God, the Father Who Keeps His Promises

In the last week approaching Christmas, the Church reflects on seven different titles of Jesus during the Liturgy of the Hours - you probably know them through the Advent Hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." I would like to pass along some reflections that were sent to the seminarians from one of our formators, Fr. Kurt Belsole, OSB, of St. Vincent Archabbey and I will intermix some thoughts of my own from these past five months here in Europe.

This is one of 4th Floor's O Antiphons that Dan mentioned a few days ago.

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On December 17th, the Church’s Advent liturgy begins to focus in a particular way on the Nativity of the Lord. The prayers, readings, and preface at Mass as well as the readings, antiphons for the Gospel canticles, intercessions, and prayers at the Liturgy of the Hours concentrate more resolutely than during the preceding days of Advent on the coming feast of the Nativity of the Lord.

The great “O Antiphons” have a particular role in these days as they have been used for centuries as the antiphons for the Magnificat. Each antiphon, always sung in a very similar melody, begins with a title of Christ, usually taken from the Old Testament, and followed by the petition that he come to us (veni) and act on our behalf:

December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)

December 18: O Adonai (O Lord)

December 19: O Radix Iesse (O Root of Jesse)

December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)

December 21: O Oriens (O Daystar) [after this date, the days begin to get longer]

December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)

December 23: O Emmanuel (O God-with-Us)

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It has been very humbling for me to be here these last five months. I have had the privilege to see and do things that I would never have imagined - I have seen the bones of St. Peter; visited the shrines of martyrs; attended Masses presided over by Cardinals and even by the Holy Father himself; I have walked the Catacombs of the early Christian marytrs and confessors; I have walked among the sites that St. Peter and St. Paul themselves would have seen. And deep down, I know that I am not worthy of any one of these, except by the Grace of God.

Some of these amazing experiences were more woven into the fabric of everyday life. Just a few weeks ago, we Celebrated the 150th anniversary of the College. Last week, Dan and I received our Soggiorno cards - despite my veiled complaints about the whole affar, I must admit we received them quickly - much sooner than even the NAC faculty expected. Some of these things are even very simple - like the joy of picking and eating a fresh orange from one of the orange trees in our Courtyard.

And some of these experiences have been the playing out of the challenges of formation. Ever so gradually I can see rough edges of my personality being smoothed out. In so many small events that take place throughout the day, I can see God's hand.

From the first times that I felt God calling me to seminary (a story to save for another day), I had a hope that He would bring me to it, with whatever changes in me that required. Time and time again He has reassured me, and time and time again, He has brought me through all of my challenges, and I trust that He will continue to do this.

Just as God has reassured my path time and time again, He promised Israel a Savior - under each one of these titles.

Now back to the reflection:

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When taken together from the last title to the first, the first letters of each title form a wonderful Latin acrostic:

Emmanuel

Rex

Oriens

Clavis

Radix

Adonai

Sapientia

This is the Lord’s response to the Church’s ardent petition that he come (veni):

Ero cras (I will be there tomorrow)!

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God - the Father who keeps His promises.

It's the Little Things...

Humor is one of the hardest things to pass across the language barrier...

Today one of our professors told a funny story in class today about his
younger years... but the true joy of it was that, for once, I
understood it well enough to laugh along with everyone else.

The Vatican on YouTube

In order to do what Pope Benedict has described earlier this year as "evangelizing the 'digital continent'", the Vatican has created their own YouTube channel.

Daniel made use of one of their videos in an earlier post after our trip to Castel Gandolfo to see the Holy Father. We had some technical difficulties and could only include a link before, but if you missed it, I now present it here in its full webpage-embedded glory (the NAC seminarians show up at about 8:00, and sing at 10:50) :

Although the Holy Father generally gives the Angelus messages in Italian, there are a considerable number of shorter messages with audio voiceover in English.

(P.S. This post is largely to see if I can actually get the video to embed properly... hopefully this will become one more option for us to share our experiences with you.)

God Bless, and enjoy your Sunday!

Until We Can Photograph Everything Here ... Visit Rome Virtually

When I was reading one of my favorite blogs this morning, I saw an interesting article that explains how to use Google Maps to do a "virtual walking tour" of famous cites.

