Where did November go?

Once again, I've been away from the blogging for a while and busy with day to day seminary life. It's amazing how much stuff goes on here and how quickly time passes. I can see how the fourth year deacons, who are thinking ahead just a few months to their priestly ordination, are saying to themselves, "Four years goes by so fast!"

At the beginning of the month, one thing I had wanted to post on was All Soul's Day. Actually, not just All Soul's Day, but also All Soul's Month since the Church has designated November as month in which which we ought to pray in a special way the repose of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

So I'm a little bit late, but its still not a bad time to encourage you all not just to pray for the souls in Purgatory, but also to consider making a visit to our main Diocesan cemetery, Holy Sepulchre.

Holy Sepulchre's All Soul's Chapel

One of my very first posts on this blog had to do with the All Soul's Chapel at Holy Sepulchre. If you visit, you can also check out the Priest's Plot and the Sister's Plots on either side of the chapel and pray for particular priests or religious sisters who may have had a particular impact on your own life.

For this year's All Soul's Day, I was able to attend Mass at the North American College's Mausoleum/chapel which we own in Rome's Campo di Verano cemetery across the city.

Apparently, before air travel became as efficient as it is today, there were cases where an American seminarian would die here in Rome, and his body would be buried here in our Mausoleum.


Included among these men was Frank Parater, a seminarian for the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia who died in 1920 and was later named a Servant of God in 2002. It was pretty cool to be able to visit his tomb as NAC seminarians and ask his intercession for our own vocations.

Loving Father, your servant Frank Parater sought perfection as a student, scout and seminarian. He offered himself to you completely through the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Through his intercession, may young people answer your call to follow Jesus as priests, deacons and religious.

Grant, as well, the favors I seek, so that your Church will recognize his holiness and proclaim him Blessed.

Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Here's a few other blogworthy items from November that I want to briefly mention:

1. A fairly big change for me in recent weeks was that my DB, Greg, has discerned out of the seminary for the time being. I'd encourage you to read his own well-written and prayed-about post here. Back at the NAC our class certainly misses him, but of course we offer him our prayers and support as he continues his discernment, for now, outside of the seminary.

2. Through one of the spiritual directors here at the College, I had the opportunity to attend Mass on Christ the King Sunday at the Basilica of Santa Cecilia, at the Altar of the tomb of St. Cecilia! Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera along, but the crypt below is absolutely stunning, and St. Cecilia herself is such a captivating and well-loved saint.

3. I had some vistors recently!: some of the students from my Alma Mater who were visiting Rome as part of Franciscan University's study abroad program, the Director of Seminarians from Rochester on his annual visit to the seminary, and two of my aunts who were in Rome as part of a larger trip and stopped by the seminary for lunch.

4. Last weekend was my class' last big introduction into the NAC community...New Man Weekend. We had a class dinner, put on the annual "New Man Show" for the rest of the students and faculty, and got beaten in the famous "Spaghetti Bowl," an annual football game which pits the New Men vs. the Old Men (i.e. all the rest of the above classes!).

5. I experienced my first NAC Thanksgiving. The College does a good job of hosting a Mass and big Thanksgiving meal not only for us students, but any Americans in Rome who happened to be away from home and family during the holiday and want to experience a little bit of America in Italy.

I've got some more pictures I want to get up at some point but I'll save those for later posts.

Naples

I don't have a lot of time to post anything substantial at the moment, but I did want to throw up some pictures from my trip down to Naples last weekend.

A lot of my time in the city itself was, naturally, spent hopping from church to church. I did, however, have a few good opportunities to sample some of Naples' famous pizza, Naples apparently being the birthplace of pizza after all.


The Cathedral of Naples (shown above) was definitely my favorite stop of the trip. We were there on Saturday morning and then again for Sunday Mass. Unfortunately, since I was pretty sure photos weren't allowed inside, I can't show just how beautiful it was!

Two of the side chapels were particularly memorable. One was really medieval in style, looking like it hasn't been redesigned since that time period...probably because in all actuality it hasn't. The other chapel is lined with silver colored "statues" (their heads) of various saints. I'm told that all the statues are actually elaborate reliquaries, containing relics from each of the corresponding saints. Most prominent among them was the statue of St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples.*+

*Side note #1: Each year on the feast of St. Januarius in the Cathedral of Naples a vile of dried blood from the saint is brought out, which, when brought near the relics of his body, literally liquefies right there in front of those present.

+Side note#2: In our Diocese, the parish church in Naples, NY is named St. Januarius...obviously in reference to the patron of Naples, Italy.

Here are other pictures of some beautiful churches I passed while walking around the city:




It still always amazes how even the less prominent churches in some of these ancient Italy cities are both historically significant and still really beautiful. Here's just some random church in the city that we stumbled upon for a Saturday morning Mass.



