Run So As to Win

Today was the Free Press Marathon which is a VERY big deal around the Seminary. The entire weekend was built around it and the guys start getting race fever very soon. Many of the seminarians have signed up for the race. A past vice-rector, and now current auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese, recognized the potential for the race to be a huge fraternity builder among the seminary last year, being an avid marathon runner himself. He urged the seminarians and some of the younger resident priests to take up the challenge of running as much as they can. Last year, over half of the seminary signed up for parts in the relay, or for the half with a few brave souls taking on the whole (including the then Vice-Rector and our Dean of Studies). It was an inspiring sight. All the seminarians were excitedly asking each other how their training was going and so many table conversations involved the Marathon that some non-runners would wince at the words race, training or run. This year our beloved bishop didn't provide the push that he did while he was with us but there was still a very strong showing of close to 40 guys participating in the event in various degrees, many braving the half and some doing their first fulls.

Saturday, we had an afternoon vigil Mass to accommodate the fact that many of us were going to be running in the morning and missing the normal community Mass. It was an interesting Mass and even the homily was focused on the Marathon. The closing hymn has got to be one of my favorite liturgical moments at the seminary to date. It was so amusing that even the rector and concelebrating priests were unsuccessfully struggling to not laugh as they processed out. There was even some impromptu clapping breaking out (an event that is SO out of the normal from the usual liturgical practices!!!). To make the scene even better, none of us could sink up our clapping either with each other or the beat of the song. There was so much win there that I think even Charlie Sheen would be amazed.


Sunday was RACE DAY! It was SUCH an exciting time. I got up at 4:50am and made it to our short intercessory prayer and blessing at the entrance before race time. This was my first half-marathon (only doing a short leg of the relay last year) and I was SO excited. I've been training for a year for this and the fact that it was all coming to a head was SO exciting. Downtown was so busy with runners everywhere. The starting line was SUCH a blast and the course itself was amazing. I went over the Ambassador Bridge, along the Detroit River on the Canadian side and then back through the tunnel into America (I couldn't help screaming 'MERICA when crossing back into the US). It was SUCH an amazing experience and I could go on and on about all the parts of the race (I might post a couple photos later) but I think I'll spare you the play by play. It was such a fun run and I got to go across a national border UNDERWATER! Finishing was amazing and immediately upon crossing the finishing line my legs both said "Enough of this, we quit" and now I'm hobbling around like I'm 80. All in all it was a great day and Christ was glorified!

Exchanging Truth for Lies

In the first reading from today from Romans, we are presented with a common topic from scripture, idolatry. I know in my mind it is so easy to view the false gods and idols of the past as a distant and well extinct problem only really around in a few confused and rebellious teens and young adults or REALLY confused older adults. However, there is a wider meaning here than just a bronze statue of Zeus or... well, I'm not exactly sure what the modern people do with their candles and stuff... At some point or time we have all been idolaters and idolatry is THE sin of this age. We have all exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Each time we have said, "I want this MORE."

The self really has become the worst kind of false god in the modern world. We have gone through such an effort to cleanse the outside of the vessel from idolatry but we have neglected to clean the inside. I know I am very much a product of my generation. I feel that little burn every time I suffer the slightest inconvenience. The likeness I've carved my idol into isn't of birds or four legged animals but of myself. I think the readings give a very timely opportunity for us to maybe start some cleaning on the inside of the vessel. It may be time to start toppling some idols and giving up somethings just for the sake of gift, start making offerings on the One True Altar!

Everybody's Looking Forward to the Weekend Weekend

Weekends in the Heart are just straight craziness. I mean Saturday alone is fuel for about two posts. Saturday started off with a formation Saturday, which I mentioned previously. During formation Saturdays we start off with the Latin Novus Ordo (which is the Latin version of the Mass we are all used to) and then as classes we each say a rosary. My class says our rosary outside walking around the grounds. After the rosary we spend time in lectio continua, which is a continual reading of Sacred Scripture, each time picking up where the last time left off. Afterwards we have formation sessions by class.

This month's session was about Spiritual Fatherhood and discerning the priestly calling to fatherhood. I found it very helpful and will provide plenty of fodder for my prayer in the future. This year of the seminary is very much about discerning God's call for each of our lives. We had a talk from one of the priests on two characteristics of fatherhood generativity (the property of generating) and mercy. We looked how these traits are exhibited in God and in the life of the priest. We then had a discussion as a class with the priests about these traits, discernment and fatherhood. It was pretty much what the doctor ordered for the seminarian mind that is constantly racked with the question of discernment.

