... AND I LET MYSELF BE DUPED

OK, OK . . .

2008-06-24T16:56:00.001-04:00

By popular request, I'm doing something a little different here. But, sorry, no comments.

More Ordination Photos

2008-06-16T15:52:00.007-04:00

The Day Has Come

2008-06-14T17:19:00.003-04:00

I'll post some more photos of my ordination when I have some, but in the meantime check out the "mobile blogged" version, courtesy of my friend Mike Hayes at Googling God who was there in person.

I should also have some photos to share soon on my Flickr account.

Thanks!

2008-04-17T01:18:00.003-04:00

No, not a return. Just taking the opportunity to say thanks to you all for your kind comments and e-mails this week. A leaven to the thesis writer!

As some of you have expressed concern, my plan for now is to keep the blog where it is, in case we get nostalgic.

And, if you're up for it, come on down!:

With gratitude to God, the New Orleans

Province of the Society of Jesus announces the ordination to the presbyterate of

Jose Emilio Fetzer, S.J.

and

Mark Steven Mossa, S.J.

To be conferred by Most Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza, D.D.

Archbishop-Emeritus of Galveston-Houston

on Saturday, the fourteenth of June, Two Thousand and Eight at eleven o’clock in the morning

Immaculate Conception Church

130 Baronne Street

New Orleans, LA

Farewell

2008-04-09T10:47:00.003-04:00

I began blogging after finding myself victim to a certain amount of slander (see “When Jesuits Attack”) for writing a not wholly complimentary review of a book by George Weigel. In my subsequent dialogue with the author of the post—who publicly apologized for making uncharitable presumptions about me merely based on that review—I thought I saw an opportunity, an opportunity to bridge a gap between people of different perspectives in the Church. So, I threw my hat into the fray and it was fun, for a while. It even appeared that I might make some progress in this endeavor and perhaps even accomplish some goals that I had set for myself in becoming aware of the various dimensions of the Catholic blogosphere—trying to encourage some positive discourse, and hoping to offer a counterweight to the negative and unfair caricature of the Society of Jesus which obtains in many a corner of that blogosphere. And, at first, there seemed to be some hope of success at this, and there are still a coterie of bloggers (you know who you are) that give me hope in this regard. Yet, I’ve grown tired of swimming against the tide. The most negative of Catholic blogs still continue to be the most popular and, like myself, the more positive bloggers seem to be posting with far less frequency. The recent General Congregation has only provide more fodder for negative speculation among those who hate the Society of Jesus, and indeed some who claim to love it. And, finally coming full circle, in a sense, I recently again found myself the victim of slander, falsely accused of being uncharitably slanderous myself, and not by a stranger like in the first case, but this time by a friend, by someone who should have known better. That almost no one, it seems, found this hard to believe, just demonstrates what we have come to expect in the Catholic blogosphere. Charity, it seems, is not among those things. It has become—and perhaps always has been—a poisonous atmosphere which I no longer desire to be a part of.

Nonetheless I have made some good friends as a result of my time here, and for this I am most grateful. Some of those friends were able to be with me at my diaconate ordination, and some will also be guests at my ordination to the priesthood in June. It is this result of my time blogging which I can most celebrate. I may not have succeeded in convincing anybody of anything, the Catholic blogosphere may be nastier than ever, but I can celebrate a community of good friends with whom I have had the privilege of journeying in these years, and whose friendship I hope to maintain. But it will be in other ways.

Recent months have been difficult for me, and the episode I describe above was just the tip of the iceberg. But the blessing and grace has been that it has forced me to examine what is most important in my life right now. In a little over two months I will be ordained a priest, and there are few things more important than that right now. It is a fulfillment of God’s will toward which I have been working for nearly 11 years. It promises new challenges and new opportunities. What a privilege it will be to invite both strangers and friends to worship, and to be able to offer them reconciliation with God! To focus on these most important things, some other things, I realize, must go by the wayside. At this point, continuing this blog is more a temptation than a real contribution. And I hope it has been a contribution, at least to some.

