Destination: Jesus

This past weekend, I was able to participate in my diocese's annual youth retreat weekend, entitiled Destination: Jesus. It is a Eucharistic retreat built off of the model of the Youth 2000 retreats. This is year is the sixteenth year that our diocese has sponsored this event and it has grown every year. Nearly 950 youth attended this year's event and I came away exhausted (and all I did was support all of the people that were making everything happen) because the experience of being around so many young people who are being lit on fire for Christ, who are finding healing in the Sacrament of Confession, and who are allowing Christ to touch their heart, possibly for the first time in their lives, inspired me to pour myself out for them in anyway that I could think of.

Listening to some of these youth tell me about the great experience that they had, about some incredibly difficult situations that they are dealing with, and then worshiping our Eucharistic Lord with them made me want to be a priest more than ever. Part of the last day of the retreat is reserved to ask the youth to consider vocations to the priesthood and religious life. They've seen the seminarians and nuns running around all weekend, but on Sunday we get officially introduced. Our Director of Vocations, Fr. Brian Doerr, introduced us and bragged that our seminary rectors all agree that we are some of the best men studying for the priesthood that they've seen. I was feeling a little embarrassed by this, but then the entire crowd of 950+ people erupted into a standing ovation for us and I was brought to tears. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love. I am invigorated to continue to give myself to completing formation and to being ordained a priest. I am also hopeful that our witness this weekend will inspire a few young men and women to consider whether or not God might be calling them to a religious vocation.

Fr. Brian has an e-form that anyone can fill out if they are considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life up on our website. It can be found at http://www.priestforever.org/DJ. Click and submit the form if you are interested in getting information about discerning a religious vocation. Or, if you know someone who participated in the weekend, please send them the link in case they forgot it after the weekend.

Most of all, let us continue to pray for vocations, both that we may have the courage to fully live out our own and for others to courageously accept their own, and for the youth whose lives have been changed forever by their encounter with Christ this weekend, that in all things God may be glorified!

Our Lady's boy

For those who don't know, my good friends Ken and Beth had their third child last December, Leo Michael. I was quite honored when they asked me to be his godfather (my fourth!). Leo was born on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when we celebrate that Jesus' mum Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin. Because of my travels in January, Leo has not yet been baptized. Tomorrow, however, is the day! I find it only a little providential that his baptism will happen the day after the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes (Feb. 11th), which is the day that we celebrate Mary's appearance to St. Bernadette Soubirous in which Mary revealed herself as the "Immaculate Conception." Mary, the Immaculate Conception has this boy covered ;)

Leo's two months old now and he looks great! Check him out...

The Race is On!

One of the things that hit me as I began the new semester last week was that it is only three months before the Race for Vocations MiniMarathon in Indianapolis! Needless to say, having spent most of January travelling (without running gear), I found it quite urgent that I get started on my training program right away.

It has taken a little over a week to get myself "broken in" again to running, but now I am ready to start training in earnest. The MiniMarathon website has a good training program laid out (I'm behind on it, but am catching up), and I am going to try and follow that as best I can. More importantly, however, is the real reason why I am doing this anyway: to pray for holy vocations to the priesthood, religious life, marriage and single vocations. I'll admit, in my earnest, I forgot to offer my first couple of training runs for vocations, but now I am remembering to do it on each run. I'm even offering when I run as a prayer. For example, last night I was not sure when I would have time to run, but I prayed that God would make time for me. When I woke up before my alarm this morning, I remembered my prayer and thought, "I'll bet I have time to run." Sure enough, it was 5:30, a half hour before my alarm would go off at 6:00 and I had a 30 minute training run to make today. So I got up, got dressed and did my run, offering it for those who are searching for their vocation.

I need more help! If you are reading this and feel called to do so, you can "pledge" to pray along with me as I train. This could be anything from an extra Our Father or Hail Mary for each training run I make to a Rosary or Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Perhaps you could offer to give something up (a fast or abstinence, like a cup of coffee or a dessert) on the days that I train. For those ready to go the extra mile (pun intended), you could offer to match, minute for minute, the amount of time that I spend training in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, praying for vocations. The best part is that you will be doing something great for yourself while you are doing something great for someone else! That's how good God is!

Those who are interested in pledging prayers for vocations in conjunction with my training, send me an e-mail and I will keep you up to date on what my training schedule looks like week-to-week, so you can keep your prayers in line with my training.

(Perhaps even right now God is nudging you to step up and run, yourself. Don't be shy! Click here and find out how you, too, can join the Race for Vocations!)

Thanks in advance to all who will pledge their support. Verso l'Alto!

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us!