After the session, I went home to do some baking. I, unfortunately, had to miss the annual college vs theology softball game (which we lost by one run on two highly contestable calls, or so I hear). I was preparing a birthday cake for a dinner that took place after evening prayer hosted by a theology professor at the seminary. She boards three young women, two of which are commuter students at the seminary and friends. The professor loves to host seminarians and her latest dinner coincided with the birthday of one of these young women. I thought I would try my hand at cake decorating and the best place to bake is my house because we have the counter space and supplies that the college kitchen does not have. The result was... from my point of view a mitigated pass, from the input I received an unqualified success. The dinner itself was so much fun and a great opportunity to bond with the extended seminary community.

The cake baking itself was a monster fiasco. I wound up having to abort and start over after making a few critical errors that are seriously rookie mistakes. Cakes are supposed to be boring (seriously compared to the fun stuff I like making, they are boring), you can make while sleeping affairs but instead I turned it into a fail cake! So my budgeted time was very much used up and I wound up cutting an entire frosting color out of the design, having to freezer cool the cake, and then the first layer of frosting, and finally speeding recklessly down the highway with the cake pan in next to me. I showed up to evening prayer JUST on time covered in cake flour and food coloring. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else experience this.

After the adventure Sunday, I decided to spend a NORMAL day at home. So I went home immediately after Mass (grabbing just some peanut butter and bread as a pre-run snack) and treated myself to a nice 11-12 mile run around suburbia in the fall (80 degree fall, but fall none the less!!!). Then spent some nice time with my parents before meeting other seminarians for Tai food (a Sunday tradition). I love Sundays.

FIRST! Friday

This past weekend was so packed I didn't get to blog about anything and, thus, I need to split the past few days between two posts! This will cover the fun that is First Friday around here.

This past week kicked off our First Friday vigils. The seminarians sign up for Holy Hours throughout the night for all night adoration preceding First Friday. My hour is 11 to Midnight! I love late night adoration, especially after everyone clears out and then you can be alone in a dark chapel with the only illumination coming from the altar. It is such peaceful and quiet prayer.

After morning prayer and Mass, and a nap, I got a jump on my house job on Friday, since I am fortunate enough to not have any class on Friday. I am in charge of billing for house cars as the college liaison to house cars. Something about working with excel always feels like big boy work. It was a nice and relaxing day before the craziness of the weekend.

Getting In Touch With My Roots

My grass roots, that is!!! Our bishops have asked us all to send letters to our congressmen and senators in response to this. I may follow this up with a discussion on human reproduction, or rather an explanation on where the Church is coming from but I really want to steer clear of hot button issues because this blog primarily isn't about politics. I assure you I won't make a habit of posting on political topics because that isn't what this blog is and the only reason I am doing it this one time is because of the wishes of our bishops and obedience IS something this blog is ALL about! I love me my obedience!!! So here is the letter I sent to my congressman/senators:

Dear (insert Washington type names here)

I am writing because the new health care regulations deeply concern me. I am a Catholic seminarian from a Catholic family. I am very concerned that my family and I would be forced to accept a health care plan that covers contraceptives, especially those that serve an abortifacient purpose.

As Catholics, we believe that contraception is contrary to the nature of the marital act and human nature itself. It is a grave sin because the matter is so grave. There are very few things more sacred than the procreative gift that God has given to the human person, the ability to bring new life into the world. Please consider opposing these health care laws as they stand right now because it is a terrible violation of our rights and our human dignity to be forced to support something that goes so radically against our beliefs.

Please co-sponsor the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179). This measure ensures that the rights of conscience of all participants in our nation's health care system will be respected.

Thank you very much for your time in reading this and thank you for your respectful consideration of this legislature. You and your fellow congressmen are ever in our prayers. I ask that you please help defend the dignity of those Catholics in your district that you have been charged to represent.

Sincerely,

Sean MacLennan

The 3 Fs of Seminary Life

Today was all about the 3 F's of seminary life, fraternity, fun, and... ummm... filosophy(?). It was a wonderful day for all three because today we had our first class dinner of the year. One of my brothers from the class made a HUGE amount of pulled pork, some homemade cole slaw, baked macaroni and cheese and an apple crisp for dessert. It was amazing! It is so much fun spending time with my class, watching the Tigers win at O'Berg's and eating food prepared with a great deal of love. Our brother was very kind and definitely viewed his cooking as a gift to share with us. Coming from someone who loves to get down in the kitchen as well, it was a GREAT meal and a very very tough act to beat if I were to ever try my hand at cooking for the class.

