Updating

I'm just about two months away from priestly ordination, and I'm very excited.  It's getting hard to stay focused on the daily life here at the seminary, on my studies, on anything really.  But I wanted to give an update on the things that have been going on:

#1 - This one is huge.  A couple weeks ago,  I was graced with the opportunity to travel to the Holy Land (for the second time!) with three other Mobile seminarians, and a group from the Archdiocese led by Archbishop Rodi.  This was truly an amazing experience, and it deserves its own blog post, so I'll get to that later.

#2 - I've started playing music again.  That is to say, I've started just sitting down and playing music for no other reason than it gives me joy.  I had forgotten how refreshing and life giving it was, and I'm glad to get back into it, more regularly anyway.

#3 - Over Holy Week, I'll be making my canonical retreat before ordination, so please keep me in your prayers.  I'm traveling with some friends to Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire, England where we will spend the week not only celebrating the Triduum, but also preparing ourselves spiritually for ordination.  I was there two years ago. It's a wonderful location. The Abbey liturgies are beautiful, very reminiscent of my time at St. Joseph's Abbey in Louisiana.  I'm really looking forward to this retreat.

#4 - I've got my "thesis" topic. (It's really just a short 30 page paper to cap off the MDiv program.)  My area of specialization is patristics, so I'll be writing a few of the Fathers' interpretations of Gen 27 (that's when Jacob dresses up like Esau and deceives Isaac into giving him the blessing), focusing mainly on the moral problem of Jacob's deception.

#5 - Southern Night - the Gulf Coast seminarians at the NAC are starting our annual labor of love in putting together Southern Night, an invitation only event for the southerners at the seminary.  We go all out with specialty drinks, seven courses, music, etc.  It's always a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.

#6 - Clericus Cup!  The annual clerical soccer tournament is now going into it's third week.  The North American Martyrs are performing fairly well, but we need a win this Saturday to get into the quarter finals.  As always, the fans from the NAC are going all out, dressing up and shouting our heads off.  I'm more or less leading the charge as Uncle Sam.  If you don't mind dealing with the Italian, you can check out the tournament website: Clericus Cup (The "Photo Gallery" is easy enough to find; Martyrs pictures will always be found under "Girone B.")

I guess that's about it.  Things are going pretty well these days...