In my prayer these months as I prepare for ordination, I will also pray for you, my friends, who have in various ways been Christ to me these three and a half years. Please also pray for me.

As I “silence” this blog, I do so in the hope of enjoying the silence which Alfred Delp invokes when describing ordination:

In that great moment of our life when we go to be ordained, we kneel before the bishop and he silently lays his hands upon us. He is silent. You feel the blessed and creative burden of this hand through your entire being. And the congregation is silent. And this silence will surround the priest. This keeping silent, the still hands of the silent bishop, calls forth the priest from his former homeland. It calls him forth from his previous refuges, and sequesters him and encompasses him with this silence, this stillness in which he will be consecrated, so that it will accompany him all his life. This silence must surround us. We guard people's secrets in silence. We call our heart to be silent, so that it does not love where it should not love. Our will for power must be silent, because we are sent forth to be the hands of the Lord in blessing. Silent, too, must be our will for all the other things that, otherwise, could shelter and anchor and secure a life in this world. The silence accompanies us, because it is always the sign that the Lord God has come especially near.

This silence does not and must not belong only to the priest. It is shared with all. May you also know the nearness of God in such silence. Thanks.

Insight From Another Imprisoned Jesuit

2008-04-08T12:17:00.002-04:00

Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J. was executed by the Nazis. Since the charges against him were hard to substantiate, in the end it became clear that he was basically killed for being a Jesuit and a priest. I've been reading and reflecting on his writings from prison. Here's an observation which seemed especially prescient:

The Church faces the same tasks that nations and states and the western world in general have to face--the problem of human beings, how they are to be housed and fed and how they can be employed in order to support themselves. In other words we need social and economic regeneration. And then humans also must be made aware of their true nature--in other words we need intellectual and religious regeneration. These are problems for the world, for individual states and nations, and they are also problems for the Church--far more so, for instance, than the question of liturgical forms. If these problems are solved without us, or to our disadvantage, then the whole of Europe will be lost to the Church, even if every altar faces the people and Gregorian chant is the rule in every parish . . .

Alfred Delp is not well enough known. You can find out more about him here.

Return from Russia

2008-04-04T13:22:00.004-04:00

Even before becoming a Jesuit, one of the Jesuits I had come to admire most was Walter Ciszek, an American Jesuit who spent 24 years imprisoned in Russia and who was thought to be dead before his surprising return to the United States, in exchange for two Soviet agents.

As part of its centennial, America is reprinting some of its classic articles. This week's is Walter Ciszek's reflections upon his return from Russia. Here's an excerpt:

The more I see here in America, the stranger it seems in a way. For the contrast between that hidden faith [In Russia], fluttering as if it were always about to go out and yet somehow remaining alight, and the open, free and almost proud profession of faith in this country is simply staggering.

Yet when I walked through St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, do you know what impressed me most? The few people, out of all the crowds streaming by, who came in through those open doors to make a visit. I understand that my impression was not fair, that at noontime on a working day the church is jammed with office workers who take time out from their lunch hour to go to Mass and to Communion. At first glance religion here seems almost a formality, an obligation that can be dispensed with if you have been out late the night before.

In Siberia, when I said Mass, people risked arrest to come; here, they risk nothing, neither do they always come. In Krasnoyarsk and Norilsk, when people learned a priest was in town or was saying Mass at such and such a place, they came for miles, bringing their children to be baptized, going to confession before Mass and then Communion during Mass, asking to have their marriages blessed after Mass, begging me to come and bless their homes or sing the panikida (a requiem service) for members of the family who had died. They came to huts, to barracks rooms, to private homes, and they risked their jobs, their union membership, their chance for an apartment or an education for their children. Having ministered to such faith, therefore, it was incredible to me to think that people here could look on Sunday Mass as an obligation, or the supporting of their parish and their school as a burden.

I should repeat again that these were my first reactions, my impressions, and are not meant in any way as criticisms. I am only reporting what struck me when I first looked at America again. As a priest who had worked very hard to help people who were so eager just to be able to go to Mass, I could not help being struck, thunderstruck, at this initial impression of indifference to religion in a country where there was nothing to restrain its open practice.