After dinner and clean up, which I more watched than participated in (someone has to help supervise and uplift his brothers with his amazing presence), we studied some philosophy. I love sitting in study groups with my classmates who are taking philosophy classes because occasionally, I'll know what they're talking about and I can be helpful and, let's face it, I'm so nerdy talking about philosophy is just plain fun for me. Apparently, there is an upcoming ethics test on Kant and John Stuart Mill and I just love ethics so it was a match made in Heaven. I got to talk about the joys of utilitarianism. It's all fun and games until it comes time to crack a few eggs for the omelet!

My favorite part is shooting holes in both systems with same question. Neither philosopher does a good job of saying "Why should I care about anyone but me?" This is one question I feel so very qualified to speak about because it almost amounts to a manifestation of conscience. There is that little rebellious voice inside that occasionally shouts "Why should I care about anyone besides me?" The best part about this is only the Catholic can answer this best by saying "Because, that is what we were made for. Because, God loved us first!" The worldly philosophies either decay into selfishness or a strange sense of duty for the sake of duty. Neither of these is the narrow way, neither of these is the way of the Cross! Ultimately, love is the only proper grounding for ethics! Love is what we were made for; love pushes us outside of our own selfish dumb heads and out into the beauty that is the other and, ultimately, to The Other! Studying Kant and Mill just makes me SO happy to be grounded in Christ, because the alternatives are not pleasant!

Farewells

I'm not sure how to explain all of the posts today, it could be my newly reacquired health or it could be the sense of inspiration that comes from it being St. Therese's feast day (would LOVE to do a post about her, but maybe next year... when her feast day gets eaten by Sunday... DARN IT!), or it could be the mountain of homework that is piled up waiting for me because of all the sick days which is causing me to seek out distractions. I have a suspicion that it may be the latter. Anyway, today was a very bittersweet day because today we said goodbye to one of my classmates. We went out to lunch with him in Greektown and it was a great time.

This was the first man from my class to discern out and I must say it hits much closer to home when it's a classmate. While there is a great deal of joy to know that God's will is being done in his life, there is, also, a great deal of sadness because we are losing a brother from our day to day lives. There is a great deal of emphasis on class fraternity and our class is particularly close so it is very jarring to lose on of our own. He seems at peace and it seems (from the outside looking in) to have been a very prayerful and good discernment which makes it all the better in the long run. I would love it if you all could remember him in your prayers.

Spirit Day Adventure

My gosh, I am stoning you to death with pebbles now aren't I? Anyway, yesterday was our first "spirit day." It was in honor of the Detroit Tigers making it into the play offs. This was one of the stranger anomalies in seminary life. It means that we could wear our Tigers colors or paraphernalia to morning prayer and class on Friday. Nothing like this happened last year, I don't recall ever having a dress down day. It was truly a strange occurrence.

Apparently, not everyone got the e-mail or understood it properly which led to quite a scare for me. I walk down in my jeans, boat shoes and Justin Verlander t-shirt to morning prayer, walk in and almost everyone is in school dress! This leads to an "oh crap!" moment when I look at my watch and realize I'm just 5 minutes early, no time to change. I sneak my way into the middle amidst the stares of clerics wearing theologians who definitely did not read the e-mail, not daring to sit in the front as I normally do. I was slightly reassured when other college guys came in jeans and Tigers clothes though I still avoided priests (who were all in the normal dress clothes and clerics) during breakfast until the head of college formation came in and sat down in jeans and a jersey and inside my head I was screaming "VINDICATED!!!"

St. Jerome

I love St. Jerome very much, as much for his work as for his personality. I found this stanza of a hymn we sung to him to be really entertaining (I actually laughed in the middle of morning prayer at this).

Learned and tireless, nothing could deter him;
From patient study, though, when critics pressed him,
Fierce as a lion, he would swiftly answer,
In refutation.

Hilarious! I know of no other hymn for any other person in the Church that mentions something like this.

Sick Day

I wasn't feeling well all week and consequently my posting suffered but I'll put up a few posts today about this week to make up for that. Sick days are like the lamer version of snow days! At the seminary, it means you go into self imposed quarantine and begin to take your meals in your room, sit in the infected section at Mass which is behind the credence table toward the back, don't shake hands with anyone (dude, last night was my first hand shake in days, I didn't think I'd notice but man you do feel isolated) and of course don't go to class (that part was pretty tolerable). It also means that most likely you'll be going to the noon Mass which is for commuters and staff and not the morning liturgy with the seminary (also a plus and a minus). There have been in the past house jobs like infirmanarian who would be charged with taking meals to the sick people and I think stocking a community medicine cabinet. No such job or cabinet exists in the college at the moment, sadly, so it was just lots and lots of orange juice.