Snow

I will never understand the Minnesotan fascination with snow. It is just white frozen water. Its beautiful, they tell me. I am not convinced. All it takes is one person to walk across it, and the pristine purity of the dreadful stuff gives way to the much more practical realization that it is cold, wet, and has a tendency to stick to your shoes when entering a building, thus creating slip hazards and the potential for wet feet when not wearing shoes.

For some, I am told, snow has a nostalgic value. They are put in mind of childhood sledding days, hot chocolate, and novels read in front of the fire. This is not my experience. I am reminded, rather, of hurried efforts to bring cattle to more protected pastures, calves freezing on the ground, and one too many trips made between town and home on slippery roads whose icy reflections seemed to mirror the anxiety ridden silence inside the vehicle.

"Snow represents peacefulness and purity," they say. Nonsense. Snow means backbreaking work. "It is pretty," they say. "Until they plow it," I respond.

"You're in the wrong state," they tell me. "I don't intend to stay," I return.

In case you missed it, I don't like snow. Nevertheless, as I sat in class this morning and a few large white flakes began to drift down, I couldn't help but become mesmerized by them. It was brief, perhaps ten minutes, and then they were gone. But they were beautiful.

An Interesting Quote

I read the following quote (Pope Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens) in my Catholic Social Teaching class. It was read in the context of discussing the various injustices that were seen in Latin America in the 1970's and 80's. I wonder if it doesn't also have implications for our own personal lives.

Revolutionary ideologies lead only to a change of masters; once installed in power, these new masters surround themselves with privileges, limit freedom and allow other forms of injustice to become established.

Reflections on the Catholic Worker Movement VI

This is the final entry of my series on the Catholic Worker Movement. Let me know if you enjoyed the idea of a series (content aside). We spend a lot of time writing papers around here. All of us have plenty of them that we could share if you, our faithful readers, would like to see them.

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In the end, the most striking similarity between the Catholic Worker Movement and the Apostolic Church described in the Acts of the Apostles resides in Luke's comment that “every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” In Acts, this saving was a very spiritual reality. Men and women were joining the Church and becoming believers. As a result, they were assured the benefits of the death and resurrection of Christ. I am convinced that this must also have been true of the Catholic Worker Movement. Surely men and women were converted to Catholicism due to the witness of the Catholic Worker Movement. Nevertheless, much more practically, every day men and women whose lives were held in the balance were being saved from fear, cold, starvation, and death. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement exemplified the place where Revelation and human experience are unified in a concrete action that aids in realizing the Kingdom of God. Just as the Apostles, as described in Acts, were instrumental in bringing the faith of the Church alive and well to the rest of the world, so too did the Catholic Worker Movement continue that mission in the twentieth century, and continues to do so today.

Liturgy is Dangerous

Here is a brief experience with which all of you old Altar Boys out there can resonate:

This morning, as the forty hours of adoration came to a close, I joined the community in praying Lauds. As you might know, this is a form of prayer that involves the recitation of Psalms, a Canticle from Scripture, a short reading, and the recitation of the Canticle of Zachariah. It is common practice, especially on days of great solemnity, to incense the altar as the Canticle is being chanted. Thus, I was assigned as thurifer this morning. It was my duty to ensure that the thurible with its charcoals was brought to the priest at the proper time. Now, anyone who has served for very long will tell you that the top of the thurible whereby one opens it allowing for the imposition of the grains of incense gets extremely hot if the thurible remains closed for very long. Apparently it was closed for too long today.

I suppose that it is in this way that the test of one's liturgical mettle occurs. Can you grasp the little nob without gasping? Can you lift it, and hold it as the priest, with devilish deliberateness, scoops one, two, then three tiny spoons of incense onto the burning coals. Can you avoid grimacing as you grow more and more convinced that part of the rising smoke must be originating from your own fingers. Can you resist the temptation to wave your hand in the air or put your fingers in your mouth when the priest finally relieves you of the thurible?

I didn't gasp. I think I might have grimaced. I'm certain I didn't wave my hands in the air.

