Football Weekend

+JMJ+

This was a huge weekend for Notre Dame - the launch of its 2009 football season and their subsequent 35-0 defeat of the Nevada Wolfpack! I think that this was actually my second college football game ever. The first was at my Dad's 25th West Point graduation reunion, but in comparison with that one, this was much more satisfying.

If I've learned anything about Notre Dame thus far, it's that the whole community here feeds off of tradition. The Friday before gamedays, for example, the marching band trumpets herald the festivities by playing a routine inside the golden dome, and at midnight the drumline performs in front of the dome. Saturday afternoons see the bagpipe band marching across campus while the thousands of students and alumni who have descended on South Bend for the game enjoy the picnics, the tailgates, and the carnival-like attractions. We at the seminary host a tailgate for every home game, which means that some of us will be out there from 10am to game time in order to host and entertain anyone who might want to stop by for a burger and a beer. Then it's the band pre-game show in the stadium, and everything takes off from there. The game itself was awesome. I'm trying to learn a couple new players' names every week so that I can contribute to the football conversations that will plaster campus from now until January.

The rest of the weekend was spent with things like writing papers, getting trained for altar serving at the basilica, seeing the family who came up to visit, and vocation meetings. Needless to say, it was thoroughly exhausting, but I think we're getting into real rhythm of life here at the seminary.

On a side note, I met Fr. Jenkins today at the priest residence - just happened to run into him in the hall! Now I just need to keep my eye out for Fr. Hesburgh.

~SCP

Final Vows Weekend

+JMJ+

This has been an extraordinary week so far. For one, classes started on Tuesday. I'm taking four this semester as a non-degree seeking student in the Notre Dame graduate school of theology: two philosophy and two theology. One might think that the first week would be relatively light, being more an opportunity see the syllabus and ease back into the rigors of academic life. Not so. A lot of reading. A lot of writing. And one very famous professor who has no problem telling you exactly how wrong you are when you say something even a little bit incorrect in class. I relish the challenge!

That's not the biggest news of the week, though. Today, two of our temporarily professed seminarians made their profession of final vows into the Congregation of Holy Cross. Family started pouring into the seminary yesterday as we celebrated the eve of the profession with a special dinner, a sung candlelight prayer service (a Holy Cross speciality, which we go every Thursday evening), and a catered social. Today, there was one of the most gorgeous Masses that I have ever seen at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus with about sixty concelebrating priests in attendance. Gerry and Kevin (the two professants, if you want to call them that) made their lifelong promises of chastity, poverty, and obedience before our Provincial, who received them on behalf of the Congregation, and we spent the rest of the day celebrating with them. Receptions, dinners, parties, socials, food, drink, music...it's a 72 hour festival out here with another 24 to go, as tomorrow morning, Bishop D'Arcy is coming out to ordain Kevin and Gerry to the diaconate. This year, they will each serve a pastoral assignment somewhere in the United States, and they will return to Notre Dame in April to be ordained to the priesthood, again in theBasilica of the Sacred Heart. I tell you, every time I walk away from one of these worship services or Masses with the priests, brothers, and professed of Holy Cross, I say the same thing, "I want to be Holy Cross." I am very happy to be here.

The seminarian maps are out, too! I'm not sure if there's a way to view them online. I'll have to mail out some hard copies to anyone who wants one. You'll have to let me know if you do, and I'll put one out in the mail to you as soon as I can.

Word on the street says that one of Holy Cross' two blesseds may be getting a little canonical boost sometime VERY soon! We'll talk soon.

~SCP

Pastoral Assignments

+JMJ+

Since we've been back at Moreau, our Candidate class has been making visits to different Holy Cross parishes around the South Bend area where we will assigned to work in various forms of pastoral ministry this year. The work is quite varied and seems to depend on the unique identity of the parish in question - helping prepare second graders for their first sacraments, teaching adult Bible studies, sitting on RCIA leadership teams, working with seventh graders preparing for confirmation, visiting the sick and homebound, assisting with musical ministry, etc. By now, we've visited all of our potential assignments and are thinking about where we want to go. This is one of the things that I like about Holy Cross very much. I haven't been assigned to something out of left field. I've been given the opportunity to weigh the different options available to me and to take a hand in directing my own formation by cooperating with the formation staff in making a final decision. I'll let you know what I wind up with when that times comes!

Last night, too, was freshmen move-in. From the sounds of it, dorm life here takes the place of Greek life as you would find it on other campuses. There are no fraternities and sororities at Notre Dame. Instead, the dorm you're assigned as a freshmen becomes the dorm you live in all four years, and each dorm winds up taking on its own identity. Move-in night is the dorms' chance to initiate their new members, welcoming them into a more intimate subsection of campus life. Holy Cross does something of the same for its new undergraduate men. All the seminarians gathered at the log chapel on campus for a special ceremony honoring the new freshmen and transfers to Old College. I won't reveal the details (!), but I will say that we all got soaked in our suits because it started to downpour at one point. It really wasn't all that bad, though. A part of me was tempted to grumble about the situation, but when I thought about it, I appreciated the sacrifice that went into the act of welcoming these men into their new way of life. We've been learning a lot about brotherhood, lately, and brotherhood takes sacrifice. You know you belong to something great when you're being applauded in a storm by two dozen men who've dressed themselves to the nines for you.