From the New Liturgical Movement:

Those of you who have never visited Rome, or who simply wish to revisit it, may be interested to know that Google Maps has a rather interesting feature that will allow you to do it "virtually" in a rather unique way that is actually somewhat proximate to being there, walking those streets.
...
If you go to Google Maps and double click on the maps, zooming in, eventually you will be taken to views such as these:

Typing in the name of the landmark is enough to get you there if it's anything remotely famous.  (I'd suggest to start, try it with St. Peter's Basilica or the Pantheon, which Dan and I pass every day on the way to classes).

This "Street View" also works for most cities and large roads in the States; before we came over, I found it particularly useful for recognizing landmarks when I was driving someplace new.

Happy travels!

(Hat tip to Shawn at NLM for the original post, which can be found here.)

To Become a Master of Fifteen Minutes

First, an apology:

As all of you have noticed... I haven't been here much lately, and for that, I sincerely apologize.  In the wide mix of things that I need to do here, blogging has been getting bumped toward the bottom of the list.

Everyone at home deserves better than that - and so I'm going to try to post more frequently.  Dan has really been doing great in picking up the slack in my absence.

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Second, something of some substance.  As I said, things are a bit hectic here - we get pulled in a lot of different directions: prayer, classes, study, ministry work, other formation activities, and a little bit of leisure and fellowship.

This requires a lot of time management skills - something that I'll be the first to admit that I don't have.  Fortunately, I've already heard some good advice from some of the other seminarians and faculty that I'd like to share:

1) "You need to become the master of fifteen minutes" - This is one of the hardest things for me to do.  In my past experience, I've found it difficult to do anything productive with much less than an hour.  So I need to learn how to fill the gaps between events here.  Actually, most of this post was written in the little gaps between classes - so that's a start.

2) "You need to be 'rigidly flexible'" - This is a tip from our Dean of Academic Formation, and something that, if I can ever learn to master time in fifteen minute increments, this one will be rather useful.  It simply means that I need to fit some activities, like study, in around everything else, but I need to be consistent in doing it.

No ADL Blog Access, Day 2

The problem that we were having accessing the Greensburg diocesan blog still hasn't been resolved. For the moment, I'll keep posting updates here on this blog, and cross-post the relevant ones back to the ADL blog later.

Unfortunately, since we're not sure what the problem is, the resolution might take a little while.

Ciao for now...

Trunks!

When we returned to the NAC on Tuesday evening, I was greeted with a welcome sight. It's not fair to call it a surprise, because the only surprise would be if they weren't there...

Next comes the fun job of unpacking and organizing. When my room is mostly to the point where I think I want it (or at the very least is decently organized), I'll post some more pictures.

Yes mom, my room will be clean enough at some point to do that...

Technical Difficulties at the NAC

We're having some trouble posting here at the NAC.

This is a test post.

Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle

One of the incredible things about spending time studying the Churches and culture of Europe is the wealth of incredible art that is everywhere. Much of this art, being religious in nature, has a catechetical element - Dan hinted at this on a recent post about St. Joseph.
According to the Martyrologium Romanum (the Roman Martyrology), St. Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India, where he was martyred, and pious tradition holds that he was skinned alive. Here, we see this in this statue, found in the Milan Cathedral, and in this fresco, found at the Church of San Giulio at Lago d'Orta.

Martyrs often will be portrayed in a way that explains at a glance the manner in which they were martyred. In both cases here, notice the skin draped over the Saint's body - just as other martyrs might carry swords or other implements explaining their martyrdom (for example St. Lawrence is nearly universally portrayed carrying a gridiron, St. Lucy is portrayed holding a plate on which there are two eyes), St. Bartholomew is pictured holding his skin; in the fresco, he is also shown holding a knife.

Why I'm a Nerd #4 -- Palmtop Journaling/Blogging

I certainly don't know of any other seminarians who journal electronically, and I'm sure there aren't many bloggers who see it useful to blog from a non-WiFi enabled device.

I started journaling on my Visor just a little less than a year ago.  It's a little strange, but it actually is productive and works... Even my last Spiritual Director seemed to like the idea.

This picture says it all. It's the construction of the post "On a Boat," penned while we were on our way back to Intra.