On a related note, what is the best way to remove wax from the top of one's head?

I was also a candle bearer for Mass this morning. It was all pretty straightforward - nothing out of the ordinary for a Sunday Mass here at the seminary. We use these tall torches that sit at the four corners of the sanctuary. Each is perhaps seven feet tall, made of metal, and atop each is a simple beeswax candle. I carried mine in the entrance procession and was then assigned to take one of these torches and lead the Deacon of the Word from the Altar to the Ambo for the Proclamation of the Gospel. It was all going fine until I started up the steps into the sanctuary. I stepped high to avoid tripping on the hem of my cassock, and as I did so, I heard a splatter at my feet - I had sent wax all over the floor. That in itself isn't so bad. It happens with a certain regularity. Call me paranoid, but it can be difficult to walk in procession when the candle burning over your head promises to send a shower of hot wax into what remains of your hair at any moment.


So, liturgy can be dangerous. But this story does illustrate a point: Jesus, in his great love, comes to us and becomes immanently accessible to us in the midst of very ordinary, sometimes very messy, circumstances.

What a difference a few years make...

With the seminarians from SJV around this weekend, I have been reminded about how much difference a few years can make. I am a decade older than many of my classmates, and about fifteen years older than most of my brothers at SJV. When I find myself a little out of touch, I find it helpful to review the current Beloit College's list of things about which incoming college students may think differently. My classmates who came almost directly out of college would be on this list. I find these differences interesting and helpful to remember; theology does not always stand apart from the time in which it was written. Context sometimes prevents one from crossing the thin line between heresy and orthodoxy.

For example, in my Ecclesiology class this semester, we've been reading Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and Gaudium et Spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), both of which were written and approved by the Council Fathers in the early 1960s. One of the interesting things about these documents is how much they are informed by the social/political concerns of the 1960s--particularly the bipolar world which existed during the Cold War because of the United States and then Soviet Union. The council documents are full of explicit and implicit references to communistic atheism, nuclear annihilation, and the lack of harmony and unity among human beings. My section of Ecclesiology (the MAT section) has many lay students in it, many of whom remember the Cold War even better than I do, but many of my fellow seminarians (who are in the MDiv section of Ecclesiology) were born just four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, so many of them have no personal experience of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, or the hair trigger threat of Nuclear War.

And before you think this is exaggerated, I ran across this article [hat tip to Dale Price] which describes how in September 1983, a then-young lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Strategic Rocket forces (who was on unscheduled duty covering for someone who couldn't make it into work) made a 'risky judgement' that the computers were giving him wrong information as they reported incoming U.S. nuclear missiles. [For the movie-goers out there, this reminds me of the conclusion of War Games with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, which may date me even more than remembering the Cold War.] As a result he did not order the programmed response of a full-nuclear response--which presumably would have triggered an American response, and perhaps the end of the world as we've known it.

When we recognize the events that surrounded the writing of the Vatican II documents, we also understand more deeply the real concerns the Council Fathers intended to address. In recognizing these concerns, priests and theologians of today are better equipped to apply the teachings of the Council to our contemporary situation.

So during the 40-hours devotion (see below) this weekend, we thank God for the gift of life and of our vocations. We pray for peace among nations. We ask God to give us wisdom to understand more deeply the movement of the Spirit in the Church, even when it is sometimes hidden in the shadow of historical context.

St. Charles Borromeo, patron of seminaries & seminarians, pray for us!

A JPII Generation

What do you get when a dining room is filled with 210 seminarians and priests, a handful of guests, and the founder of one of the fastest growing and most popular religious communities?

Today, we were treated to a lunch-time presentation from Fr. Benedict Groeshel of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. He spoke simply, about the state of the Church before and after the Second Vatican Council. In so doing, he focused on the nature and development of Scripture scholarship over the years. He comments were candid, and his insight sharp for he spoke to us as a man who has been around the "latest trends" in the Catholic culture for the past 43 years.