It's Saturday, and it's the calm before the storm. Classes start on Tuesday. Two of our temporarily professed seminarians are taking their final vows into the community on Friday and being ordained to the diaconate on Saturday. More to come.

~SCP

P.S. Want to meet the seminarians? Take a look at our newly added profile page!

After the Storm

+JMJ+

Last night, we had tornado warnings in the South Bend area! Unfortunately, a large part of the seminary building is made of glass, so in an attempt at safety in such circumstances, our household community has to seek refuge in the first floor workout facilities. Luckily, most of us were already down there playing basketball! No need to fear. Nothing came of the turbulent weather. Still, it made for some beautiful scenes on campus today. In some down time that I had this afternoon (in between buying my last books at the campus bookstore and Evening Prayer), I took the liberty of taking some pictures of the view from the seminary. I'll try sharing a couple of those with you here.

Here are the dome and the basilica as seen from the front lawn of the seminary. We sit across the lake from the large part of campus, and on clear afternoons like this one, you can go out to the lakefront in order to watch people go sailing on it.

This, then, is the front of our chapel, as seen from the outside. If you were to turn around, you'd see what I just showed you above. The chapel was built in 1958, and a Holy Cross priest created all of the stained glass that you can see in it. From this outside vantage point, you can't see it so well, but the windows display five angels: an eighteen foot St. Michael stands front and center directly above the tabernacle as guardian of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Gabriel stands to his left and sings from an open book, St. Raphael stands to his right with a glowing ember in his hands, and two angels of the Apocalypse stand on the flanks. I'll show you a picture from the inside sometime soon. It's gorgeous.

Here you get a more true-to-scale view of our surroundings. There are a couple of benches that students will come out here to louge on and escape from the bustle of campus life. I anticipate that, while the weather remains warm, I'll also make some significant use of them. How could you not? Just look at that view!

Alright, time to take care of some more business before heading out for a movie tonight. Some of the seminarians are going to see District 9 at the local theater. Talk to you soon!

~SCP

I'm Here!

+JMJ+

Actually, I've been here for a little more than a week, but what with the complexity of figuring out how to log into the Notre Dame wireless service and access my new e-mail account, this is really the first time I've been able to get online. As such, there is actually a LOT to relate about what's been happening since I got here, but I must refrain from posting every nitty-gritty detail about daily life thus far. I'll try to capture some of the highlights, instead.

Dad and I started driving up to South Bend from Alabama on August 10, and we arrived at Moreau Seminary on August 11 at noon on the dot. One of the newly professed members of the congregation helped us unload our truck and drop everything off in my new rooms. I wish I had pictures to post at this point - they are really nice! It's a two-room suite overlooking the backyard gardens. One room I keep as a little sitting-living area because it came with two upholstered easy chairs, a couple of bookcases, and a poster describing the architecture of Rome's churches. I knew from the start that this room was meant for me! It's also right down the hall from balcony access to the seminary chapel, so it makes stopping in for prayer over the course of the day very convenient. Waiting for me on my bed was a nice little care package with the new ND football t-shirt, which everyone evidently wears on game day. Speaking of football, guess who gets tickets to all home games! One of the most immediate perks of religious life...

Those first two days were given over to orientation meetings and cookouts and the like, giving all of the new Candidates a chance to meet the college seminarians in addition to the professed members of the community who live at Moreau. I suppose I should explain the difference - Holy Cross runs a college discernment program across the lake from Moreau Seminary called Old College. There are about 22 guys in that program right now (including two preparing to live in Belgium for the semester), and they live together in the oldest building on campus (since renovated into a habitable home). The Candidates like me live in the actual seminary building, which sits across St. Joe's Lake from Old College and opens up upon a gorgeous view of both the dome and basilica. With us live the temporarily professed seminarians (men who have completed their first-year candidacy and their second-year novitiate and have taken temporary vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience) who are studying for their Masters in Theology, and several finally professed priests and brothers (men who have taken the vows for life) who are either studying themselves or are part of the seminary formation team. Some of the finally professed here are from Uganda and Bangladesh, where Holy Cross has houses of formation and parishes. There are a lot of names, a lot of faces, and a lot of ins-and-outs to learn about daily life. It will take some time to get adjusted to it all.

This past week, though, all the seminarians have been off-site at what is called "Deer Porte" - an annual excursion to a piece of property that Holy Cross owns in La Porte, IN, where we spend a week going through more orientation, getting to know each other more fully, and learning how to pray in community. The piece of property itself is phenomenal. It hosts several residential buildings with capacity for 24 people to have single bedrooms. It's like hotel-style accommodations. It also has a full chapel, a pool, a basketball court, a three-story recreational house, two lakes where you can go fishing for bass and catfish, and a dining hall. Most of the week, our mornings were spent in program meetings and liturgical orientation sessions. The afternoons were largely given over to recreation by the pool or on the courts, and then in the evenings, we would have keynote speakers and socials of some kind (like a Casino night or a movie night). Monday, we were given the option to go into Chicago for a free day or to visit the Dunes of Lake Michigan. I opted for Chicago, as I have never been there. Tuesday itself was a pretty large day too because a lot of priests and brothers from the area came out for a huge catered meal, and that night, some of them planned a fireworks display for us accompanied by bagpipe music performed by one of the college seminarians. Then we went out onto the property for a ten-foot bonfire, which lasted until about 1:30 in the morning. Today, we're back to the seminary, and gunning up for the start of classes next week.

