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Day 7 - A week in the life of a seminarian

Good Evening everyone!  Once again, I find myself at the end of the day, and I am just starting my post about what happened...  I hope that you have enjoyed this week of recap. posts - they were fun to write (though they took a while), and you may notice that they have made it to the top of the page - "A week at Bruté".  

Anyway, today began with schola practice at 8:30.  Both guys in charge of the schola decided on this Sunday because it gave us a few weeks to practice up (after parents and pastors day).  We ended up skipping a few practices though, so we weren't quite ready, and had to practice this morning.  I was very glad that we practiced, but I had just recently rolled out of bed, so it was more difficult than normal to hit those high notes (especially in Ave Verum).  I am currently working on the video, so look forward to a post with that.  

Otherwise, Mass was somewhere in between really awesome and just average.  I mean, obviously the Mass is always awesome, but sometimes my participation or perception of it is less wonderful.  This morning, while it was great to be singing and all, it means that half of Mass (more or less) I was thinking about the next song, getting ready for it, and turning my camera on.  Not necessarily bad, but it still kept me from concentrating fully.  On the other hand, Fr. Joe's homily today was spectacular.  As a certain seminarian noted, "that homily was boss!".  The message was simple: who or what is lying at your gate?  Like the rich man to Lazarus, what or who are we ignoring?  Is there someplace that we need to grow, that we need to work on, that we are avoiding?  Is there someone who we haven't taken the time to know, that we haven't been charitable towards, that we haven't shown mercy?  His homily was quite a bit longer and better than this synopsis, but you know, I can't remember everything...

After Mass I had a donut and part of a massive chocolate chip cookie for breakfast (thank you Fr. Joe!).  Perhaps not the most healthy breakfast (OK, definitely not), but there were nuts on the donut, so it couldn't have been that bad.  

I didn't work on much for the early afternoon.  It was one of those rainy, dreary days where you really don't want to do anything...  At 2 PM we had Eucharistic Adoration and a living Rosary over at Marian for religious freedom.  It was supposed to be a procession with the monstrance from the chapel to the football field, but since it was raining they decided to do it all at the football field (I was puzzled too).  Anyway, I helped bring the requisite stuff over to Marian (monstrance, incense, kneelers, bells, etc.), and then I volunteered to be thurifur for the afternoon.  It began with Exposition on the football field.  They had a tent set up with an altar under it, so the Eucharist stayed dry, but myself, the other servers, father, and everybody else, was outside the tent - in the rain.  After a brief prayer for religious freedom (which was just long enough so that my arm was getting ready to fall off from the thurible), another priest read a Gospel passage - in this case the discourse on the bread of life from St. John's Gospel.  He gave a wonderful homily connecting how the truth will set us free, how the truth is found in Jesus Christ (especially in the Eucharist), and how we are led to Jesus through His mother Mary.  He was so enthusiastic about the faith it was phenomenal!  I hope that someday I can have the same fervor and devotion than he did.  

After his homily, this other priest led the living rosary.  I thought it would be kind of cheesy, but actually having a different kid lead each prayer worked out pretty well.  They read a scripture verse in between each Hail Mary, but most of the time I was still kind of distracted just by how different everything was.  It was misting, I was tired, and every so often whichever kid was next would say the Hail Mary in Spanish, or Polish, or German, or Latin, or another language (at which point, instead of thinking how great it was to be part of the universal church, my mind would jump to trying to figure out what the language was...)  You get the picture, I am a weak human being, and sometimes my mind just doesn't want to concentrate.  Something that I thought was really awesome during the rosary, was how the priest, who was walking the microphone around to all the kids leading the mysteries, would gently turn them around to face the altar and Blessed Sacrament.  They weren't being disrespectful per-se, but the way that the rosary stretched around the football field, they had "lined" up all facing inward, and the exposed Blessed Sacrament was outside this circle (off to one side).  It really reminded me where I needed to keep my attention, and helped me refocus   After the Rosary, we chanted the Divine Mercy chaplet, had Benediction, processed out, and the rally was complete.  In total, it took about 2 hours, but it went by pretty quickly.  I am just glad that it didn't ever start raining hard, and that it was warm enough to be tolerable.  (I guess that Father was preaching on how to be martyrs, so perhaps I shouldn't complain about the weather...)

I ate some leftover pasta, salad, and pumpkin pie for dinner this evening - it was wonderful!  Then I worked on the video from the hymns today, took a short nap and went to the community Holy Hour.  It's really funny, a few years back I would have bitterly lambasted doing two holy hours in one day (especially one in the rain), but seminary has given me a much greater appreciation for these intimate moments with Jesus.  Both were wonderful in their own way, during both I struggled to concentrate, but Jesus was truly present to me both times, and just that is amazing.

After the 2nd Holy Hour, 4 of us went over to Marian and played some racquetball   This sport is an absolute blast, if you haven't played it.  Fast, intense, crazy, loud, etc.  I am not that good at it (I run a lot, but usually that is because I am trying to chase down the ball after not being in the right spot to begin with.)  I'm getting better, and I can hit the ball hard, but I still haven't figured out how to track the ball and be in the right spot to hit it back.  We wanted to avoid dwindling away, so after finishing a few games of racquetball, we went to dairy queen and got some blizzards.  I probably ate like 1000 calories of an extreme-chocolate blizzard, and burnt off about 100 playing, but it was a fun evening either way!