St. Charles Borromeo comes to St. Paul, (part 2)

to read part one, click here.

The practice of Forty Hours Devotion originated in Milan about the year 1530. Granted, prior to this time, the Church did have exposition and benediction, Eucharistic processions, and devotions to the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle. In 1539, Pope Paul III
responded to a petition from the Archdiocese of Milan asking for an indulgence for the practice:

Since our beloved son the Vicar General of the Archbishop of Milan, at the prayer of the inhabitants of the said city, in order to appease the anger of God provoked by the offenses of Christians, and in order to bring to nought the efforts and machinations of the Turks who are pressing forward to the destruction of Christendom, amongst other pious practices, has established a round of prayers and supplications to be offered by day and night by all the faithful of Christ, before our Lord's Most Sacred Body, in all the churches of the said city, in such a manner that these prayers and supplication are made by the faithful themselves relieving each other in relays for forty hours continuously in each church in succession, according to the order determined by the Vicar... We approving in our Lord so pious an institution, grant and remit.

While this pronouncement seems to be the earliest official approval by the Church of this devotion, the Forty Hours Devotion spread rapidly.


By 1550, both St. Philip Neri and St. Ignatius Loyola had also instituted this practice, especially for the reparation of sin. Recognizing the tremendous graces offered through this devotion as well as the dangers threatening the Church, Pope Clement VIII in his letter Graves et diuturnae (November 25, 1592) proclaimed,

We have determined to establish publicly in this Mother City of Rome an uninterrupted course of prayer in such ways that in the different churches, on appointed days, there be observed the pious and salutary devotion of the Forty Hours, with such an arrangement of churches and times that, at every hour of the day and night, the whole year round the incense of prayer shall ascend without intermission before the face of the Lord.

He also issued regulations for the devotions, which were later collected and promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1705, and known as the Instructio Clementina.

In our own country, St. John Neumann (1811-60), the fourth bishop of Philadelphia, was a strong promoter of the Forty Hours Devotion. While the practice had already existed in individual churches throughout the city (as well as in other places in the country), no organized, cohesive diocesan schedule for it had ever before been attempted. St. John had an tremendous devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and desired to foster such a spiritual life in his people.

Unfortunately at this time, a strong anti-Catholic sentiment plagued Philadelphia. During the Know Nothing riots of 1844, two churches were burned and another was saved simply by the threat of gunfire. Some priests, therefore, advised St. John that the introduction of 40 Hours Devotion would only flame the hatred against the Catholics and expose the Blessed Sacrament to desecration. St. John was left in a quandary.

A strange incident occurred which helped St. John decide. One night, he was working very late at his desk and fell asleep in his chair. The candle on the desk burnt down and charred some of the papers, but they were still readable. He awoke, surprised and thankful that a fire had not ignited. He fell on his knees to give thanks to God for protection, and heard His voice saying, "As the flames are burning here without consuming or injuring the writing, so shall I pour out my grace in the Blessed Sacrament without prejudice to My honor. Fear no profanation, therefore; hesitate no longer to carry out your design for my glory."

He introduced the practice of 40 Hours Devotion at the first diocesan synod in April, 1853, and the first devotions began at St. Philip Neri Parish, an appropriate place since that saint had initiated the devotion in the city of Rome. St. John himself, spent most of the three days in the Church praying. No trouble ensued. St. John then introduced the program for the whole diocese, so that each parish would have Forty Hours Devotion during the course of the year. He composed a special booklet for the devotions and obtained special indulgences for the faithful attending them. The Forty Hours Devotion was so successful it spread to other dioceses. At the Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866, the Forty Hours Devotion was approved for all Dioceses of the United States.

In time the purpose for celebrating Forty Hours Devotion started to be transformed. This change is witnessed in 1560 by the bull promulgated by Pope Paul IV. He states that the devotion is an imitation of the forty days of fasting of the Lord in the desert, and the time of unceasing prayer called for in scripture and by the early church. This transformation continued such that by the time of the eighteenth century this devotion became primarily Eucharistic in nature and centered on thanksgiving for the mystery and gift of the Eucharist.