You can read the rest here.

George Weigel & the Jesuit Charism

2008-03-26T09:31:00.003-04:00

I had this to say in response to George Weigel's column for the week of February 20, "Questions for Father General":

And, yes, the 'broad brush' approach of Weigel and Neuhaus suggest that they are not really interested in seeing what is good in the Society of Jesus. And the fact that they keep trotting out the same tired examples of what they take to be indications of overall Jesuit failure says to me that they are not really interested in looking any deeper.

While I expect that George Weigel cares little about my opinion, I am happy to stand corrected, to an extent, by his latest column, "The Ignatian Possibility Today." In it he offers, while not wholly uncritical, a refreshingly positive view of the Society of Jesus and what the Society has to offer the Church.

In my ten years as a Jesuit I have become convinced that we find ourselves at a time when the life and spirituality inspired by Saint Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are needed more than ever. This is a gift to the Church and the world that the Society of Jesus is uniquely qualified to offer. I think this is something of what Weigel is trying to get at it when he suggests that the Jesuit religious charism might be seen as something permanent. However, from my perspective, the question of whether it is permanent isn't as important as my conviction of its necessity now, and that is why the stakes are so high for the future of the Society of Jesus (a future that I am much more optimistic about than some).

Indeed, I am not saddened by the anecdote with which Weigel begins his article, surprised and saddened as he was by the fact that a few Jesuit interlocutors were not convinced of the permanence of the Jesuit charism. For me, it represents the very humility which Ignatius himself had and encouraged in his companions. Ignatius encourages us not to be passionless about the future or the permanence of the Society, but to be indifferent about it. Ignatius expressed his awareness of the possibility that there might come a time when God no longer had use for the Society and, if that time should come, that Jesuits should recognize it as sure a sign of God's will as was his institution of the Society. I am happy to agree with Weigel that this time has not come, and is unlikely to come soon (as much as our detractors would like it to be so). The Pope, in his gracious and encouraging words to our recent General Congregation, affirmed that the Church is still very much in need of what we Jesuits have to offer.

Still questions about what shape this future contribution will take certainly remain. Both the Pope and Cardinal Rode spoke of the need for Jesuits to continue to engage the "frontiers" of the Church and the world, despite the attendant risks. Their challenge was also clear for us to further our understanding of all aspects of our charism, including the sentir cum ecclesiae ('thinking with the Church') and our fourth vow of obedience to the Pope with regard to mission. These are as much aspects of our charism as the service of faith and the promotion of justice, aspects deserving of more reflection.

Pope Benedict also pointed to the enduring nature of our charism by affirming the words of Paul VI: "Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, at the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there has been and there is confrontation between the burning exigencies of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, here also there have been, and there are, Jesuits." If our charism is indeed to be permanent, I believe that Paul VI also aptly expressed here what must be one of its enduring characteristics.

I have said more than Weigel does in his column, but I hope it to be in the same spirit. Obviously, I am a Jesuit and he is not, so there is a bit of difference in perspective. But, nevertheless, I am happy to say that I share in his concluding conviction:

Like my column, my work with Jesuits has been an expression of my conviction that the Ignatian charism ought to be a permanent one— and my hope that the community which gave the Church such heroes as Francis Xavier, Edmund Campion, Robert Southwell, Isaac Jogues, Miguel Pro, and Alfred Delp might be renewed in the image of their radical fidelity.
A.M.D.G.

A.M.D.G., indeed.

The Strife is O'er

2008-03-25T20:06:00.002-04:00

Only in the Church can the acronym STD signal good news.

My immediate future is beginning to take shape. I'm more than halfway through my final semester as a seminarian. Ordination is less than three months away. I've made plans to spend the summer in Frankfurt (Germany, not Kentucky) to study German and serve as a priest at an English-speaking parish. And, in August I will be returning to Boston to begin my studies for and STD (Doctor of Sacred Theology) in Moral Theology at the new Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Yippee!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers in recent months!

