A Royal Week
This week, we had a couple of pretty awesome surprises. It started out as a normal week with the Introduction to St. Mark course where we studied the narrative elements and structure found in the Gospel of Mark. Then on Tuesday, during the Hebrew course, we started looking at all these massive Jewish feasts – Roch Hashanan – the big feast of the Jewish New Year. We also looked at Yom Kippour (these are all phonetically transcribed sounds because the Jewish alphabet looks completely different than what we use in English and because I can’t read it… yet… J). That’s the Jewish day of pardon, 10 days after Roch Hashanan. We’re now making our way through Sukkot (the Feast of Tents) where the Jews pitch and live in these tents just outside the city of Jerusalem for a number of days as a reminder of their 40 years of life in the desert. Wednesday was the day of the big surprise…
Wednesday, we have our course of Canon law… Right now, we’re studying the canons governing the life and structure of the Catholic parish… but our professor (a canon who’s also the rector of the Cathedral) adapts it so well to real life situations. We’re discussing, for example, whether the system of distinguishing parishes according to their territorial boundaries still holds given the enormous mobility and sense of freedom Catholics of today have. Well, in light of all of that, our professor arrived about 15 minutes late last time. So there we were, all kinda wondering what was going on—it was unusual for him to be late. Then he suddenly popped in and asked us: Do you not want to see the king and queen? So for the next 20 or so minutes, our entire class walked over to the nearby Parliament buildings of the province of Namur (just across from the cathedral of Namur) and, with the humongous crowd that was already there, tried to get a passing glance of the newly installed king and queen of Belgium. There were these Belgian flags everywhere as well as members of the press all over the street. Then when the convoy of the king and queen arrived, everyone started cheering and waving their flags. The king and queen went around greeting the people first of all… I kinda got a brief glance at both of them. The only thing that stuck in my mind is the fact that the queen had on this gigantic but very fashionable, very chic orang hat… Hahahahahaha But for the most part, I was too short to see so, like Zacchaeus, I had to jump up and down to get a glimpse of them. I didn’t really want to climb up something, though there were people who were climbing up various windowsills to see better. It was pretty awesome and it’s even more great to know that we have a professor who’s that free in his courses.
Source: http://www.lesoir.be/331126/article/actualite/belgique/2013-10-02/mathilde-et-philippe-trinquent-au-peket-namur
The rest of the week went by normally. We had a lively discussion on the strengths and limitations of the historo-critical method of study of Scripture in our Christology class and looked in quite a bit of detail how this method was used and abused in the past. And finally, on Friday, we ended our week with a great little history lesson on the martyrs and emperors of the 2nd and 3rd century leading up to Constantine.
On the weekend, I did something pretty cool as well… I made my way, hitching a ride with some of the guys here who were on their way to a community weekend, to Lille, France where I spent Saturday evening and the whole of Sunday with the l’Arche community of Lille. It was so great seeing some of my friends from l’Arche again and it worked out even better for me because that weekend, they too were holding a retreat where my foyer was, which allowed me to see the entire community and not just my own foyer. The theme of the retreat was taking care of oneself and one of the talks was given by one of the persons welcomed in the community. She was helped by an assistant to present the various things that she liked that she would use to take care of herself – whether that be makeup to take care of herself physically or a little catechism book showing the importance of her faith to take care of herself spiritually. She also showed us a few of the different ways she would take care of the other people around her—by sweeping the floor or by preparing the tea they would take at the end of a long day. It was a very simple talk but it was awesome being there.
By the way, this is the Church of Wambréchies (in Lille) where I assisted at Mass this Sunday… It’s pretty cool eh? Anyway, I think that’ll do for now for my blog. Have a great week and God bless!
Changes – It’s finally here!!!
Photo from pgrequeni on Flickr
I always love Sundays. They always seem to come at the perfect moment each week to give me some much much needed rest from the work and stress of the week that was. And after a month like I’ve had (which you can probably guess given the fact that I haven’t blogged in close to a month), the little bit of rest is very much appreciated.
On top of the tremendous amount of exams and papers (I’ve got two of these again due next week), this month was extra special for me because it was almost my “liturgical month.” Since getting back from my home weekend a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been assigned to serve at Mass, first as the MC (Master of Ceremonies) and then as the thurifer and finally, this week, as the acolyte. The MC is by far, one of the coolest liturgical jobs out here because he’s pretty much right next to the main celebrant throughout the whole Mass. He’s the guy who’s supposed to know all that’s going on and what’s coming next. Really, his main job is to turn the pages of the Sacramentary but when you’re kneeling next to the priest during the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament, you would know how cool it is to be “just turning pages.” The thurifer on the other hand is in charge of the thurible, which is that awesome looking contraption that lets out all the incense during Mass. I only really got to play the role of thurible once during Benediction after our Holy Hour this year because the Sunday I was supposed to work with it (i.e. last Sunday) was the Feast of Christ the King which meant that the abbot was the main celebrant and the whole crew changed. Whenever the abbot is the main celebrant at Mass, it’s always a huge deal. Because he’s the leader of the monks in the monastery, he’s almost like a bishop, which means he’s got his own mitre (the hat) and crosier (the staff). That means that we’ve got a crew, called the pontifical crew, who only really start coming into the picture whenever it’s the abbot who’s celebrating.
