In all things, give thanks!

Before I get called out, I know...I'm due for an update!!

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Hard to believe that today is the 1st of December, (Happy 30th birthday to my cousin Joe!)and in a few short weeks we will celebrate Christmas!

Thanksgiving here at the College was very nice. There have been many traditions that developed at the NAC that make for a great Thanksgiving weekend. The College understands that this time of the year is hard to be away from family and friends in the States, so they host a whole slew of activities to try to keep us busy and not thinking about not being away. The first "traditional" is that the Rector of the NAC permits us to miss classes that day (Thanksgiving isn't an Italian holiday, as you probably know)

On Thanksgiving day itself, a group of 100+ seminarians, faculty, classmates from the universities and college students from apostolate groups begin Thanksgiving at 6 am with this years 5th annual (optional) 5K Turkey Trot around the walls of the Vatican, which is the only 5k to go around a sovereign nation!! I participated both years so far as I'm a sucker for community events! Then we have "hall breakfasts"--each wing cooks for themselves in their respective hall lounges and hangs out having some community building time, and some practice at eating before the feast!

Me and my buddies John and Mark before the Turkey Trot

Our Community Mass of Thanksgiving is at noon (Homily given by Abp. Augustine Di Noia, OP, worth the read!) followed by the banquet. We sit by geographic area, so MA, CT and ME had tables together this year (last year all of NE sat together, but this year VT and RI had a lot of guests so 1 large table wasn't possible) The "5th year priests" (men who were just ordained in the spring but are back as 5th year students to finish their licentiate program) serve the dinner and make the pumpkin pie. They typically get creative with a song some of them sing as it is served (last year it was to the tune of piano man..."give us a piece of that pumpkin pie..." and this year to the Lion King's in the jungle "In the college the american college, they want their pumpkin pie")

At night we're free to hang out, exercise (if we can even move!), or go to the auditorium to watch a 1953 episode of "Person to Person" that featured the NAC when it first opened on the Gianicolo Hill campus after WWII, and then the 1998 parody of it done by that year's ordination class.

Friday is a "usual" day, though many guys don't make it to university for class. The "new men" class has their first fraternal dinner that night (which was a great bonding experience last year!). 

Saturday night we have the "New man/Old Man show" The 1st year class puts on a show in the auditorium introducing their class to the house and acting out their impressions of the first months in Rome. Then the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year classes put on our "variety" show. It's a great time!! The New Men stole the stage this year with their show...it was hilarious and very well done. I participated in the show as an old man contestant on a "game show" about quotes from the book The New Men which was written in 1996 about 6 New Men at NAC. I ad-libbed about being an "Old Man" who had a rough year as a New Man but now loves the NAC and had a NAC sweatshirt and his own personal copy of the book!

The weekend wraps up on Sunday when the New Men take on the Old Men in a flag football game called the "Spaghetti Bowl" which apparently dates back to the early 1900's at the college. We have a cookout on the "campo sportivo" (sports field) and then the game. This year, for the first time in 15 (I believe) years, the New Man team won the game!

You can always check the PNAC Flikr Account to see pictures of the events we do here at the College.

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The formation program during second theology at the NAC is different than it was New Man year. As I've said before, second year is dedicated to "forming a priestly identity", so our September workshops as well as our Thursday formation nights throughout the year help us to develop a "presumption of permanence" (the movement from discerning the priesthood to, believing I am called and letting the Church discern if I am called to the priesthood) by the time Evaluations come around toward the end of February.

 

Our Thursday formation nights alternate between a presentation (Introduction to RCIA, youth ministry, living the charism of celibacy, etc) and a homiletic practice. I must concur with the older brothers in the house who said that once you start practicing giving homilies, formation changes in a way--it hits you that "wow, this I, God willing, will be ordained in +/- two years!"

For the homiletic practica (there are 10 for the year, 5 each semester) we are divided into small groups of 4 of my classmates and a faculty moderator. We usually have 3-5 (sometimes 4-6) minutes for our assigned topic, and our moderator films us so we can watch later to do a post-reflection. After each homily, we do peer feedback as well as feedback from our moderator (who has a homily presentation rubric to measure our delivery, use of gestures, tone, comfortability, content etc). 

Before Christmas break, we will have two more: one on Advent to be "given at a children's Mass" and the other for Christmas itself with the target audience adults in a large parish.

Speaking of Christmas break, I am making a pilgrimage with other brother seminarians in the house to the Holy Land from Dec 21-Jan 2, 2015. If you have any special intentions, please let me know! Otherwise, know of my prayers for you and yours during the Christmas season!

Although the next three weeks will fly by, I can't get ahead of myself! There are a lot of things that stand between me and Christmas break: I have a 10-15 minute oral final exam on the 10th from a 7 week Fundamental Theology course we had Octber-late November. For the final we also need to bring an outline of a book we read on Moral Theology and be able to answer questions he may pose to us. On the 11th, I have a midterm paper for my US Church History class on the history of the Archdiocese of Boston, an Ecclesiology paper is due on the 15th based off a papal/magisterial document written after Vatican II and it's ecclesiological implications...and I have to get a jump start on my 10 page final (going more in depth on a topic I already did a 30 minute class presentation on) for my seminar course on Central Themes in Old Testament Theology. Prayers appreciated!

Unlike in the U.S., our semester doesn't end with the beginning of Christmas break. Since our semester started the first week of October, after returning from Christmas break we will have another 2.5 weeks of classes before the semester ends. The 3 week final exam period is anticipated by many a seminarian at the College, as the house schedule is relaxed quite a bit--instead of 6:15 Morning Prayer/Mass, we have a 7 am Mass or a 12:30pm Mass--and the regular 6:45 Evening Prayer. Other than that we have the rest of the time to study, to take study breaks, exercise and, if you finish your exams before the 3 week period is over, we can gain permission to travel (Last year a Boston classmate and I went to Cologne, Germany to visit our former professor Sofia from our first year at SJS when we studied Portuguese at BC).

If I don't get to blog again before Christmas, I will definitely blog about the experience in the Holy Land!

In joyful hope for the Advent of our King,

kpl