Happy Easter

2008-03-22T20:20:00.003-04:00

Believe

Painting Update

2008-03-15T11:47:00.002-04:00

I've got a line on the painting! It's called "San Ignacio de Loyola y la Santisima Trinidad," and it is attributed to an 18th century Mexican painter named Francisco Martinez. It's on display at a small museum in Mexico, and I've gotten a hold of someone there. There's a possible that they might be able to get me the high quality digital image of it that I've been looking for! Keeping my fingers crossed.

Uma, Oprah, Mossa, Massa

2008-03-15T10:31:00.003-04:00

Some of you are aware that, save for one vowel, I share a name in common with another Jesuit, I being Mark S. Mossa, S.J. and he being Mark S. Massa, S.J. (this is why I tend not to use my middle initial when I write). Some have even speculated that we may in fact be the same person. To prove those conspiracy theorists wrong, we took a photo together when Mark visited here for a lecture this past month. We are so often confused by people--not because we look alike--that I often say that it is a good thing I like him. One of these days, however, I think we'll have to write a book together just to confuse everyone further.

Reflections On Being a Deacon

2008-03-15T10:18:00.003-04:00

I haven't been doing much extra-curricular writing lately, but I did contribute a short piece to our province magazine recently. The photo with the article is from my trip to the March for Life Last year. Here's another with a couple of my companions on the trip (it was cold).

You can read the article here. It's on page 7.

Painful Irony

2008-03-15T08:50:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was an interesting day. I finally received the official regret letter from that University in Indiana. A friend here who also faired similarly with them commented that because of the way their process works, “you get to get rejected twice.” Yesterday was also the day that the committee met to consider the STD applications, so I was a bit on edge all day about the results of that process. I think I should know by Monday.

However, in the midst of all this, I got blindsided by something I could never have imagined. It started innocently enough. I received an e-mail from a friend saying “I was reading so-and-so’s blog and was wondering if maybe you are the Jesuit at Weston with the many aliases making nasty comments on her blog?” Now I hadn’t even read a blog in weeks and, because I know that the person he was referring to knows me pretty well, I immediately wrote back saying that it couldn’t possibly be me the person was referring to as that person knows that I never comment under an alias and that furthermore I’m in the habit of writing things I do have to say in private personal e-mails rather than in comboxes. I almost left it at that.

I’m glad for the sake of the truth that I didn’t, though not for the sake of my feelings. I found the post he was referring to and, indeed, though my name was never mentioned it was clear to anyone who has been paying attention whom was being referred to—unbelievably, me! The accusation was so vile that I could hardly believe what I was reading. That I wrote things about this person’s family. That I had made comments about that person’s appearance. Things that I have never done, nor ever would do. As one of the commentors suggested, a simple e-mail or phone call would have been enough to learn that this certainly was not the case. Whether there should have been any doubt to begin with is of equal concern.

So, I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon feeling hurt and violated. How could someone, especially someone with whom over the past few years I’ve shared some pretty intimate things with, even begin to think me capable of something like this? And, though thankfully there were a couple voices of reason among the commentors on that post suggesting that perhaps that person had sped too hastily to judgment based on scant evidence and without even simply asking me, there were also those who were all too eager to believe it. That I could be so unthoughtfully lumped in with the many in the blogosphere who make such comments regularly and revel in them—far too many—is not only personally painful, but also causes me great concern. I fear that such nastiness has become so a part of even Catholic blog culture that it may be too easy to think someone guilty of such unchristian behavior than to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. So, one can react without having all the facts, and without any thought as to how painful this might be for the person under attack, especially if one has gotten it wrong.

I once had dreams that I could bring something positive and helpful to this Catholic blogosphere, but this is a crushing blow. The person has already apologized to me personally, and for that I am thankful. But I’m still waiting for an apology as public and as extensive as the attack that was made on me. That will go a long way toward healing our friendship, and maybe do the blogosphere a bit of good. We’ll see . . .

