What a life! And it is mine, as a Priest of Jesus Christ!

One thing I've discovered is in need of improvement in Italy is the strength of the wifi. It's not always dependable, and because of this I get frustrated and don't try to update the blog from the monastery. My teacher, Ilenia always asks us "tutto bene?" (everything going well?)...and typically the response is "va bene" (it's going well)....Well...with the internet situation I say "me fa male!" (it's going badly!) Anyways---the entry: Last year when I was in Portugal/Poland last year, it seemed like almost every day I had some sort of wonderful revelation in prayer, or on a walk, or just randomly that I would blog about...This year my entries and "revelations" have been few (don't worry, I'm still praying!!), and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. Today however, I read something that brought me back to an entry I had last year... Although July 31 is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of th...

It feels like ages since we've been in Rome! Early Orientation is starting to become a distant memory...and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten every name of a guy who didn't go to language school in Siena. I didn't mention it before, but one of my favorite parts of EO was this thing I've heard before... but it reminds me of the "God is good...All the time!" call/response. Every so often, when a person finished speaking he would say "Praised be Jesus Christ" and we would all respond "Now and Forever!"...so if I ever sign an entry "Praised be Jesus Christ" I want you to say in your head, "Now and Forever!" Anyways, back to Siena...Tomorrow is Friday, which completes the first week of language school, though it feels like I've been here for a month at least. I really like one of the ways in which they teach Italian as a foreign language, and that is the one on one sessions in the afternoon. You get SO much atten...

Title credit goes to Phil Scheer on that one... Anyways--we finished Early Orientation with brunch on Sunday morning in Rome, and in the early afternoon departed for the 3 language schools. Some guys are in Asisi, others in Verbania and then a group of 24 of us in Siena at the Dante Aligheri School. Most of the guys in Siena have a host family---but there are 8 of us that are in the outskirts of Siena in Costafabbri, and we are staying at "Monastero" with some Sisters...still learning their order name, but it's the foundress of the female version of St. Vincent de Paul. We all have our own rooms, which are pretty spacious---my room alone has 3 beds and a private bathroom... The Sisters are wonderful, and it's going to help with the progression of Italian because (unless they're hiding it very well) they do not speak a word of English! On Monday (which I suppose is still "today" for anyone reading in the US/Haiti) we started our language classes. ...

So the first week in Rome has been PACKED with stuff, naturally. Thursday we went to Orvieto, a little mountain city in the Umbria region. In the neighboring town of Bolsena in 1263 is where a Eucharistic Miracle took place. A very holy German priest was having doubts about the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and begged God to help him believe. While celebrating Mass, the host began to bleed, dripping all over the corporal on the altar! The blood of Christ was made visible for this priest, and the corporal, still intact, is encased in a glass container and housed in the Cathedral in Orvieto. We had the opportunity to have Mass in the private side chapel right in front of this corporal. This miracle is the reason we as a Church have the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, which was instituted in 1264. St. Thomas Aquinas composed the "pange lingua" (final 2 verses are what we call "tantum ergo") and "Adoro te" for the feast--and we sang them both in e...

I can't come up with clever titles for every blog post... Today began a little later than I had expected with a 9:15 am departure time for our 10 am tour of St. John Lateran (the Pope's Basilica). The Sister who gave us the tour was wonderful...in fact here is her vocation story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z-U0s307djk#at=203 After the tour we renewed our Baptismal promises in San Giovani in Fonte (St. John's Baptistry), which is the first baptistry in Christianity built in 315 AD. For those of you who aren't math scholars---that means it's OLD! Following the renewal of our promises, we had Mass and then departed back to the NAC for pranzo (lunch, the main meal of the day). Kev SJ, Zim and I then divided the "Boston patrimony" which was left to us by Fr. Eric Bennett after his departure back to Boston when he finished his S.T.L. at the end of June. We got some good things that are helping to set up my room. (Which for t...

Well...Here I am...in the Eternal City. It's currently 5pm local time, 11 am back in Boston. The day has been so long and exhausting, I hope that means I shall sleep well tonight! After departing Boston yesterday at noontime, we arrived in Newark to await the flight to Rome. Seminarians are SO easy to pick out of a crowd, and it wasn't long before there were a few dozen of us at the airport---trying to learn names, faces and dioceses. Our flight to Rome took off as scheduled and was a typical international flight---not enough sleep and exhausted upon arrival at the destination. Kevin Staley-Joyce, a Boston guy studying in Rome and part of this years early orientation team met us at the airport, so it was good to see a familiar face amidst a sea of unknown. After arriving at the NAC, the second year men gave us the traditional "clap in"--when new men arrive for first year the older men in the house line the walkway and clap for us as we enter the NAC for the fi...