The heart of every day here revolves around Morning Prayer, Mass, and Evening Prayer. The singing among the men of the community is beautiful! I feel no shame in learning how to sing better among them, and I'm thinking about joining the Candidate Men's choir that the director of music and liturgy here (who also serves as the Rector of the Basilica and author of the Ordo) conducts. I also find time to sneak away into the basement where there are full-scale exercise facilities and a music room with a piano that I can continue practicing on. It is amazing to sit back and look at what I have entered into. I hope to share more later about my impressions and thoughts as I get more and more settled into a routine of life here with Holy Cross. We'll talk soon.

~SCP

Taking Inventory of Twenty-Four Years

+JMJ+

Well, today marks the start of the packing for what will be my first year of seminary. Taking stock of all my stuff, though, isn't turning out to be as difficult as I thought it would be. Quite frankly, I don't know of anything that I NEED to bring with me apart from clothes and a few books. In that regard, seminary is already shaping into a pretty convenient gig. Room, board, tuition, meals - all taken care of! As such, my one real concern for the past couple of weeks has been making sure that I am fully prepared to weather those infamous South Bend winters. You'd think that six years in the New Jersey/Philadelphia area would have prepared me for this. I highly doubt it...

As it stands, I've packed a couple of "essential" books and a small box of memorabilia with which to decorate my new rooms. What counts as essential? I'll give you a quick rundown, because they're not many - Rene Girard's "Things Hidden from the Foundation of the World", James Alison's "The Joy of Being Wrong", Fr. Thomas Dubay's "The Evidential Power of Beauty", Julian of Norwich's "Revelations of Divine Love", and C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia". Oh, and a copy of the Bible. You'd think I'd have listed that one first.

This whole week is filled with preparations of different kinds for my move on Monday. On Tuesday, I escaped down to Hanceville for a couple hours to attend Mass at Mother Angelica's Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. I swear, if you haven't ever visited, you're missing something HUGE. There are only a few occasions in my life where I can say that I have encountered true beauty, and that place is one of them. I'll talk more about that another time.

Today itself, though, in addition to the packing, was a day of ... interviews? That's right. My high school's publicist set up a meeting with the Faith and Values editor of The Huntsville Times to talk about my decision to start formation with a Catholic religious order. I think it's supposed to be part of a "young priests" theme that's running in about a week. Granted, I'm no priest (yet), but the idea's the same. The afternoon started with a (get this) photo shoot of sorts in the school chapel and then moved onto an hour's conversation pretty much about the experiences in my life that led up to this decision. You know - what did you want to be when you were growing up? How did you decide to go to Seton Hall? What sorts of ministry were you involved in there? There was what COULD have been an awkward line of questioning when my interviewer started asking if being Catholic at college was difficult at times in light of New Jersey's close proximity to Boston when the whole priest abuse scandal was breaking out. Luckily, we didn't press that point too far. What I learned from the experience was pretty much the less limelight, the better. It will be a joy if my own experiences are able to inspire hope in someone else. Other than that, I think I prefer the obscurity of being just another Holy Cross Candidate.

A little more work to do tonight, and then bed. Keep me in your prayers. We'll talk soon.

~SCP

And So It Begins!

Welcome to my new blog! For the briefest of introductions, my name is Chase, and I am about to start my first year of formation (what is called the Candidate Year) with the Congregation of Holy Cross at Moreau Seminary in South Bend, IN. This being a completely new type of experience, I have no idea what to expect! That is why I want to share it in some way with those (especially family and friends) who are curious about what life in an American Catholic seminary looks like from the perspective of someone just trying to get acquainted himself. God has a plan for all of us. We know that by faith. What does he want from me? Walk with me as I continue asking this question, and check in from time to time to hear my stories and to see how things are going.

As it stands, I am scheduled to move-in on Tuesday, August 11, between noon and 4pm. That leaves me a good week at home to spend with the family and to take care of some last-minute business (i.e., finishing the video game I started two weeks ago). I would hate to have such loose odds and ends hanging over my head all semester.

If you are interested in learning more about the Congregation of Holy Cross, you can visit the Holy Cross Vocations homepage or browse the Faith and Service pages of Notre Dame's website. I will be able to post more information as it becomes available to me. Again, thanks for stopping in. I look forward to sharing this experience with you.

[Note: The title of my blog comes from the imagery of St. Theresa of Avila's "Interior Castle." She describes the soul as a giant crystal composed of seven "mansions," the most interior of which (the seventh) seats the presence of God Himself. The story of the soul, then, is his growth through these mansions until he, at last, enjoys full union with God. As you can tell, I have a way to go.]