Hope for the Less Focused Among Us

2008-03-13T11:25:00.002-04:00

Fr. Michael Heller, this year's winner of the Templeton Prize, has this to say:

"It is my little joke that my main drawback is I am interested in too many things," Heller modestly told the Ottawa Citizen in an interview. "So my talents, if I have any, are too-easily dissipated into too many things."

Read more

Any Art Experts Out There?

2008-03-02T17:50:00.002-05:00

Props and my enduring gratitude to anyone who can identify the artist and/or location (the physical location, not the world wide web location) of the painting below. Thanks!

Time of Testing

2008-02-28T23:32:00.002-05:00

I've heard stories in the past about men about to be ordained priests having a particularly trying time in the months leading up to ordination. I've always thought that such stories were probably apocryphal, or at least exaggerated. But, the last couple of months have begun to make me wonder if there isn't something to it. After my province meetings in December I arrived back in Boston on January 1. One of the first things I learned upon my return was that my spiritual director had died that morning. Perhaps in part because of this jarring news, the remainder of my work for the fall semester then began to take twice as long as I had anticipated, to the point where I was starting to wonder if I was going to get it done at all! I eventually did. Then the grad school roller coaster began. I received my first rejection letter before the end of January. Then my hopes that I would be invited to interview at a certain school in Indiana didn't come through. Suddenly, I was getting a sense that something had gone terribly wrong. I had made it a point to try to get my applications in early, and now I realize that was a mistake. Because between the time I'd submitted them and now I had begun to realize that what the schools wanted (though often not stated directly) and what I had given them were not quite the same. This all started to get me very stressed out, and this started to manifest itself in the form of some physical health issues. I won't go into the details, but it was very uncomfortable for a week or two in the middle of all this. And the kicker is that I have now received regret letters from all the PhD programs to which I'd applied, except from that school in Indiana whose silence started me on this roller coaster ride to begin with! It's all a little bizarre and mysterious. But the trouble in it all is that, unfortunately, I'm just not at the age where I can happily just say "better luck next year," reapply and hope for a better result. And, I've been scratching my head a little because I thought that this was what God wanted me to do.

However, the positive side of this has been that when I reached my point of crisis I started to pray about and reflect on my priorities. And I realized that this whole process has served to tear away a bit at my identity. A number of years ago one of my graduate school professors (this is when I was studying literature) expressed some doubt about my suitability for PhD studies. "Mark," he said, "you're an A minus." What he was trying to say was that he didn't see me devoting everything to being a literary scholar. And he was right, there's a lot more to me than a scholar. Now, at the end of my Jesuit formation, and on the eve of my ordination as a priest, that is even more true now than it was then. So, in recent weeks I've started to realize that I probably need to be in a program that doesn't feel so much as if it is tearing away at my identity as a Jesuit, a priest, a teacher, a writer, a minister, etc., all those things that will not take a back seat to being a scholar. Rather than pursue a PhD maybe I'm much more suited for a ThD or an STD, doctoral degrees that are as much about ministry as they are about scholarship. These will help me to achieve the goal which God has set for me as well--if not better--than the PhD programs to which I've applied.

Having arrived at this renewed sense of priorities, with a peace that tells me that I'm on the right track, I asked myself what the next best step was. I also asked a number of professors and mentors whom I trust. The result is that I have applied now also to the STD program here at Weston, which In June will become the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. And though there is no guarantee of my acceptance, I at least have the confidence that the people deciding know me in my whole person far better than those who were deciding elsewhere. So, I ask your prayers for me in this new step, this new wrinkle. And also please pray for fewer distractions for me in the coming months both for the sake of completing my thesis and preparing myself for my ordination in June. Thanks!

I hope you all are well!

The Centennial Bunch

2008-01-26T10:55:00.000-05:00

This year the New Orleans Province of the Jesuits celebrates 100 years as a province. Below is the latest pic of our men in formation, along with a pic of the Jesuit community at Spring Hill College in 1907. A little less formal, a lot more smiles, we're still going strong, ready to serve the Church for another 100 years!