On a Boat

After being here four weeks, Dan and I, as well as several other seminarians finally ventured through the Italian/Swiss Alps in the area of the northernmost part of Lago Maggiore. The "Lago Maggiore Express travels through the mountains and down the lake giving a view of the area.

The day started out in Domodossola, where our wandering into the parish Church became an invitation to take part in Morning Prayer (in Italian) and Mass. The six of us had the privilege of serving the Mass.

Our next leg was a scenic railway, with a brief stop to see the parish Church in Re.

When we got to the parish in Re, a Cardinal was just finishing Mass for the day - the Queenship of Mary - in a side chapel of the Church.

From there we ended up at Locarno, where we enjoyed a small lunch, as well as some chocolate, during the afternoon.

The last leg is a boat ride from Locarno, at the northernmost part of the lake... and it's from here that I'm writing this. Sailing through the alps is uniquely beautiful... I can't think of anything in the States quite like it. It was fitting that the Responsory for Evening Prayer this evening was "Our hearts are filled with wonder as we contemplate Your works, O Lord."

On a side note, if you have ever read Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, ths was the lake he spoke of in part of the book - There is a "Hemingway Suite" in the hotel a few towns south of Verbania; this had been used as the military hospital where he stayed during WWI.

Irony: The Computer Works, and I Still Haven't Been Here...

So... the upgrade worked splendidly, as planned. My computer now works much more smoothly than it did before.

However, I've been so busy with spending time with the teachers of the Italian School and the other Seminarians that I just haven't been on my computer much.

The trip on the Lago Maggiore Express (more on that soon) meant that I didn't even touch my computer yesterday.

Now thinking about it... that's a welcome change every once in awhile.

Ciao for now.

Upgrade Time...

I'm about to start the process of upgrading my netbook to the newest version of EEEbuntu... if it works properly, I'll be back online by later this afternoon.  If it goes completely south, I might not be back online much until I return to NAC next Wednesday. 

Let's hope this works...

Why I'm a Nerd #3 -- Sorting Computer Files

For most people, housekeeping involves getting rid of clutter, running the vacuum, maybe dusting, and the like. Not so for me... my latest bout of housekeeping is of the digital variety - I've been sorting my computer files.

"Why?" you might ask... Well, to put it simply, it's because I'm a hypocrite. I, like many other technically-inclined people, often remind others to back up their computer files. Yet I haven't made a genuine backup since sometime in early 2007. Instead, I've simply copied files from one drive to another to another... so I have multiple copies of everything, but I have no idea where anything is.

But now, enough is enough. My sorting project has begun. Everything digital that I own that is worthwhile is now living on my external hard drive, and from time to time I'm going to get it into an intelligible order. All several hundred Gigabytes of it.

And then I'm going to make backups of EVERYTHING... at 4 and some Gigs per DVD, that's going to take a little while...

A Brief Tour of Lago d'Orta

This past Thursday, one of my tutors decided to offer an alternative to the regular morning class -- a trip to Lago d'Orta, a lake about a half-hour from where we were staying at Verbania. Since it was a replacement for the tutoring session, we would be speaking in Italian for the trip. She extended the offer to any of the other seminarians who were interested. In all, eight of us went.

Our main sites to see were the island in the middle of the lake, where there is the Church of San Giulio and a Benedictine monastery, and the Sacro Monte, a series of small chapels run by the Franciscans. More on those in a bit.

We had to walk down into one of the towns on the lakeshore in order to catch a ferry to the island. This is a view of the island from the town.

Also, I've noticed in quite a few of these towns, there is art many public buildings other than churches. In the town marketplace, there are frescos on the building, as well as a modern sculpture (metal hats on a disc) next to it.

On the island is the Church of San Giulio. As is fairly common here, the relics of San Giulio are on display in a small chapel under the main sanctuary (you can see the tip of the doorframe for the stairway in the lower right corner of the the first picture). The church contained multiple frescoes, including the one shown of St. Christopher. The Ambo in the final picture is from the 12th Century, and is one of the few Ambos from that era in existence.