An Odd Time to Blog

We in the Saint Paul Seminary are always very busy - from before sunrise to long after sunset. Our early rising in the morning requires us to get to sleep as soon as time (and homework) will allow . . . but not tonight.

What makes tonight different from every other night? The Saint Paul Seminary, in collaboration with Saint John Vianney minor Seminary, is hosting a Borremeo 40-hour adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We began this evening Friday, 02 November 2007 at 7pm at the Saint Vianney minor Seminary. We opened with Mass and processed - through the University of Saint Thomas campus, accross Summit Avenue, and down Grand Avenue - to the Saint Paul Seminary Chapel where the adoration will continue through Sunday morning.

Back to the point, why is this an odd time to blog? Even on a Friday night in the seminary, we normally are not late-night owls. During these forty hours, we seminarians are taking turns being awake and being in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Indeed, this is not a burden; I could not be happier but to be in the presence of Our Lord. I would go back even this very moment but with restful sleep I will better serve my God when I awake.

The two seminaries had a brief opportunity to socialize following the procession; though we rarely see our brothers from the minor seminary there is a family-familiarity that seems to be present in the air.

All Souls Day

Today is the day on which all Catholics remember their beloved dead. I think this day is difficult for most because they dwell on the lives of their loved ones whom they miss. One of the people that I miss the most is a priest by the name of Fr. Todd Reitmeyer. He was a priest for my diocese and was tragically killed in a jet-ski accident a couple of years ago. He was a great example for his parish and those who knew him best. This day is not to be one of sorrow but it is a day to rejoice that the ones we love are on their way to the heavenly banquet. Here at the seminary we are commemorating the dead through a Mexican custom. On this day many families spend the day in the cemetery with those they love. There are a few quotations from today's office of readings (written by St. Ambrose) that stand out to me. "Thus his death is life for all. We are sealed with the sign of his death; when we pray we preach his death; when we offer sacrifice we proclaim his death." "We must not reject the natural rights of the body, but we must desire before all else the gifts of grace." May all the holy men and women pray for us.

Iowa

I wrote earlier about my trip to Iowa for the ordination of one of the men from this seminary, but I failed to comment about the trip, other than to note where I stayed. I intend to remedy that oversight with this post.

I left Friday morning with two other men. After a brief stop in Lake City to collect a fourth who was visiting his parents there, we proceeded down the Mississippi River Valley toward LaCrosse. We stopped for lunch in Winona, and then, if my memory serves me right, we did not stop again until arriving in Dyersville. While in that town, we visited a toy store (I have nephews to help spoil, after all) where I purchased a miniature of a South Dakota Highway Patrol Cruiser. It now sits proudly on my window sill. All in all, it was a pleasant drive down.



The return trip was a bit more crowded as we added a fifth person to the car. To the great dismay of one of the car's passengers, we decided to stop at the "Field of Dreams" (the field about which the movie was made) to have a look around. It is a small field surrounded by corn. That particular day, it stunk like mad as the local farmers were fertilizing their fields. As we walked in the stench, I was struck by a quote from the movie (USCCB Rating, A-II):

Shoeless Joe Jackson: "Is this heaven?"
Ray Kinsella: "No, it's Iowa."



That night, we stopped in Winona again, this time to see our younger diocesan brothers at the minor seminary. We spent the night there, joined the community for Mass and a meal the following morning, and then made our trip back to St. Paul. In total, it was a restful, enjoyable weekend that helped prepare me to return to classes and continue my studies for the greater glory of God.

Acolyte Installation

Tonight, Bishop Carlson of the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan, instituted fifteen new acolytes at the Saint Paul Seminary. Bishop Carlson is originally from this Archdiocese, so it was a homecoming of sorts for him. After giving a powerful homily, he instituted three of his own seminarians during the ceremony with the other twelve seminarians. It was great to see all of these men take one step closer to the priesthood and be formally instituted to serve at the altar. If nothing else, the class above them will appreciate the relief from their serving duties.

