Sunday, January 30, 2011

Prayers Please!


This evening I was devastated to learn that a very dear friend unexpectedly passed away. Please offer your prayers for her and her family. She was an incredible woman who had a heart of gold, who loved her family more than life itself, and someone who embodied the Gospel message with her life. As I post tonight I ask your prayers as this seminarian, and the world has lost a good friend.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

March for Life 2011


The Union Leader says it better than I can:

link here

Friday, January 21, 2011

Perspective




"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in His -- if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore, my God, I will put myself without reserve into your hands. What have I in heaven, and apart from you what do I want upon earth? My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the God of my heart, and my portion forever."

Blessed John Henry Newman

Monday, January 17, 2011

Big Bang!

A great article by Reuters which I thought you might enjoy:


God was behind Big Bang,pope says

'The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe'

By Philip Pullella, Reuters

updated 1/6/2011 10:10:20 AM ET

"VATICAN CITY— God's mind was behind
complex scientific theories such as the Big
Bang, and Christians should reject the idea
that the universe came into being by accident,
Pope Benedict said Thursday.

"The universe is not the result of chance, as
some would want to make us believe,"
Benedict said on the day Christians mark the
Epiphany, the day the Bible says the three
kings reached the site where Jesus was born
by following a star.

"Contemplating it (the universe) we are invited

to read something profound into it: the
wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible
creativity of God," he said in a sermon to some
10,000 people in St. Peter's Basilica on the
feast day.

While the pope has spoken before about
evolution, he has rarely delved back in time to
discuss specific concepts such as the Big
Bang, which scientists believe led to the
formation of the universe some 13.7 billion
years ago.

Researchers at CERN, the nuclear research
center in Geneva, have been smashing protons
together at near the speed of light to simulate
conditions that they believe brought into
existence the primordial universe from which
stars, planets and life on earth — and perhaps
elsewhere — eventually emerged.

Proof God doesn't exist?
Some atheists say science can prove that God
does not exist, but Benedict said that some
scientific theories were "mind limiting"
because "they only arrive at a certain point ...
and do not manage to explain the ultimate
sense of reality."

He said scientific theories on the origin and
development of the universe and humans,
while not in conflict with faith, left many
questions unanswered.

"In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in
its greatness and in its rationality ... we can
only let ourselves be guided toward God,
creator of heaven and earth," he said.

Benedict and his predecessor John Paul have
been trying to shed the Church's image of
being anti-science, a label that stuck when it
condemned Galileo for teaching that the earth
revolves around the sun, challenging the
words of the Bible.

Galileo was rehabilitated and the Church now
also accepts evolution as a scientific theory
and sees no reason why God could not have
used a natural evolutionary process in the
forming of the human species.

The Catholic Church no longer teaches
creationism — the belief that God created the
world in six days as described in the Bible —
and says that the account in the book of
Genesis is an allegory for the way God created
the world.

But it objects to using evolution to back an
atheist philosophy that denies God's existence
or any divine role in creation. It also objects to
using Genesis as a scientific text."

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Thanks?


After being back only two days, two different people have come up to me and said that I look exhausted and terrible. These are not exactly the friendly welcome back words I was hoping for, but I am taking them at their word and going to bed at 9:30pm tonight. I hope this does the trick and that I can look more alive. I thought I was fine, but I guess not.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Semester 1 Grades In

Human Sexuality, Celibacy, Marriage- A
Introduction to Pastoral Theology- A
Christology-Soteriology- A-
Johannine Literature- B
Prophetic Literature- A-


I was pleased to do well, and happy to be over with the classes.

I am Back

After a few whirlwind weeks, I am back at the seminary and ready to begin a new semester. Besides having to clean my desk and organize my room I am busy trying to map out my strategy for busy semester of classes. At the top of my list is figuring out how to balance an overload of classes and a ton of papers. This semester I will be taking the following courses:

Theology of the Church
Letters of Saint Paul
Pastoral Theology
Theology of Newman (not Jerry's friend, but the late Cardinal and recent Saint)
Preaching
Medical Ethics
Hospital Internship


Together the courses total 17.5 credits, including one course at the 700 level.

Important Blog News:

Please note this blog will begin being regularly updated after August 21st (when I arrive in Baltimore).