Seminarian Blog

Wow, much has happened since I posted last. Just a quick update to catch up on events before next posts - Christmas break happened. I passed all my classes; one more semester to go! Deacon Ben got ordained, that was a great occasion. I traveled half-way across the country and back again many times over seeing family for various reasons. We had the annual Quo Vadis (Where are you going?) vocations retreat that I attended at least four times before I entered seminary - remind me to tell those stories sometime. I returned for 8 days of retreat - part of which was spent overlooking the Mississippi in a hermitage - that was fun.

After sifting through a ridiculous amount of mail, I found we had a family funeral in Minnesota that I needed to see if I could attend. The seminary was gracious enough to allow me to go. Please say some prayers for my uncle, his name was Dennis.

The March for Life bus leaves this evening. I am unfortunately not going for the first time in four years. I have to preach in the parish this weekend. Kenrick will be there. Please pray for all those traveling to DC, Topeka, or anywhere else in the country to stand up for life.

"Here I am, I come to do your will" (Psalm 40:2).

Never think I did not keep a promise ... Here's the recording of our Bluegrass Christmas entertainment from our Christmas Banquet on Friday at the seminary.

If you are wondering about the new verses for "She'll be comin' 'round the mountain" - they are a seminary joke about Fr. Swift, or director of Liturgy, and December 6th when he would not allow us to celebrate the optional memorial of St. Nicholas because it was not a particular devotion of our community. Krampas is apparently the goat-looking sidekick of St. Nicholas in Germany who brought coal and switches to bad children.

Have a blessed last week of Advent and pray for our soon to be ordained Deacon, Ben Green!

Some may remember Andrew Bina and I playing bluegrass music at the Serra Club dinner in August. We have been asked to play once again, this time for our Kenrick-Glennon Christmas banquet this Friday evening. Now, the video to the left is not us playing, but it is one we are going to attempt to imitate.

Fr. Horne, our rector, heard us playing last week and asked us to play Christmas music for the banquet, so we did what anyone would do of this generation - we went to Youtube! I will let you know how it goes and see if I can get someone to film us. We are also putting together a version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "She'll be Comin Round the Mountain" with Christmas verses.

God is with us.

It's official, Fr. Lies is the definition of cool - at least that is what his Facebook fan page says. (you can become a member by the way).

I was at his parish in Clonmel this past Sunday when the new translation of the texts of the Mass were implemented. I came to be there because I had a baptism (number 41 for the record) for a college friend who had his third child a few weeks ago.

I would like to say that Fr. Jerrod did an admirable job implementing the new translation in that parish. On Sunday alone, not to mention the preparation beforehand, he had an initial explanation of the changes before Mass began, he frequently called out page numbers in the missalette that corresponded to the Roman Missal, he sang almost everything (which actually helps you think about the words more), and he even made a joke at the deacon's expense ... Yeah, when Fr. chanted during the preface, "The Lord be with you," I automatically sang "and also with ... your spirit." Fr. actually paused and pointed out to everyone that even the deacon messed up the response - I assume he did so to lighten the hearts trying to say the right words, not because he wanted to demean me ... but I cannot be sure :)

I cannot say I have any family connection to Clonmel, per se, but I have always enjoyed visiting the little town with a lively parish. I mean lively in the best sense - that they truly pray and do their best to live a Christian life. I frequently receive prayer cards from adorers down there saying they made holy hours for me. I have come to know a few of the families from there through the years as well and have always been highly encouraged. St. John the Evangelist (and St. Andrew the Apostle today) - Pray for us!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I really liked Bishop Jackel's message to the Diocese regarding the connection of the word "thanksgiving" and the word "eucharist." The online etymological dictionary says that "eucharist" is a derivation of "eu" meaning "well" or "good" and "khars" which is the origin of the word "grace." To "eucharist" in Greek is literally to give thanks.

I also smiled to myself while watching Bishop Jackel's little video messages because he likes to give me a hard time for making very simple videos for the blog ...

Speaking of thanksgiving and videos, I remembered a video I never uploaded from our Oktoberfest celebration at the seminary. I was in charge of the cooking. Besides the 175 brats we cooked, we also made about 85 Bierocks. I had to make a lot of dough for that, so I took the opportunity to use the largest mixer I could find in the kitchen. It was so big, the kitchen staff had not even used it yet. It worked well for me.