Anyways, what I really wanted to talk about is just the atmosphere of extreme excitement that is pervading the monastery and seminary today. It’s first of all the first day of Advent, which in itself is already a huge thing to get really excited about. Starting last night with Vespers and Vigils, so much has already changed. We’ve switched to the Common of Advent for Vespers which meant that we sang different hymns and had different responses as well as different antiphons. The biggest change for Vigils (sometimes also called Matins) was the shift in our final hymn before bed from the Salve Regina to the Alma Redemptoris. It sounded so beautiful in solemn tone last night. Today, just after breakfast, we had a very quick acolyte practice (because both my partner and I have done it extensively before) and together with our trainer, we went over into the sacristy to take a look at the new Sacramentary for the Mass today. And that really is the biggest change for the entire English speaking church isn’t it? It’s finally arrived… what everyone has been talking about since the beginning of the year! The new translation is finally in effect!! We’re all pretty nervous but of course really excited about it. I guess the nervousness comes from the uncertainty about some of our responses now and where exactly the changes are at… In any case, a small chunk of our morning was spent basically slobbering over the new Sacramentary, which looks stellar. The first thing that leapt out at me (because I’m the book bearer for the first half of the week) was that it’s a pretty heavy book… With the 2 new reconcilliation Eucharistic prayers and the 4 other Eucharistic prayers from Switzerland (if I remember correctly), the new Sacramentary is considerably thicker and heavier… Its tabs are much more awesome too because it is now really thick at its ends (so you can easily see the tabs) but really thin in the corner of the book (where it’s attached to the book) because that’s where it can easily get jumbled up… It was pretty innovative what they did now…. I can’t wait to see it all in just a few more minutes… Anyways, I just wanted to send in a quick blurb on that… Mass is in 20 minutes… I can’t wait! Have a great Sunday and God bless!!!
Mass from the mountaintop
Sorry for the silence… I’ve really been scrounging around for time to blog (and, as you’ve seen, have been having a tough time getting it). This year really is just that much busier than last year… Last week, the reason I wasn’t able to blog was because of a home weekend that we all had… Again, home weekends are those times when, once a month, we all get to go home and be with our families… This particular home weekend coincided with Canadian thanksgiving so, rather than blogging as I should have, I spent most of the weekend with family and friends eating turkey and being merry,,,, Heheheheheh
Again, it has been a pretty busy year so far… We haven’t gotten much “free” weekends where we get to just settle down and study (and blog)… This past weekend, a big group of us spent the weekend with our newly ordained (just this past June) Fr. Bryan in the middle of the forest… It was our annual camping trip! We headed out to the nearby Dewdney Mountain (the same place where the minors went camping a couple of weeks prior) right after our chant class. We packed along with us so much food!!! Most of the rest of Friday night went by like a blur… We ate noodle bowls, home-made stir fry and one piece of steak. We chatted, particularly with Fr. Bryan a bit on how his first few months of priesthood were going. He shared with us something that I have been hearing a lot lately as well… the fact that you’re still the same person before and after ordination. You don’t magically change once the bishop lays his hands on you… Sure, ontologically (in your being) there’s a huge change because you become a sharer in the one priesthood of Christ and can now begin acting in persona Christi to celebrate the sacraments but personally, you’re still the same person with the same strengths and weaknesses… You still have the same struggles you’ve had before… They don’t magically go away… It’s a bit of a testament to the importance of our seminary formation… If we’re to be good, holy priests, we need to start acting on it all now… We need to develop our prayer lives now. We need to organize our days, through our rules of life, now and be as faithful as we can be to those rules…We can’t wait for ordination and expect a sudden change to occur in our habits… Hehehehehe… Anyways, that’s enough of my little tangent there…
The next day, after getting up at 7 am, we began by praying the lauds… It was super cold that morning so we huddled around the campfire as we prayed… That was followed by a breakfast of oatmeal and omelette… After packing up all our stuff, we headed over to the trail… Our camping trips aren’t just for eating but a big part of it is the hike… Last year, our biggest challenge was the snow we ran into on the way up that mountain… This year, the challenge was the mountain itself… From the get go, we had nothing but close to a 45 degree angle incline!!! It was like doing the Grousse Grind without stairs and while some of us were in relatively decent shape, it was almost a bit too much for most of us. We had to abandon our idea of hitting the summit, also because Fr. needed to be at a nearby parish to celebrate anticipated mass at 5 pm that day too… Rather than making it to the summit therefore, we stopped about halfway at a little cabin with a fantastic view. It was there that we had one of the most memorable masses I’ve ever experienced… Pope John Paul II, as a university chaplain, used to bring students out on canoeing trips and celebrate mass on top of overturned canoes… We had the luxury of finding a little table from within the cabin, piling up some of our nicer hoodies on it (as a tablecloth), and positioning it so that we were all facing the view… Then, Fr. Brian celebrated mass for all of us. It was exhilarating… Heheheehehe We didn’t quite make it up to the summit of our mountain but, because of the mass, heaven instead came down to our little group and we ascended even higher than tiny little Dewdney Mountain… Hehehehehe… At least that’s the way I looked at it…Today, 3 days later, I’m still feeling the effects of that hike (more in my legs though than anything else)
After the mass, we ended our day before our quick descent, with a lunch of pita bread, cheese, beef jerky, nutella, Oreos and honey… You can imagine what kind of delicacies we all concocted with that kind of combination of food… Heheheehehe…
I’ll unfortunately have to end this quick little blog post here… I’ve got a sociology, metaphysics and Latin exam all this one week and I’ve still got a ton of stuff to study… So once again, I’ll try really hard to get the next post out sooner but I can’t make any promises… I hope and pray for all the best for you though… God bless!!!
Cacoethes scribendi : A Seminarian's Blog 