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

Merry Christmas to all!! After or 4 weeks of Advent preparation (which btw, this was one of the longest Advent Seasons we could have, since Christmas fell on a Sunday we got 4 full weeks of Advent before the Christmas season began with Vigil Mass on Christmas eve) our Christmas celebrations have begun! I haven't blogged since early October, so I feel like now that I have "downtime" on Christmas break I should write a little update. Being a deacon is such a great gift! In Rome, I've had several opportunities to carry out my diaconal ministry---presiding over Morning/Evening Prayer during the  Liturgy of the Hours, a couple times with the entire seminary community, each Tuesday with a group from my hallway during our "Grace sharing" nights and a couple times during Eucharistic Holy Hours with religious sisters in Rome. I've also preached a couple times at the NAC (my one time as a deacon in the main chapel at a community Liturgy, as well as a couple ...

​Praised be Jesus Christ!!! Nine days ago, the Feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, 29 of my classmates at NAC and I received the Sacrament of Holy Orders when His Eminence Seán Patrick Cardinal O'Malley (Archdiocese of Boston) ordained us deacons at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica. The entire week leading up to the ordination was just awesome. It was a blessing to have many family and friends in town for the occasion in addition to being supported by many back home through their prayers, and having Masses offered for me and my classmates. The night before the ordination the NAC Community hosts an in-house prayer vigil for the ordinadi. We process in to "Adoramus te Domine" ahead of one of the faculty priests and one of our already ordained classmates. The Blessed Sacrament is exposed and then we have a reading, responsorial psalm, Gospel, homily by the faculty member chosen by our class to preach to us words of wisdom on the nig...

...what day today is? It is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today I also finished my summer parish assignment at Immaculate Conception Marlborough... This is the parish I was assigned to last summer as well...It was an amazing blessing to return to a parish where I already had a rapport/relationship with the pastor, the parish staff and the parishioners. Walking back into this summer, I wondered how it would differ from last summer. I knew that my expectations would be mainly the same, with a few additions, however I didn't anticipate some of the experiences I had. Within the first 3 hours I returned, the pastor and I went to the hospital to pray with the brother/sister-in-law of a man who had already passed away. During the course of my first week back there were several experiences that never occurred during the summer of 2015 that we experienced... As I was talking with one of my closest friends from NAC about it, it dawned on me that ...

For those who are regular followers of my blog, you may recall the post below. Since this is the beginning of my conversion story, it has largely remained the same, I have only updated the date from the last time I posted this (Aug. 2, 2013 when I first arrived to Italy and was doing Italian studies in Siena): August 2, 1998 will forever stick out in my mind as the day of my conversion...it was the first time I can recall really praying, and confident that my prayer was heard. So without further delay...let's take a trip back to the summer before 8th grade! August 2, 1998 was a typical summer day. My family went down to Rhode Island for the Pawtucket Red Sox game with the free tickets we got at the end of the school year. After a long day, the family slowly retired for the night. Being a "cool teenager" (I had just turned 13 in June), during summer I stayed up until all hours talking on the phone with friends or watching tv. This night was filled tv and Town Spa Piz...

The past 8 days were my busiest so far this summer...and I probably won't be as busy until I get back to the NAC in late August. My days began around 5/5:30 with personal pray...but then the rest of my day was spent from 7:30-4 (most days) a group of 20 rising sophomores in our RelEd program in the parish's first ever Confirmation Boot Camp . Given the ever increasingly packed schedules of high school teenagers, our pastor wanted to offer an alternative program to the traditional once a week RelEd class. So was born the idea for an intense, dynamic, program that the teens would commit to attending to fulfill their catechetical portion of the Confirmation program. Our pastor had me and the Director of Faith Formation and Evangelization (DFFE) design an 8 day program (Sunday-Sunday, began and ended with Mass, and the teens went to daily Mass to start the day) that was about 61.5 hours of catechesis!!  We tried to design it so that we had an overall theme for each day, and the...

Realizing that my blogging has become far and few between, I thought I could fix that... First, The "Happenings"---what I've been up to---in a somewhat brief style: I've been back in the States for a little over 3 weeks---and man has that time flown! The first 3 days I was back were great days spent mainly with my mom. We went to daily Mass and then did errands, went out to eat, visited my Grammie...and other cool things like that. On Saturday June 18, I was blessed to attend the priestly ordination of Fr. Matthew Rensch of the Diocese of Burlington. Fr. Matt and I have lived on the same hall at NAC for the past 3 years, so it was a great joy to see him ordained a deacon back in the fall at St. Peter's as well as a priest on his home turf. There were several NAC faces present at the ordination and reception and it was fun to just spend time with them. After our Father's Day cookout Sunday, I prepared for the Boston Seminarian Retreat up in Kennebunkpor...

Here at the NAC, the academic year is starting to wind down. Today the Angelicum University finished classes (the school is being renovated over the summer so they needed to get out a week earlier), and next week the Gregorian and Santa Croce end our classes. This time next week the entire house will have entered finals mode, and I will be eagerly anticipating my June 14th flight back to Boston for the summer. But tonight...Tonight was a great night reminding me how blessed I am to have been sent to the North American College to be formed into a priest of Jesus Christ. Tonight we had our closing Mass and banquet, when we first gather around the Table of the Lord's supper to break the Eucharistic bread together, and then we gather in the refectory to share a meal. As is NAC tradition, at the banquet we honor our departing faculty members (this year we said "Arriverdverci" to 3 priests on the formation staff and 1 Dominican sister who works tirelessly in the College...

Fourteen years ago today I went to Mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Stoughton. I remember it was the Easter Season, and I was so happy to be able to sing "Alleluia" again. This Mass, however, wasn't just any other Mass...something BIG was going to be happening after the homily...something that would change my life. I was to be receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I had been taught in Religious Education classes that my choosing  to be confirmed was my "coming of age" in the Church, that now I would be an adult in the faith and responsible for helping to pass it on. As an active member of the Life Teen peer group, I didn't see a challenge in that...I was already talking about the faith to the freshmen and sophomores at Life Teen, and my sister, who was in 6th grade at the time, was looking forward to the day when she could be involved in Life Teen. I was asked to be one of the lectors at the Mass. I don...

Although I make a Holy Hour and attend Mass each day, I hadn't had a real  one-on-one time with Jesus in about 3 weeks...no one else present, just me and my Beloved. Wednesday though, I decided it had been too long, and I was going to change that. I got to the Chapel and knelt down to pray. I didn't see a light on in the window, and I knew the One I was going to see had not yet arrived. There were other men there to see Him first though and I would have to be patient and wait for my chance to speak one on one with Him. Soon enough, the light was on and the door was opened, Jesus was now receiving guests. While in Chapel in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, I prayed to the Lord for myself, for my confessor and for all those who long to experience the gift  of God's mercy. Finally, it was my turn!! I walked into the confessional, knelt down behind the screen, blessed myself and began "Father, it's been 3 weeks since my last confession..." Whe...