The Holy Spirit's Latest Slip

2008-01-26T08:24:00.000-05:00

About a year and a half ago I wrote (The Holy Spirit is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong):

People who know what the Church should be (or is, it just doesn't know it) are wailing and gnashing their teeth because the Holy Spirit, it seems, has other ideas. Benedict XVI is a disappointment because he hasn't yet returned us to the state of the true Church (which, evidently involves ignoring everything else the Holy Spirit has done in the last fifty or so years of the Church's history). John XXIII--mistake, Vatican II--mistake, Paul VI--mistake, John Paul II--mistake. With the election of Benedict XVI, they thought the Holy Spirit had finally gotten it right. But the returns are in and it seems that the Holy Spirit screwed that one up too.

Well, it seems the Holy Spirit has gone and screwed up again. And many of the same people are convinced it's even more immediately apparent than the last time. Newly elected Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolas hasn't even really stepped out of the aula and already it's been decided the election was a failure. Forget the days of murmuratio, forget the days spent fasting, the hours spent praying before the Blessed Sacrament, we should have known all along that would not have any effect on the Jesuits' choice of their new leader! And how could the Pope have failed yet again by not rejecting the Jesuits' choice?

Father General Nicolas & Pope Benedict XVI met in private audience this week

What has become of the Holy Spirit? Why must she insist on inspiring things in a direction contrary to our will? After all, it can only be the work of the Holy Spirit if she inspires things in a direction in conformity with what we have decided is the correct or right direction. Right? Otherwise it's just a bunch of stupid men making the wrong decision, no matter how much prayer they've put into it. This is the logic.

For my part, I don't know enough about the new Father General to make a judgment about him. And, besides, that would be extremely premature. But I do know enough about many of the men who make up the Jesuit General Congregation to say that I trust both in their judgment and especially in their willingness to be guided by the Holy Spirit. And for now, I'm content with that.

In the meantime, maybe we can take some lessons from that other guy, the one the Holy Spirit gave us as Pope. He has managed to defy all early characterizations of what kind of Pope he would or should be. And people are starting to consider that perhaps the Holy Spirit wasn't quite so derelict after all. Indeed, the topics of his first two encyclicals would serve to remind us of the need, in our Catholic community, for two things which such harsh and premature judgments make apparent--love, and hope.

16-0

2007-12-30T00:41:00.000-05:00

A little more good news for the new year

Happy New Year!

2007-12-29T15:56:00.000-05:00

As 2008 rolls around, I'm giving thanks for many things. Among those, of course, is that this will be the year of my ordination to the priesthood. Today we had the initial meetings about the ordination liturgy, which will be in New Orleans on June 14. Above you can see the happy two to be ordained, Jose Fetzer on the left and me on the right. Please keep us in your prayers. I will be praying that the new year brings all of you many blessings!

Dancing Through Life

2007-12-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

Wow! I was right when I said it might be a while before I got back here.

I have been more or less taking a break from my virtual life. I haven't really read a blog in weeks! I'm trying to stem the tide of "senioritis" as much as possible. So, I've been taking away some of my typical ways of distracting myself. My Netflix queue has stalled, so much so that I'm think of taking a leave of absence from Netflix. On the immediate horizon are four papers, which I must complete in the coming weeks. I'm also hoping to get off to visit some of the schools which I have applied to once the new semester begins--meet me in South Bend!

The last couple of weeks have been crazy but wonderful. I served as a deacon at my nephew's Confirmation two weeks ago. I got to be there right next to the bishop when he conferred the sacrament on my nephew and about 60 others. It was an exciting moment, a long moment.

Last weekend, I made a two-day trip to New Orleans to serve as deacon at the wedding of two of my former students. Check out my America magazine article from a couple of years ago--it was the wedding of two of the students I describe there as "Alex" and "Laura." I'm thinking of writing a sequel to my article, something like "Alex and Laura Get Married." The wedding was beautiful, and again I got to be right up there front and center as the two of them made their commitment to one another. I can't tell you how happy I was to be there. I also got to proclaim the Gospel, which was an honor! The wedding also provided the opportunity to see a lot of the other students who I haven't seen in a while, and most of the ones I wrote about in my article!