A trip to Naples wouldn't be complete without taking the short ride out to Pompeii! We visited both the ancient city, which was pretty abandoned (as you might suspect) and the modern city of Pompei which is home to the gorgeous Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.

An Out-stretched Hand

If you're even a casual observer of the Catholic news-o-sphere, then by now you have no doubt seen the reports from a Vatican Press Conference last week which give a general sketch of some new provisions and structures being put in place to facilitate a reunion with Rome among certain members of the Anglican communion currently seeking full-communion with the Catholic Church.

From the Vatican Press Office News Bulletin:
In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy.

In short, there are some sizeable groups of Anglicans who, in the words of Cardinal Leveda, "have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church. For them, the time has come to express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion."

This is really exciting stuff! There's a lot of canonical, liturgical, historical, doctrinal, etc, dimensions to all this, but at the core this is about UNITY and the Holy Father's role as "the Successor Peter to whom in the first place pertains the guardianship of the unity of the Church." (PA, 3)

You can read more about the details of this from people who are a lot more on the "in" than I am.

However, I haven't yet heard or read anyone who has made the connection I'm about to make...

.............................................

About one hundred years ago in the town of Garrison, NY (near West Point) an Episcopalian priest named Paul Wattson and his "Friars of the Atonement" were living out a communal life according to the rule of St. Francis and working within the Episcopalian Church for the reunion of the Church of England with Rome.

After completing an octave of prayer for Christian unity in 1908, and themselves taking the issue to personal prayer, the community realized that they themselves need to enter the Catholic Church. They petitioned the Holy Father, then Pope Pius X, to be received into the Church, not just as a individual converts, but as a collective religious community thereby keeping the name and structure of the "Society of the Atonement" intact.

Through the Holy Father's special permission, the request was granted for this hitherto unprecedented occurrence. The entire community, both individually and collectively, was brought into Communion with Rome and Fr. Paul was ordained a Catholic priest. Furthermore, Pope Pius X decided to continue the Friars' octave of prayer for Unity by establishing in the Roman calender the Chair of Unity Octave. Today, this same concept continues under the title of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The Friars then continued to work and pray for the reunion of the Anglican Church with Rome as the focus of their original charism.

The really cool thing is that the exact day that the Society of the Atonement was brought into the Church was October 30th, 1909. Exactly 100 years ago this week!

In some sense, it would seem that the vision and work of Fr. Paul Wattson and his Friars is being reechoed exactly one century later as Pope Benedict extends a hand toward those in the Anglican community looking to reunite with Rome at a corporate level.

And on top of all this...

...these Friars happen to staff the Church of Sant'Onofrio here in Rome, which is so close to the seminary the you could practically putt a golf ball down the hill outside the church and have it end up at the front gate of the NAC.

The Church of Sant'Onofrio



Now how's that for web of interesting connections!

I can't think of anything better to post

Classes started this week (finally) for us students at the Gregorian University.

To get to the University its about a half hour walk through the city. A couple days ago, I decided to take pictures of some of the sights on the trek between the Gregorian and the seminary.

So, I now present you with: My Walk to School

Whoa!

It's a good thing that our silent retreat was restful and, well...silent because since then its been one activity right after another.

The big event was last week's Diaconate Ordination. Unlike most seminaries where the men are ordained as deacons back in their home dioceses the summer after their third year, most guys at the North American College hold off for that summer and return to the College to be ordained together as a class.

That whole week preceding the ordination was filled with events and preparations leading up to the Mass. For me, this mainly meant 1.) providing hospitality for the hundreds of family members flying in from overseas to support the deacons-to-be and 2.) choir practice.

The Mass itself was beautiful. Being in the choir, I had a pretty decent view of things, and got to watch as 30 of my "older brothers" knelt before Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis and, through the laying of hands and the prayer for the grace of the Holy Spirit, became permanently and ontologically transformed in the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

It's amazing to see those same men now carrying out the duties of the deacon as they assist at our community Mass. It definitely serves as a healthy reminder to us underclassmen that our own ordination, God willing, is not too far in the future.

If you'd like, take a look at the photos from the Mass on the NAC website.

Return

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I'm back from retreat. Thanks so much to everyone who offered prayers. Our time in silence and prayer was totally amazing.

I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but here's a few random pictures. The retreat was in the town of Greccio, right next to the site of the original Nativity Crèche organized by St. Francis in 1223.

The Scenery

Our Retreat Center: Oasi Gesù Bambino

Franciscan Sanctuary of Greccio (built over the site of that first crèche)

Retreat

From Sunday (9/26) through Saturday (10/3) I'll be away from the city with my class on our opening of the year silent-retreat. This means I'll have zero contact with any computer or email during these next days. In your kindness, please keep us in your prayers during this important time.


I'll check back in a week!