This year's March for Life was the third that I have participated in; however this time I went with the other seminarians from Brute, so the experience was a bit different.
Since we were leaving at 3:30 on Wednesday (the 16th), I had to pack my clothes and stuff up ahead of time. Anyway, since I don't have a suitcase, I always use my backpack, and was forced to carry around my books for that day. Well, that was all fine and dandy except for one book, namely Shakespeare. This book must include everything the Elizabethan playwright wrote, because it's like 4-5 inches thick and weighs at least 6 lbs. So, if I had to guess everybody on campus was wondering who the goof was who disdained backpacks and carried around all these books...
Anyway, I got out of class on time and got back to Brute shortly before the 3:30 departure time. I grabbed my backpack, breviary, and water bottle, and crowded down into Brute's kitchen for last minute instructions. Seating was assigned to middle van, which thankfully had 9, rather than 10, occupants and got settled in. The drive was fun, rather than tedious, to me. I didn't sleep too much on the way down there, but I got a good bit of reading in, and a little bit of talking with everybody - it was crowded, but by no means horrible. We got to Gaithersburg Maryland at about 2 in the morning and crashed at the hotel. I automatically woke up about 8 AM and wondered down to the hotel lobby to get some breakfast and jumped in with a group of guys who were taking off to do some site-seeing. A quick ride to the metro station (and about 40 minutes of metro riding) later and we were in Washington DC.
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| Washington and Jefferson Memorials |
The first thing we saw was the National Archives. I really didn't see to much there, Constitution, yep, Declaration of Independence, yep, a bunch of WWII records, yep (sorry pictures weren't allowed...) Anyway, we then walked down to the U.S. History Museum (it was bitterly cold) and saw the original flag (which is way bigger than I imagined it to be - it has a larger footprint than the house they started it in), some cool memorabilia from times past, and an interesting exhibit on the wars that the U.S. has played a role in. By this time the group had split up and myself and two other guys walked past the Washington Monument on our way to the Holocaust Museum. What can I say, that was a eye-opening museum on the horrors of the Holocaust during WWII. Evil, pure and simple. We then went off and got a bite to eat, got warmed up from all the walking we had done so far (it was still bone-chillingly cold) and then toured around the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, you get the picture, we tried to see it all. Anyway, we finally ran out of time and hiked back to the metro station and headed over to the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.
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| seminarians in the crypt |
This was always a highlight of the trip the previous times I went on the march, and this year was no exception. This year, being a seminarian, I was privileged to process in the massive procession of seminarians, priest, bishops, and cardinals that is so spectacular. It gives a glimpse of the universality and massive size of the Catholic Church. Awesome! I was pretty naive in assuming that seminarians get a seat; they don't. I was in the middle of the procession and besides all the walking of earlier that day I had just been standing in the Crypt Church for about two hours waiting for everything to get started, so my legs were pretty tired. Anyway, as I filed back behind the main (and then high) altar I found that everything was jammed and the seats were filled. I was, actually happy when they said that we could sit on the floor; yeah, it was uncomfortable, but much preferred to standing the entire time.
A quick aside: I found it pretty funny to see the "battles" that seminarians engage in; namely proving to each other who is holiest. Thus, we see who can kneel the longest on the marble after Communion, or who can stand the longest, or who can fold their hands the most perfectly for the longest - I know funny right. Anyway, I didn't win any battles that night; there were some real pro's there... :-)
Back to Mass; I couldn't see a thing (except the giant plumes of incense that spread upward from the altar), and thankfully, I had the TV feed right in front of me, but that just isn't the same... Either way, for some reason I found myself really being present at MASS. All to often I am distracted, sleepy, or just kind of out of it at Mass (becoming a seminarian apparently doesn't make you super-human), but for this Mass I was really concentrating. Everything really hit me and made me think. I was really meditating when I received Communion. It was awesome! I could go on and on about how wonderful this evening was, but hopefully some of my readers have experienced it (if you haven't, you should), and can vouch for awesome the evening is. Really incredible!
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| Mass the next Morning |
That night I was exhausted and collapsed into bed after enjoying some pizza at the hotel. I got up the next morning and packed up my stuff before heading off with the other guys from the Springfield diocese to serve Mass for one of the groups from our diocese. Once again the Mass was great, not as spectacular, but I was just as present and "in" it (
the homily was pretty great too). We caught a ride on their buses to the March, where we stood around for probably 2 hours, and I lost all the other guys (who went looking for the Brute group). Eventually, I just marched with my diocese, which was actually fortunate because we were up near the front of the March. That meant that I had about an hour that I could just watch people stream by without worrying about missing the time to meet at the metro station. Anyway, I got to see thousands and thousands of people walk past, including my cousins, who I got to talk to for about 10 minutes. What can I say the march was, as always, great. Looking back, the entire 3 days or so were inspiring. I guess good things happen when over half a million people all stand up against evil (when it's 20 degrees outside).
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| countless people at the march |
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| marchers in front of the capital |
The ride back wasn't too notable. I managed to fight my way through union station, find the metro, get on the right train, and meet up with everybody. We got on the road that evening and drove through the night till we got back to Brute around 4:30 AM. We had Mass at 5:00 AM and then I hit the sack. Thankfully, I had gotten some sleep in the van, but I was still tired. Some of the guys managed to sleep until like 4 PM, but I woke up around 11 AM. All-in-all the trip was great! I think I have used up all my good adjectives, so fill in your favorite (positive) one. It was great!
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