So, it was a consoling week of deaconing.

I have a formation meeting coming up in Louisiana, and on the agenda is some planning for my ordination as a priest in June. I will be ordained with one other man from my province, and I'm looking forward to sitting down with him and others who will be involved with the ceremony. I'll also be talking to my provincial about plans for next year which, unless there's a dramatic change (or I don't get accepted anywhere), will be studying at one of the schools to which I've applied.

My academic work in the coming weeks will have a lot to do with probing the theological perspectives arising during and after World War II, especially with regard to the question of doing theology "after Auschwitz." It's an important topic, and I think this will just be the beginning of my work in this area.

I will also be exploring the evolution of the New England Patriots from "America's Team" to the team everyone loves to hate (not really, I'll just be enjoying their pursuit of the perfect season, and hoping they don't choke in the playoffs). And, as I've made it to the final four, I'm hoping Tom Brady will help propel me to my fantasy football league championship!

Wishing everyone a Blessed Christmas, as I don't know when you'll find me here again! Peace be with you!

Catching Up With My Life

2007-11-11T12:49:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me the other day if I was still celebrating the Red Sox’s World Series victory. I told her that I haven’t really had time (but I did get my t-shirt!). The truth is that I haven’t had time for much extra lately, thus the silence here on the blog. It’s been hard even to let the reality of “deaconhood” sink in, despite the fact that I have been serving as a deacon at a number of masses lately. And, I’m preparing to preach at my parish’s 9:30 Mass next weekend, which I’m looking forward to, despite the challenge of the pre-Advent apocalyptic readings! What else have I been doing, you ask? Well there is the normal business of attending classes and doing homework. I have a thesis proposal due in two and a half weeks that I’m working on. I’m also in the midst of writing PhD applications for programs in moral theology/theological ethics (I’m applying to Princeton, Notre Dame, Duke and Boston College, each of which are pretty different, but all of which hold unique advantages for the work I’m interested in and the pace at which I want to complete my studies [fast!]). For that I had to take the GREs for the first time in 15 years! Back in the old days, we actually took them on paper, so I had to adjust to the computerized version. I also had to request transcripts from all my previous schools, hopefully for the last time! Then there is the small matter of thinking about the various details connected with my ordination as a priest in 7 months! So, as you can guess, my mind is very much on things of the future. But I still have plenty of ministry responsibilities and homework that I have to take care of in the now. In the midst of this, I have just taken on a couple of new people for spiritual direction, which could be just another thing, but is actually a great blessing because I enjoy it so much. There are few things as rewarding as journeying with someone else in their relationship with God. Oh the amazing things God is doing with people, right under our very noses!

Despite the busyness, I am thankful because it forces me to be motivated and focused on things that will allow me to better serve God and his people which, ultimately, is what it’s all about. And, though it’s going to be a lot of work, I’m really excited about my thesis project which will examine various theological perspectives on the experience of abandonment from the individual experience of feeling abandoned by God, to the abandonment experienced by people in the various genocides of the last century, to the abandonment experience of Jesus himself. This will all serve as a foundation for asking the question: What responsibilities do we as Christians have to those who are abandoned? The project is in its early stages, but I think it will be very worthwhile, even if its likely not to arrive at a single definitive answer. This is in part inspired by a very interesting course I’m taking at Harvard this semester on the German Church struggle and the Holocaust.

As for those PhD applications, I know I’m aiming high, applying to what are considered to be among the best programs. So, your prayers that I at least be accepted to one or two of the four would be appreciated! I know it’s a little early, but if I don’t have an opportunity to write again before then (the Thanksgiving recess is an important time for working on papers)—Happy Thanksgiving!

Beaten up . . .

2007-11-05T00:10:00.001-05:00

. . . but still undefeated! (Darn those Colts are good!)

Patriots 24, Colts 20 in a squeaker.

A perfect time for a bye week!

CHAMPS

2007-10-29T00:38:00.000-04:00

The Boston Red Sox are World Series Champs and people are celebrating on their free furniture!

Now I can get back to the rest of my life.