After we rode back to the town, we went to the Sacro Monte. This is one of about eight scattered throughout the Alps in Italy and Switzerland. They served as small pilgrimage sites to counter the effects of the Protestant Reformation. This Sacro Monte was quite visible from the island. The other seminarian in the picture with Dan is Scott, one of our classmates from the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

This particular Sacro Monte is dedicated to the life of St. Francis. There are twenty small chapels that depict different scenes from his life, death, and canonization. Each of these scenes is portrayed using a combination of frescoes and life-sized statues. The scene shown is St. Francis speaking with the Sultan of Egypt. The Pieta that is above the High Altar in the main Church is about a thousand years old.

The final picture that I will leave you with is the magnificent view of the island that I was greeted with upon leaving the main Church, after the sun had come out again. Ciao until next time.

Feast of the Assumption

Happy Diocesan Feast Day to everyone!

I hope that all is well for everyone in the Diocese. Today has been a relaxed day, taking some time for rest, prayer, blogging, and a leisurely afternoon walk. One of the priests from the NAC is here visiting, and so he will be saying Mass later for the group of us here... Although my Italian is getting better, it's not quite to the point where I can always follow Mass in Italian, so his being here is a pleasure twice over.

Here in Italy, the national holiday of Ferragosto corresponds with the Feast of the Assumption, so had it fallen during the week, it would be a day off for everyone. Since it's on a weekend, it doesn't affect classes, but it did lead to an excellent meal at Pranzo.

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I cannot ask enough, especially today, to continue to pray to Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Assumption for vocations, present and future, in the Diocese.

What Constitutes an Italian Meal?

I learned one thing very quickly here in Italy: meals can be HUGE.

Generally the largest meal of the day is Pranzo, the midday meal. Cena, the evening meal is usually smaller.

Pranzo here at Verbania is three courses.

- Primo (First Course): pasta, soup, or risotto (rice). Risotto is traditionally very common here in Northern Italy, so we have had it as an option for meals quite often. These are generally excellent, but care must be taken because one must leave room for the second course.

- Secondo (Second Course): Meat or fish with potatoes and/or vegetables. These are also consistently excellent; they tend to be seafood, poultry, pork products or veal, which are easier (and I believe less expensive) to acquire than beef.

- Dolce (Sweets): Fruit, cake, pie, or gelato (ice cream).

Granted, this is not a full Italian meal, which can include many more courses: antipasto, pasta, fish (with trimmings), meat (with trimmings), salad, sweets, and coffee, with bread and wine throughout the meal. Of course, that is an exception, not the rule.

Let's just say that it's good that I'll be walking a lot once classes start in the fall.

Laundry Day

Some parts of life here aren't that different than they would be at home - right down to what might be considered mundane. Take laundry for instance: here in Verbania, there is a small laundromat that isn't unlike what you might see Stateside.

The main difference is that to wash and dry a week's worth of clothes was €9, or about $12. I'm very thankful that the use of washers and dryers at the NAC is free!

Of course, the €.50 espresso from the coffee machine in the laundromat helped dull the pain some too.

An Unexpected Grace

Early during the first week when we were in Verbania, one of my tutors asked me to pass along to the other seminarians information about an opportunity that had been presented to us. She mentioned that we were invited to a feast at St. Lucia on 9 August, and that Mass, dinner, and transportation would be provided. Three of us took her up on the offer. When I was preparing to leave, I grabbed my camera, my book with the Italian Mass settings, and my hat, with the thought that we would be attending Mass and then having dinner outside, similar to the parish festivals we are used to in our diocese.

I was completely surprised to find that it was nothing like I expected.

The Parish of Santa Lucia and Sant'Ulderico

The town of Miazzina is up on one of the mountainsides, about six miles from Intra, and its parish is the parish of St. Lucia and St. Uldrich (Santa Lucia e Sant'Ulderico).  When we arrived, Celestino, the gentleman from the parish who was kind enough to bring us there pointed us to the rectory, where we visited with the priests who would celebrate the Mass.  We then were rushed off to the Church, where there were three albs ready for us to use... even though nobody mentioned we would be helping to serve the Mass!

The Mass for the day was to celebrate the Feast of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (St. Edith Stein); since she is the patroness of Europe, her feast was celebrated with great solemnity here in Italy.  In addition to the other two seminarians and I who served and carried the crucifix and candles in the procession following Mass, there were five priests, two other servers, and numerous Carbinieri (police who are something like a combination of our state police and military police) serving as guards posted at the edge of the Sanctuary.