I am sure someone will be posting pictures soon.

Milestone

Congratulations to Gregory who posted this blog's 150th post (The Church and the Environment). Here's to 150 more.

The Church and the Environment?

Man is not an animal reacting simply to a set of circumstances but rather the pinnacle of visible creation, endowed with reason and will so as to judge his place in the universe and choose accordingly.

This was one key point in our semi-annual Ireland Library Lecture (though he said it much more simply, clearly and eloquently). The speaker was our very own Academic Dean, Dr. Christopher Thompson. He spoke—despite a cold—to those who attended his lecture on Preliminary Reflections on the Church and the Environment.

In one of his most poignant moments, Dr. Thompson points out that the reason the Church should not be indifferent to the stewardship of creation and, more specifically, setting aside “wilderness preserves” is that it gives us an ability to be reared in the school of faith, if only in an elementary way. Often, especially when we are growing up, some of our most profound experiences are the encounters in nature when we stop and have a privileged insight into our relationship with God and creation. Along the lines of what Servant of God Pope John Paul II suggested in his Theology of the Body, akin to the glimpse that married couples experience in their chaste marital love, in the moment of beholding the beauty of wilderness, we experience an awe, a sort of ecstasis which bespeaks the right ordering of the universe in accord with Divine Providence and hearkens back, before the Fall, to the right relationship which once existed between man, God and creation, and yet ought to exist again.

Though it is just over an hour long, it has a number of very intriguing insights for nearly anyone concerned about the environment, the future, or the church. One can listen to it here.

Reflections on the Catholic Worker Movement V

The Catholic Worker Movement shared with the Apostolic Church the principle of pacifism. History suggests that early Christians often faced persecution precisely because they were unwilling to subject themselves to the hawkish whims of the state by participating in Roman wars. Christians, it would seem, were convinced that to serve the state as an armed soldier would be to somehow reject the Gospel value of love for one's neighbor that was a necessary element of the Christian life. While this particular sentiment seems to have changed relatively early in the Christian tradition, it appears to me that one should not glibly overlook the Catholic Worker Movement's own dedication to pacifism. It is that in Loaves and Fishes, Day comments about her pacifism, “I realized that one should not tell another what to do in such circumstances. We all had to follow our consciences” (Loaves and Fishes, 63). Apparently she, like the early Church, realized that war might be justifiable in certain circumstances. What she seems to have protested however, was the indignity that soldiers were forced to face -- the cruel and arbitrary draft process and the unquestioning loyalty demanded of the nation's citizenry. That war, it seems, stripped people of their dignity – an unconscionable act in the mind of a Catholic Worker. These seem to be her point in describing the “The War Years”in the chapter bearing the same title.

New Deacon

On Saturday, October 27, the Archdiocese of Dubuque celebrated the Mass of Ordination to the Diaconate for Rod Allers, a student of this institution. It was a beautiful Mass with Archbishop Jerome Hanus, OSB. A number of the men from SPS made the trip to Dyersville to take part in the celebration. I was among them. We arrived Friday evening (it was midterm break, so I missed no classes) after a lovely drive down the Mississippi River Valley.
Two of the men with whom I traveled stayed in the Basilica Rectory while the others in our party stayed in the home of a parishioner. All in all, it was a magnificent celebration, and it was a great inspiration to see Rod's ordination. He has worked hard and has grown tremendously since I first met him in our first days here four years ago. The Church rejoices to have another transitional deacon. Congratulations Rod.

Midterm Break

The tests are taken. Midterm is here. Break began an hour ago. We'll talk to you on Monday.

