The First Week from a Different Perspective

So, everyone has gone back to school except for me. I have been assigned to a pastoral year by my Bishop, and so as my classmates and fellow seminarians are hitting the books, I am getting geared up for a busy year in the parish. In the last week, my parish has begun two new programs (Generations of Faith and Renew) as well as beginning RCIA classes, confirmation classes, and kicking off the new year for our Newman Center. Suffice it to say that I was glad when my day off rolled around.

I had expected the first week of classes at SPSSOD to be hard for me, with all of my brothers at school, and me in the parish. I was pleasantly surprised to experience, however, that a busy week spent in service of the People of God was a soothing balm. And so, while they are all reading and writing and theologizing, and I am getting the practical experience of parish life that will prove invaluable when I am ordained. Its a little hard for me to be so far away from seminary life, but that life doesn't hold a candle to working with the people.

Good luck brothers. Study well. The Church needs you.