After the Mass, there was a procession, which included all of the priests, Carbinieri, servers, and many of the people in the parish. A statue of Sant'Ulderico (St. Ulrich), bishop of Augsburg, was carried in the procession as well. We went traveled outside of the Church and around a few of the streets of the town, stopping several times at temporary altar-tables to ask the intercession of Sant'Ulderico for the town.  And it was of great ceremony, but these were very normal people in the procession - it was a welcome taste of parish life which I haven't encountered for some time.

Sant'Ulderico, Bishop of Augsburg

(If you may have been wondering why a German bishop is one of the patron Saints of an Italian Parish, it is because in the late Medieval period, German shepherds would drive their flocks into the region and brought the devotion with them.)

What struck me the most about this is that for my great-grandparents and my more distant ancestors, some of whom came from this area of Italy, this would have been a common occurrence.

After the procession, we were invited to eat dinner with the priests, some of the Carbinieri, and some other guests.  The food was wonderful (I'll have to mention normal Italian dining  another day), but more importantly, this gave me another chance to listen to an ongoing conversation in Italian.  I understood most of it, even if I still can't put together correct sentences quickly enough in my mind to carry on a lengthy conversation.  It was like being a little kid again: all of the 'big people' sit and talk while the 'kids' (the two of us that had started with no Italian) sat and mostly listened.

All consideered, this trip reminds me of how blessed I truly am.  There wasn't one part of that that I actually deserved.  The whole trip has provided me with a chance to see how many ways God blesses me - all the world is Grace - a gift to be enjoyed, shared, and bring me to greater holiness.

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In addition to all of this, I'd like to wish Bishop Brandt, my pastor Msgr. Persico, and our vocations director Fr. Kulick a happy name-day since today is the Feast of St. Lawrence.  It is most fitting that the Bishop is ordaining the diocese's first permanent deacons on the feast of his patron, a prominent Deacon and martyr.

San Pacomio

An exercise that one of my Italian tutors prefers to use is to have the student write a paragraph, and then go over and correct it during the next day's session. For this weekend, my tutor asked me to write about 15 lines about St. Pacomius, because she had come across his name but had no idea who he is. I thought it might be appropriate and beneficial to share.

First, San Pacomio in Italiano (full disclosure: I never said it was good Italian):

San Pacomio, monaco e un fondatore del monachesimo occidentale, è nato in 292 a Tebe, Eggito. I suoi parenti sono stati pagani,e lo non ha avuto una esperienza del cristianesimo fino al suo 20 (ventiesimo) anno quando l'escercito romano lo ha arruolato e incarcerato. I christiani lo portavano un cibo e un'acqua. Quando San Pacomio ho liberato, lui ho convertito al cristianesimo e battezzato. Lui ho diventato un eremita e un studente di Palaemon da 7 anni.

Dopo il periodo con Palaemon, San Pacomio è andato nel deserto d'egiziano. Lui lì è vitato fino a sentito una voce che lo ha ordinato costruire una casa per qualche altri ermiti vivare. San Pacomio ha fondato il suo primo monastero circa 320. I altri monachesimi si chiama “abba,” che voler diciamo “padre.”

San Pacomio ha fondato 9 monasteri in tutto. Il suo esempio ha ispirato qualche altri fondare i altri monasteri e scrivere regole monastice per iscritto. I monasteri si ho ingrandato in Eggito, del nord d'Africa, Palestina, e del ovest d'Europa.

San Pacomio predicava fortemente contro i Ariani. A causo di questo, Sant'Athanasio ho voluto ordinare San Pacomio nel sacerdozio in 333, ma lo ha refutato.

San Pacomio si è ammalato, ho scelto il suo successore, ed è morto in 348. Catholici, ortodossi, copti, e lutherani lo venerano e lo mettono nel suoi calendari liturgici.

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Now, in English:

St. Pacomius, monk and founder of western monasticism, was born in 292 in Thebes, Egypt. His parents were pagans, and he had no experience of Christianity until his 20th year, when he was drafted into the Roman army and was imprisoned. The Christians brought him food and water. When St. Pacomius was freed, he converted to Christianity and was baptized. He became a monk and a student of Palaemon for seven years.

After the period with Palaemon, St. Pacomius went into the desert of Egypt. He lived there until he heard a voice that ordered him to build a home for other monks to live. St. Pacomius founded his first monastery around 320. The other monks called him “abba,” which means “father.”