Peggy & Ella

Please meet Margaret Mary Lannan & Ella Catherine Lannan. They are my nieces. I love them more than anything in life. They are the love of Christ to me in my life.
Margaret Mary, or Peggy, was born 4-3-2006 in Washington, D.C. Her parents are my oldest brother Bob and my sister-in-law Maura. Interestingly, she was also baptized that day. You see Peggy's birth was very complicated. When she was finally born, her lungs were filled and had been without oxygen for a long time. My older brother Bob could see the urgency and concern in the actions and words of the doctors and nurses. He also saw Peggy's physical condition. He explains that in a moment of grace and clarity, he took the cup of water next to him and baptized Peggy "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." She was then rushed off to the N.I.C.U. and stayed there for approximately a week. I love Peggy very much!
We like to call her the Peggermeister, Peggers, Pegg-dawgy-dawg, and The Peggernator. She likes to walk, modestly run, crawl up stairs, and crawl down stairs backwards. She can say the words Duck, Dog, Elmo, Baby, Dada, and lots of jibberish.
Ella was born 8-8-2006 in Chicago, IL. Her parents are my older brother Sean and my sister-in-law Leslie. She was baptized in October 2006 at St. Clement's Catholic Church in Chicago. Ella loves going to see the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. She can sit in the sun and smile. There are lots of new people to wave hello to and meet. I love Ella very much!

We like to call her "E" Ella-Booster, The Booster, Booster Brown, and Ella Bella Roo. She likes to chew on things, walk around, play with her toys, and she loves to meet dogs on her walks with Mom. She can say the words Da-da, Dog, Wow, Hey, as well as lots of jibberish.

My "Teaching" Parishes

One of the privileges of being a seminarian is the opportunity to work among and for the People of God. At the Saint Paul Seminary, that means being assigned to a Teaching Parish under the supervision of the parish pastor. My teaching parishes include St. Anthony of Padua and St. Hedwig parishes, as well as the John Paul II Catholic School, all of which are in Northeast Minneapolis (a map of these is here (letters A, B, D)).

As a second-year theologian, the emphasis of the program is preparing for future ministry as a teacher, catechist and preacher. So, this month, I've been spending time with their faith-formation program, which is a consolidation of several parishes in Northeast Minneapolis, and housed at St. Boniface. Each class (roughly divided into grades 1-8) has a patron saint and asks for his or her assistance and guidance.

Last week, I was working with 6th graders (Patroness: St. Teresa of Avila) on the Catholic understanding of Revelation. We talked about God revealing His will for us and the manner in which this comes to perfection in the person and example of Jesus (Dei verbum, 3-4). We also spoke about how this revelation is passed down to us in two forms: Sacred Scripture and Tradition. The last time I discussed this topic was on the Final Exam for Foundational Theology with Fr. Jerome Dittberner. Both last semester and last week I found the audiences challenging, but this time in a very different and exciting way!

This week it's the 4th graders. May their patroness, St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!

Future Priests... UPGRADED

As you may have noticed, the blog has been getting a bit of a face-lift in the past couple of weeks. A number of features have been added:

• The layout of the blog has been changed.
• There is now the SPSSOD banner at the top of the page.
• There is a picture of the seminary chapel, Saint Mary's Chapel, in the left column.
• You might notice the plethora of names on the Contributors list. With the new year comes a new gaggle of bloggers.
• There has been added a list of the Sponsoring Dioceses, that is, Dioceses which send seminarians to the Saint Paul Seminary.
• We have added a couple new links to the Links section.
• Last but not least, we have a new address: http://spsseminarians.blogspot.com/

There may yet be a couple changes to come. But, just wanted to point out some of the changes. That last one, though, is quite important. Please, post some comments and let us know what you think of the changes!

Letters from home

Every once in a while a seminarian is bound to get letters from credit card companies, bills that he doesn't want to deal with, but then a large manilla envelope with a school or church's return address arrives in his mailbox. Within that large envelope are notes from parishioners, the pastor, and children. The letters from children bring a smile to my face, because they are so fun to read. Some will talk about sports, some will write about their family and include a stick-figure drawing of everyone, and others will ask a lot of questions. These letters are always a reminder of the fact that I am being supported in prayer by a large number of people. I am thankful to God for the people of South Dakota and for their continued support. I know my brothers can attest to how much they appreciate simple notes from people in their respective dioceses.