Blessings and Grace

Ok, so I'm finally back from all of my travels. Praise God first and foremost that throughout our journey no one got lost, injured, or pick-pocketed! Our travel was safe and it seemed like everyone had a great experience.

Before you ask, I haven't even begun to download my pictures yet. The most common question that I have been asked so far is probably the hardest one to answer in thirty seconds or less: "So, what did you guys see when you were over there?" Let me see if I can give a summary that leaves you longing to see my pictures (...gee, I really hope that most of them turned out!).

We started off in London where we in broad strokes reviewed the history of Christianity, and particularly of the Reformation, in England. To do this we visited the National Portrait Gallery and got a visual history of the Tudor dynasty and those that followed it. We visited the Tower of London and Tyburn convent, where thousands of Christians were murdered for being on the wrong side of the Catholic-Protestant divide (which side was the wrong side depending on who was in power at the time). We visited Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral (both Anglican) to see "High Anglican" churches at their finest (even if one of them is a former Catholic monastery). We visited John Wesley's house and learned about the history of Methodism. We prayed at the splendid Brompton Oratory, as well as at the tombs of St. Thomas More, St. Edward the Confessor, and at the martyrdom site of St. Thomas Beckett. We visited Oxford to see Bl. John Henry Newman's old stomping ground and Canterbury, the very place where Christianity began in England. We also enjoyed contemporary culture in London, enjoying plays and musicals on a couple of evenings. I also enjoyed exploring some of the most charming pubs in London (more on these "walking tours" later). If it wasn't for the dreadful weather (cold and damp most days), I would have loved to stay longer. Alas, to Rome!

In Rome... well, in Rome it felt like we saw it all. If there was a theme it probably was, "From Constantine to High Baroque in Ten Days." We began by exploring the ruins of the Roman Forum (i.e. the splendor of Constantinian Rome) and continued to explore basilica after basilica... so much so that the nuances between Renaissance and Baroque styles of architecture started to become abundantly clear. We explored the architectural "duelling banjos" that was splendidly played out throughout Rome between Borromini and Bernini (let's just say that Bernini won that duel). Once we were cross-eyed with the High Roman Baroque, we toured Florence for something completely different... the Renaissance. After many of these tours I found myself playing the line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off in my head:

Ferris: Cameron, what have you seen today?
Cameron: Nothing good.
Ferris: Nothing good? Wha... what do you mean nothing good? We've seen everything good. We've seen the whole city! We went to a museum, we saw priceless works of art. We ate pancreas!

Side note: Google "borghese gallery" and "bernini"... most incredible sculptures ever! Then Google "trippa romana" and figure out what "trippa" really is... I ate that. Once you've done that you'll know why this quote was so prominent in my head :)

We toured the beautiful hill town of Assisi and I was able to complete my pilgrimage to Turin... which brings me to my most important point. We were able to pray in front of the tombs of many our Christian heritage's greatest saints: Saints Peter and Paul (I saw Peter's bones!), Saint Francis and Saint Clare, Saint Lawrence and Saint Cecilia, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Timothy, Saint Monica and the soon to be beatified John Paul II among many others. Two places were of particular interest to me: first, I climbed the stairs (on my knees, because that's the only way they let you do it) that Jesus climbed to meet Pontius Pilate in the Praetorium before where he was condemned to death; second, I was able to pray before the tomb of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom I looked to for help while undergoing chemotherapy treatments. It was truly moving to pray before his tomb in Turin, since I have been devoted to him for so long.

We also saw the Pope, of course, and ate lots of pizza, pasta, and gelato and drank our fair share of wine. Oh, and did I mention that it was 50-60 degrees and sunny every day we were there? I was sooo tempted to ditch the group and become a gypsy king just so I could stay in that perfect weather for a little while longer. Alas, I could not overcome my sense of duty and I returned home with the group. But that's not all...

Two days later, we were in vans heading to Washington D.C. to March for Life on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in our country. Given my weariness with travelling, I really had no interest in going, but God's grace helped me to offer my tiny sufferings for all of those babies who have been murdered and the men and women whose lives have been permanently disfigured by abortion. Once again, hundreds of thousands of men and women, many of them youth from throughout the country, converged to stand in protest of the unjust laws protecting abortion as a right in our country. While laws protecting abortion are nothing to be proud of, we should all be proud of our country and the freedom we enjoy to speak out against our government when we feel justice is being ignored. I carried the Stars and Stripes during the March and felt proud to do so.

If I can describe all of these adventures in a nutshell it is in two words: blessings and grace. I have been truly blessed to have seen all that I have seen and to have come in contact with so much of our Catholic history, especially as I prepare to be ordained to the transitional diaconate in the spring. Grace has touched me throughout all of this (both in joy and sorrow) and I will be unpacking it all for months, I'm sure. I will try to share some of the specific blessings and graces with you here as I do.