St. Pacomius founded nine monasteries in all. His example inspired some others to found other monasteries and to write written monastic rules. Monasteries rose up in Egypt, North Africa, Palestine, and Western Europe.

St. Pacomius preached strongly against the Arians. For this reason, St. Athanasius wanted to ordain St. Pacomius into the priesthood in 333, but he refused.

St. Pacomius fell ill, chose his successor, and died in 348. Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, and Lutherans venerate him and place him on their liturgical calendars.

As an additional note, St. Pacomius' feast day is 9 May in our calendar.

(Picture in public domain from Wikimedia Commons)

Sunday at Il Chiostro

Here are some photos of the cloister itself (the "chiostro"). This is where we meet with our Italian tutors each day during the week.

Have a blessed week.

St. Eusebius of Vercelli

Several seminarians including Dan and I celebrated the feast at the Basilica Santuario della Consolata in Turin (Torino to the Italians). We chose to go there because we were already in the area and we have weekends off from our classes. We'll bring you more about Turin over the next few days.

We travelled through Vercelli on the train ride to and from Turin.

St. Eusebius lived in a time immediately after the legalization of Christianity, right at the time when the rising heresy of Arianism questioned the divinity of Jesus. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 settled the question and asserted that Jesus was consubstantial with God the Father(of the same substance -- in the Nicaean Creed we recite at Mass, we say "of one Being"). In spite of this, the Arian faction continued to gain power, and threatened to overtake true Christianity.

By the time Eusebius had been chosen to be a bishop, this dispute was widespread, and he was drawn into it. He and two other bishops were exiled in 355 by the Arian bishops after refusing to condemn St. Athanasius, the chief opponent of the Arians. For the remainder of his life until his martyrdom in 371, St. Eusebius spent his time in exile, and then in travels throughout the Christian world to preach against the errors of Arianism.

This translates to our own time. St. Eusebius continued to proclaim the truths of the Catholic Faith even when threatened with death. How willing are we to learn about the teachings of the Faith, and how willing are we to stand up for the Church and her teachings in the face of opposition?

A more detailed story of the life of St. Eusebius can be found at Catholic Online.

Disclaimer

This is my own personal blog, and any opinions expressed solely represent my own views. They do not represent the official views of the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, the Pontifical North American College, or any other institution with which I have attended or been affiliated.

Ho Due Blogi!

(That means "I have two blogs!")

It's official, the "A Day In the Life" blog (hereafter "ADL") is now live on the webpage for the Diocese of Greensburg. Much to my surprise, Dan and I are on the front page! I guess this means that we actually need to keep updating it...

If you want to take a look at what we've been up to, click on the link in the Links sidebar:

Thou Shalt Not Have Strange Gods Before Me

I just happened to stumble upon an article online entitled Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites (source: Vancouver Sun). In the article, it describes the work and reasonings of Ian Pilmer, an Australian geologist and outspoken critic of global warming. For this, he has received a great deal of criticism from those who believe that world governments need to work to curb global warming.

Pilmer cites scientific studies that suggest that during much of Earth's history, there has been no polar ice, as well as those that suggest that we are experiencing some of the lowest amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide in "recent" history (the last several hundred million years). It is explained as such:

While environmentalists for the most part draw their conclusions based on climate information gathered in the last few hundred years, geologists, Plimer says, have a time frame stretching back many thousands of millions of years.

The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human behaviour.

This discussion brings an interesting question to the forefront: Are people choosing to ignore some scientific facts in order to believe their position with blind faith? Although this accusation could be lodged against both sides, it is more damning to the proponents of the commonly accepted theory of global warming. Everything concerning the subject can be studied by science, which is governed by reason, thus we must use reason to evaluate what science finds. Critics of the commonly accepted theory are using an attitude of "We have evidence that disproves your theory, thus either your theory is incorrect, or you need to modify it to explain the new evidence."

From a spiritual perspective, a problem arises as well. Has "Stopping Global Warming" become a new idol for our time? It is my opinion that it has; stopping the "continuation" of global warming (if it is actually occurring) has become the goal in itself. It is perhaps one of the strangest of the strange gods.