Hope the holiday goes well for everyone.

I remember a few years ago, I heard the shortest All Souls Day homily ever: "The Church Triumphant, All Saints, The Church Suffering: All Souls, The Church Militant ...... All sorts." I thought that it was creative and very descriptive.

Well, there are All Sorts in the seminary as well. We had an All Saints day eve party (Halloween) like many other people. Andy Walsh carved the pumpkin to the left; I thought Bishop would appreciate it. I do not think many at the seminary actually understood it, but that's ok.

Two people actually dressed up as me. Curtis Hecker took my favorite shirt, my cane, and my glasses to add to the fact that we already look alike - and masqueraded as me. Andrew Bina played the personality of one of my friends, Deacon Dan Shaughnessy (pictured on the far right). Although Andrew does not look like Dcn. Dan, he did dress like him and carried around a jar of jelly bellies - which is one of Dan's favorite things to give away.

Also, if you think this was all about having fun (it was),  there was good philosophical reflection that happened as well because of the masquerade: Thomas' fourth way of proving the existence of God. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm Since throughout the evening, there were many people posing as others, there follows that there is a common origin of all of the false examples. If you take that principal through a few steps of theological transposition, you may be able to get to the Fourth Way. (I'll leave that to you) I just thought the situation humorous that a Halloween party lead to a discussion of St. Thomas Aquinas.

-Peace

It has finally happened! As promised to my editor, I am going to tell you who won the race between Auxiliary Bishop Rice and Fr. Chris Martin (the vocation director of Saint Louis not our new seminarian). Drum roll please ................

It was BISHOP RICE!

He said in the video that he was going to "smoke him" and  he did - some accounts say by as much as 10 minutes.

It was a half marathon on Sunday morning. I was told (since I was at my parish preaching at the 11am Mass) that they were running together for most of the race, but Bishop wanted to finish in under two hours because he had to get to Mass later that afternoon. I think that may have been an excuse because both of them were going to be at the same Mass later no matter what.

Anyways, congrats Bishop Rice!

Running on Faith from Fr. Chris Martin on Vimeo.

Just as in the parish this summer at St. Margaret Mary, people ask me often what I do in the parish on the weekends? Of course, I assist at the Masses, preach once or twice, do baptisms, talk to people, go to people's houses - but I also ended up being the new handyman for the parish.

This morning, while everyone was rejoicing about the Cardinals winning the World Series, I was able to replace a broken dimmer switch in the kitchen. Apparently, the last senior associate they had here was the handyman who fixed all of the little things, now they have to put work orders in for things like this. A couple of weeks ago, I had to buy a soldering iron to fix a broken microphone wire for Mass that evening.

Oh the joys of parish life. I love it. Fixing broken switches is much easier than replanting the lawn at St. Margaret Mary though ...

GO CARDINALS!

In case some may have had the false belief that seminarians do not do any labor in the seminary, you can watch me dig at least one shovel-full of sod for our fire pit. Our student body president, Tom Grafsgaard, 3rd theology from Bismark, ND, wanted a fire pit out back behind our temporary seminary. He wanted a nice one apparently. Evan Tinker, seminarian from KC-Kansas, (on the right) headed up the project and put his previous landscaping skills to good use.

Don't tell my parents that I helped dig while my foot was still healing, they would not like that. Apparently I do not do enough work around the seminary because I got a bad hot spot on my right hand from shoveling.

Anyways, we now have a nice (and safe) fire ring for the seminary.

What better way to celebrate Andrew Bina's Father's birthday than to buy an ice cream cake and challenge seminarians to finish the entire thing? That is what we did on Sunday evening for Raymond Bina's birthday.

Andrew told us to meet him downstairs in 30 minutes; and 45 minutes later we had no problem helping Andrew's parents finish the cake that same evening.

Usually, most parents of seminarians come to visit their sons in seminary sometime during their tenure. Mine have been up to Saint Louis a few times. Saint Louis is a great city to come visit and see the sites. There are great parks, great restaurants, and of course great sons in the seminary ...

Pictured to the right or below is Chris Martin, first year pre-theology seminarian from Wichita.