Thank you for all of you who prayed for us as we traveled. They were felt! Stay tuned for more soon. Ciao!

Merry Christmas

Blessings to all for a very Merry Christmas! Just a quick note to all of you to let you know that I will be leaving in a couple of days for a trip to London and Rome with a group from Saint Meinrad. We will spend three weeks there (one in London and two in Rome). I will take more pictures than I will know what to do with and I promise (and I mean it) that I will post the story of our trip after I return.

Please pray for safe travels and a heart open to experiencing God's presence in a new way. Thanks and PEACE!

Two surprises...

First: I completed a "reader's theater" performance of Shakespeare's Richard II this past weekend. One of the monks (Fr. Gavin Barnes, OSB) directed eight of us seminarians in a performance where we dramatically read the play, instead of acting it out fully. This format seems to be perfect for the seminary setting because it allows us to engage the material and perform it ably without demanding a lot of time or adding a lot of stress to our schedules (we only rehearsed six times for two hours each before performing it). Also, the format is an introvert's dream. He can be "on stage" (it really wasn't a stage) in front of a lot of people and never know they were there because his face is always buried in the book with his lines in it :)

I was a little surprised to be cast as Richard, but I trusted what Fr. Gavin thought of my ability and tried to do my best. I really gave it my all and many people commented about how surprised they were by how good I was. At first no one believed that I had not had any prior theatrical performance experience. I guess I surprised myself at my hidden talent :) I had a lot of fun doing the show and I hope to do other performances in the future. (here's a picture of the cast)

Second: A couple of weeks ago, I ran the Trinity Free Clinic 5K at my home parish in Carmel. It really wasn't a planned thing, but I happened to be home at the parish that weekend and so I decided to run it. I had never run a 5K race before and was happy to finish. I finished 110th of 307 and my time was 27:23.8. After I finished the race, Carl, a fellow seminarian at Saint Meinrad from the diocese of Pueblo, Colorado, said "ok, now you've finished your first race, it's time to sign up for the mini" (meaning the Indianapolis Mini-marathon that happens in May each year). My initial reaction was to say "No way!" but then Carl reminded me of the "Race for Vocations," a project started a couple of years ago by a priest of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. The Race for Vocations is basically a team of runners who sign up to run the mini and offer up all of their training as a sacrifice of prayer for an increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The runners get sponsors to pray with them through their training as a way of promoting vocations awareness in their communities. Finally, the runners wear "Race for Vocations" shirts in the mini to promote vocations awareness in the midst of such a huge public event.

Showing that I could pretty easily pick up and run a 5K with little preparation made me pretty sure that with training I could run the mini next year. Then I realized that the only reason that I wouldn't run the mini would be that I just didn't want to do it (or, possibly, that I was afraid that I couldn't do it). It didn't take much for me to be convinced that this should be something that I should try at least once in my life, and with the Race for Vocations I would have a positive motivation to train. I prayed about it for about a week and couldn't shake the idea, so yesterday I registered for the mini and as a member of the Race for Vocations team (...what have I done?!?!).

I forget how it works exactly, but if you are willing to "sponsor" me in this endeavor (which means you would pray with me for vocations as I train), please let me know. Or, if you just want to pray for me as I train, that would help, too :)

Really, though, I find myself surprising myself a lot lately... in good ways. I guess that means that formation must be working! Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for (me) us!

P.S. I think this would be an appropriate endeavor to adopt Bl. Pier Giorgio's motto for: Verso l'alto!

The difference a year makes...

A friend of mine who is approaching her first wedding anniversary wrote that in an e-mail to me the other day and I realized that today, October 30th, is the one-year anniversary of my first chemotherapy treatment. At the time, I had no idea how it was going to turn out. And now, only one year later, I know how it turned out. I took the treatments well, I completed them without a hitch, and I achieved remission (...all through God's grace, of course!). One year ago today, I was wondering when or if I would get really sick, and when I'd lose my hair. Today, I ran a 5K and have a full head of hair (and then some!). What a difference a year makes, indeed.

So, am I better for it? Unqualifiably, yes. Would I have ever asked to do it that way? Heck no! But that's the best part. Something I would have never chosen or planned for helped me to grow in ways I couldn't have imagined when it all began. Some of the happiest people I know learned this secret a long time ago, but I share it with you here and will leave you with a challenge: Instead of trying to force everything to be the way you plan it to be, how about letting go and seeing where those challenges to your plans lead you? Try it for a year. You never know what a difference a year can make.