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

WOOO!!!!!!!! After almost 9 weeks of "intensive Italian"...ABBIAMO FINITO LE LEZIONI D'ITALIANO!!!! (We have finished Italian lessons!!) The past 205 hours of intensive Italian language learning have been geared towards preparing us to live in Italy, and for most of us, to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University, which required an Italian proficiency exam (similar to the TOEFL in the US) before a foreign student can take classes in the University system. The exam is a "written" part done on a computer, than 3 oral components; the first is an interview where I will speak about myself--who I am, where I'm from, what I did before seminary, what my hobbies and interests are etc. The second is reading a paragraph out loud so they can verify our ability to read; and third is being shown a random picture and describing it, saying an event it reminds us of in our past (so seeing our use of the imperfect) and then what we think (our use of the congiuntivo). Mo...

So it's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted...slackerrrrrr! We're down to one more week of Italian classes, and then we go on our silent retreat for a week, return to take our Italian proficiency exam on Monday the 30th, and then start theology classes the week after that (October 7th). I realized yesterday that it has been 60 days since leaving the US. My first thought was "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! It's ONLY been 60 days?!" Although it feels like more than 2 months since arriving here in Italy, I will say that it continues to be evident to me that God has plans for my heart to be more closely drawn to Him in this time "in the desert". Today during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, I felt someone come into the same pew as me and sit down next to me. I continued praying when all of a sudden I felt him nudge me in the side. I look to my left, and it was Bishop Deeley, Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Boston. He's in Rome for new ...

Friday morning the 64 new men, a few orientation leaders from Second Year, and a lot of the priest faculty departed NAC for Assisi for "First Year Fraternity Weekend". Each year, the college sponsors a weekend away from Rome in order for each class to build fraternity with each other. First year's happens to be incorporated into our orientation program. After arriving to Assisi mid-morning, we celebrated Mass in S. Chiara (St. Clare's), which is where the San Damiano Cross is located. This is the cross that Francis was praying in front of when  the Icon of Christ Crucified came alive and said to him three times, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins". He thought this to mean the ruined church in which he was presently praying, and so sold his horse and some cloth from his father's store, to assist the priest there for this purpose.   After Mass and lunch we could pretty much explore the city, meet ...

I've been told it was too hard to read at times with a dark red background with black font. So I opted for a white background with black font... New post in minutes!