Special Xmas Edition!*

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Sorry. I was trying to come up with a catchy title. I went with the sales pitch.

Well, break has arrived for Kevin and I.  Praise God! Christmas is around the corner!  Yet, this year that doesn't  mean going home for us.  The seminary here in Rome doesn't allow us to go home for break, which is partially due to the fact that it's only three weeks off and a flight home would be out of our budget.  Yes, this means no family trip down to see all my extended family in Mexico (guaranteed full of fun, joy, food; Mexican style).

While family Christmas memories can't be replaced, the Lord has given us a new opportunity of growth.  Here in Rome, there is a great sense of distance from family, country, and all things familiar which brings about a new, deeper bonding experience between brother seminarians and, more particularly, with our Lord.  In sharing the sadness of being away with friends, we become more like family.  In sharing our struggles with our Lord, we become more dependent on Him.  Ultimately what occurs is essential to continued growth as men pursuing the priesthood: an increase in Love.

That said, both Kevin and I will be traveling throughout Europe during the break, getting to see how the Christmas season is celebrated in different nations and cultures.  Please keep us in your prayers as travel is wonderful experience while at the same time challenging and stressful.

Also during break we will be visited by seminarians from the Josephinum, the college seminary Kevin and I call alma mater.  In this group will be Kurt Perera and Chris Axline, two of our Phoenix seminarian brothers. We look forward to seeing them and our other friends! (Consider this a shout out!)

I will end with some photos of my hallway's Christmas decoration.  However, of particular interest is Kevin's hall way. Their theme was Christmas on fourth of July, essentially an over-the-top American pride celebration of Christmas. Here's Kevin in a Captain America outfit with some of his hall mates. By the way, they didn't win the hall competition for best decorations... my hall did   : )

Already, But Not Yet

The Christmas tree is St. Peter's Square is up,
but the Nativity scene is still under construction

There is a particular tension in Advent.  We are in wait for the coming of Christmas, the coming of Christ into the world, the incarnation.  But Christ has already come, his saving work complete.  Yet we are still waiting, there is a real anticipation, and not just for the celebration of Christmas.  Advent also brings to mind that we await Christ who will come again, and establish his kingdom on earth.  But this kingdom is already present; Christ is already present, in His Body, the Church.  Yet not fully, we still await the completion that will come with Christ at the end of time. 

Here are some picture from the Pope's Angeles Address today.

This is a tension that I have not experienced before quite as well as I have this semester.  Fernando and I have been in Italy for almost 5 months now, yet we just past the half way point of the semester last week.  Now obviously that’s because we didn’t start actual classes for a couple month into our time here, but that kind of logic unfortunately doesn’t work with my attention span.  It seems my whole body is just itching for Christmas and the end of the semester.  And with Christmas only two weeks away I see the light and the hope.  But because the semester is so late, unlike every semester that I have experienced before this, Christmas does not mark the end of the semester.  Now we still get a break, but we will return to three more weeks of classes plus finals. 

Already, but not yet.  Coming on these finally weeks until Christmas, in a special way, we can rejoice in the coming of Christ as man and the end of the beginning of our time here in Rome with all the good things that have happened and have been brought into our lives in these first months.  Still, while embracing that joy, we live in the tension that our time is not yet done, our work still needs to be completed. 

Image of Mary Immaculate in our chapel.

We just celebrated, on Thursday, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  This celebration of God’s special grace giving to Mary was a beautiful celebration here at the NAC.  Mary Immaculate is the patroness of the College as well as the whole United States.  So it was a special time for us to remember the people from whom we came, and to whom we will return, and hold them close in prayer.  It was a joy to celebrate that God saved Mary, a symbol of the Church, from sin from the moment of her conception.  Yet here too we see this tension.  The Church is Holy, like Mary, for Christ has already come to her and dwells among us.  But, those of us in the Church, like Fernando and I in this semester, still have work to do, for the kingdom is not yet complete, and we still struggle with our own sinfulness; we still await Christ coming with his loving gaze to make us holy and pure like Mary, His Mother. 

Let us pray for one another in this tension, that when Christ does return we will welcome it will all the more joy!

December Rain

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Almost five months since arrival.  It's December and we're only midway through the semester.  That's weird.  

Along with the new translation of the Roman Missal, the liturgical season of Advent has begun and there is much anticipation that accompanies it. Roman rite Catholics throughout the world enter into a spiritual waiting for the Lord's coming celebrated in the Christmas season. (This includes a renewed practice of patience in prayer and trust in the Lord)

Here in Rome, that anticipation is accompanied by the waiting for the unveiling of this years nativity scene in St. Peter's square. The above picture shows its veiled construction that will continue until its opening on Dec. 24th. There is also a huge Christmas tree put up in the square that has arrived and still lays in the bed a semi-truck. From what I've heard of years past, the whole display is something to look forward to.

In the meantime, we will take on a weekend retreat to prayerfully begin the season of Advent and reflect on how we will orient ourselves to the mystery of the birth of Christ, Emmanuel, God-among-us. It is no simple thought to reflect on how the reality of Christ's presence among us, so emphatically anticipated in the Old Testament, is now made really and truly present to us in the Eucharist.

Backing up a week, to end our Thanksgiving weekend festivities, we had the annual Spaghetti Bowl flag-football game. It consisted of the first year seminarians (the "New Men") versus the "Old Men," a little bit of american tradition and manly competition to finish off a weekend of gratitude. Also good way to make us feel a little bit more at home and part of a good community as our fourth month in Rome came to an end.

The game also highlighted one of the important aspects of seminary life and formation: fraternity. Now I'm not talking about the college "frat house" type of fraternity. I'm talking about the classic idea of fraternitas, that is, the familial community in which the individuals build each other up in the practice of virtues and the striving for the Truth.

It is in the spirit of fraternitas that each person is called to encourage others to transcend their own wants and desires in service for the community for the sake of the love of God.