ever!

(Psalm 111)

Amen!

"In those days he departed to the mountain to pray..." Lk 6:12

Well, I'm back!

Like Jesus in the passage from the Gospel of Luke (quoted above), we have just returned from the paradisaical mountains of Greccio. The Lord really used this week-long silent retreat as an opportunity to strengthen the class, in spirit and body, for the year of study and formation that fast approaches.

The view from my window in the morning.

Greccio is actually the place where St. Francis assembled the first nativity scene. Near the Oasis of the Child Jesus, where we stayed, there was a small Franciscan monastery. It not not only housed the site of the first (live) nativity scene, but also a number of nativity scenes created throughout the world.

This is the grotto in which the friars celebrated the first Christmas Eve Mass with a living Nativity Scene: real hay, real people, real baby, and a real ox and ass.

One of the many nativity scenes on display at the monastery. The setting of this one was an elaborate Italian cityscape. The Holy Family and their adorers are inside a church.

The perfect weather, the silence, the spiritual conferences, the Liturgies, and the brazen beauty of the place allowed the Spirit to work in my heart like I hadn't allowed Him to for a long time. In short, the entire experience--every second--was a great Grace for me: a sheer gift from the eternal, trinitarian God. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen!

One specific grace that I received was finding a beautiful little spot on the mountainside where I spent hours relaxing and praying every day. If you take a look at the view, I think you'll understand why I stayed there.



It also seems that quoting Mother Teresa in my previous post was a genuine "stroke of Providence." On Tuesday and Wednesday night we watched a movie about her life (Mother Teresa, 1986) and--as usual--her humility, service and trust in the Lord challenged and inspired me at the depths of me being. I have no doubt that she was praying for us in a special way this week, and that many of the graces I received were particularly due to your prayers and hers.

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No news yet on the Italian Proficiency exam results, but I'll keep you posted.

Also, I've put a handy link to the Glossary on the right-hand side of the blog for easy access!