We demonstrate our love by what we give our time, work, and resources to. If we love God, we will devote those three things to purposes that serve Him. If we choose to pour time, work, and resources into preventing global warming for only the sake of preventing global warming, then we come dangerously close to loving the world more than we love God.

I propose another way: we can use the Earth in a responsible manner, as humanity is expected to do per Genesis - we can use the resources, but also seek to preserve the planet from undue harm. We can seek to care for the planet while respecting the dignity of humanity to have productive jobs. Governments can seek to use their monetary resources for the betterment of their people, instead of pouring it into carbon credit scams that ignore some science while accepting other science on blind faith.

Studio l'Italiano*

One of the major challenges of life and study in Italy is the obvious one: everybody speaks Italian! Furthermore, when Dan and I begin our classes at the Gregorian University in the fall, all of the lectures will be in Italian. The university also requires all of the seminarians to pass an EU proficiency test for the language.

In order to help us adjust to speaking Italian with local Romans, as well as to understand our classes, the NAC has arranged several possibilities for language schools. Some of the seminarians are attending schools in Assisi and Siena, and we are studying in Verbania, a very beautiful town in the Italian Alps. We are living at a hotel called Il Chiostro, which means "the cloister" - it is a former monastery that was converted into a hotel. This is wonderful because we have the benefit of studying in the quiet cloister courtyard, and there is a chapel on site where a priest comes for daily Mass.

All in all, I'm pleased with my classes so far. We were each assigned two tutors, and we spend an hour and half with each. The one-on-one interaction is very helpful, because we each can work at our own pace, and we are forced to learn everything for ourselves. I can already see improvement in my own speaking and understanding after only three days of classes.

More to come later!

[* This actually means "I am studying Italian"]

The Tourist vs. the Pilgrim

This past week the new group of seminarians had the opportunity to visit a great number of sites, and most of these are religious sites; I have little doubt that these opportunities will continue to a less-frequent degree. But the vast majority of these trips are not simply for the sake of tourism. Instead, they help us to draw closer to the Saints and their times by letting us visit their remains and walk in their footsteps.

And this brings us to the spirit and purpose of pilgrimage. The purpose of any pilgrimage is to allow the person, place, or thing being sought to draw us cloer to Jesus Christ, who in turn constantly draws us closer to the Father.

In this way, we can draw on these sights and people for inspiration for our Faith. In some posts in the near future, I hope to explain how these visits have inspired me.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Buongiorno! As I write this, I'm flying at over 30,000 feet over the Mediterranean. This is the beginning of a great adventure, but also, it is one of the most difficult things that I have ever done, because it means leaving everything and everyone that I have known and loved for my entire life.

Yet, in having this opportunity to blog, and in having access to the internet in general, I am able to keep in touch with all of my family and friends. Also, it is a great pleasure to be sharing my experiences with all of the people of the Diocese of Greensburg.

As always, God has provided me comfort in this experience. Shortly after our take-off in Pittsburgh, Dan Ulishney and I prayed the Rosary, reminding me that our entire trip is under Mary's maternal care. We met one of our brother seminarians from the Pittsburgh Diocese, as well as many others once we arrived in Newark, and we were already bonding quickly.

The Eternal City still awaits us (though we'll alredy be there by the time you read this, since we don't have WiFi on the plane). Our adventure is afoot, and Christ walks with us the entire way.

Why I'm a Nerd #2 -- 4:04, Patient Not Found

This past Thursday, I finished out my apostolic work at the hospital for the year ("apostolic work" is simply the pastoral experiences that the St. Mark Seminarians do for a few hours each Thursday afternoon to introduce us to pastoral work).

We are generally given lists of patients who we are to visit.  I went to look for one woman, and she wasn't in her room at all.  All fine and well, I decided to come back later.  But as I left, I looked at my watch.  4:04.  I couldn't help but chuckle.

Yes, I did find her later.

If you have no idea why I find this funny, look here.

Some Good Blog News

In the next few days, I'll be posting some things that I wrote from the March for Life. However, I also found some thoughts that I penned after WYD this past July.

Expect them shortly.

ScribeFire Test

When I should be working on other things here at home, I'm testing a new blogging client that works with Firefox.  Let's just see if it works.  Maybe I'll be able to bring myself to put regular content here.