And that ends my last "day in the life" post (for the near future).  I hope that these gave you insight into the day-to-day workings of seminary life.  I know that I didn't go into detail very often - I was trying to keep the length reasonable - but hopefully you enjoyed reading (or at least skimming) them, and they make one of you smile.  Keep the prayers coming (please!) - I'll do the same!  Good night, God bless!
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Day 6 - A week in the life of a seminarian

Alright, well I guess I'll start this post the same as the others, at the very beginning of the day. Today, because it is Saturday, we have Morning Prayer and Mass at 9:30.  Thus, I rolled out of bed around 8:30, took a shower, threw my laundry into the washer, and got to the chapel around 9:10.  I prayed the Office of Readings and had a few moments of meditation before Morning Prayer began.  Today the intercessions really jumped out at me:
Let us all praise Christ.  In order to become our faithful and merciful high priest before the Father's throne, he chose to become one of us, a brother in all things.  In prayer we ask of him: Lord, share with us the treasure of you love.  Sun of Justice, you filled us with the light at our baptism, - we dedicated this day to you.  At every hour of the day, we give you glory, - in all our deeds, we offer you praise.  Mary, your mother, was obedient to you word, - direct our lives in accordance with that word.  Our lives are surrounded with passing things; set our hearts on things of heaven, - so that through faith, hope and charity we may come to enjoy the vision of your glory.
Mass was also really, really awesome!  Today the reading was when Jesus tells his disciples that He will have to die, and they don't believe him.  

"While they were all amazed at his every deed, Jesus said to his disciples, “Pay attention to what I am telling you.  The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.”  But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying." - Luke 9:43-45
Looking back at this reading (I managed to forget what struck me during Mass), I think that it's important to see that the disciples didn't go to Jesus with their misunderstandings out of fear.  We should never fear to go to Jesus; He is incarnate truth.  Fr. Bob made a good point in his homily - we should never fear the truth.  Sometimes it is hard to understand, sometimes it forces us to lose something, sometimes it means doing things that other people think are crazy, but truth always brings us closer to God, and that is where we need to be.  I guess I haven't meditated on it much because that is about as far as thought has gone so far, but hopefully it gets one of you thinking.  (If you have a breakthrough, throw it in the comments!)

After Mass I pretty much skipped breakfast, because we were having a community lunch later (and I wanted to save room).  Every Saturday morning we have a work session.  All the guys are in one of four groups, indoor, outdoor, kitchen, and chapel.  This year I am on the outdoor team, and today my job was to organize the shed that holds all our tools.  I thought it would be an easy and fun job - I was right on the second point, but not on the first.  We had way more tools, pots, assorted doo-dads, power-equipment, and junk than I thought.  However, for whatever reason, the organizational side of things was fun.  It's kind of like a puzzle: what tool would best fit on this hook?  Where should that shelf go that would keep everything on it accessible, but allow the maximum amount of storage around it?  I was also reminded just how fast things can get done when you have a bunch of guys working on it.  I threw about half the stuff out of the shed to give myself some room to sweep the dirt out and be able to move things around, but because of my previous underestimation of the scale of the project, most of the stuff didn't have a home yet when we ran out of time.  With 5 or so guys helping though, everything had been returned inside the shed within a matter of minutes.  Good times!

Zach's parents, who came in to cook up lunch (and I suppose visit their son), cooked us spaghetti and meatballs, with salad, cheesy-garlic bread, and apple and pumpkin pie.  It was absolutely delicious.  Gosh, I look forward to those meals so much, the food is always wonderful!  (The leftovers are also fantastic).  Before lunch, we were snacking on m&m's that they had set out on the tables, but these were candy-corn m&m's.  Very interesting (in a good way)!

After lunch I quickly took a shower (to get rid of the crusty feeling from the work session), and Ray and I drove over to St. Paul's Hermitage.  This is a nursing/retirement home run by Benedictine sisters over on the south side of Indianapolis.  Ray and I both got assigned to the same location (kind of unique I think), and we are probably going to head over there every Saturday afternoon.  Anyway, we went over there last week and got an introduction/tour of the place by one of the sisters, but this week was our first "real" week, where we started to visit the residents.  I was a bit trepidatious before starting, just because I didn't know how we would keep a conversation going for an hour or more with the folks here.  I'm not a huge sanguine (and I don't think Ray would put himself in that category either), so it's definitely going to stretch us (in a good way) going over there every week.  However, today the woman that we visited knew it was our first time and was literally trying to show us the ropes of how to visit the elderly/infirm.  I have no idea how old she is, but I can only hope that I am in her condition when I am her age.  She talked to us the entire time, showed us around the hallways, asked questions...  It was fantastic!  I think this ministry will be really good for me, and this fantastic start to it has only reinforced this thought.

We got back after a few hours, and I took it pretty easy for the rest of the afternoon.  I totally wanted to take a nap, but for whatever reason I never got to it.  I did spend some time on the computer, I wandered the halls a bit - I don't know - nothing much happened, and that was actually kind of nice.  I said mid-afternoon prayer around 4 PM, and then watched some guys play pool.  I also watched a bit of the Notre Dame game at 5 or so.  I did doze a little bit while watching it (actually, I have this funny quirk of sleeping with my eyes open, so I left the other guys guessing as to whether I was sleeping or watching.  Yeah, it's pretty cool, or maybe just creepy...)

I finally was starting to feel hungry (after the huge lunch) so I decided to make myself a meatball sandwich with the leftovers.  Of course, Corey was working on making fried pickles when I got to the kitchen, so I had to have some of those.  And then other guys wanted some, so I (coached by Corey) made some more batches of the pickles.  They were really really good!  I played a game or two of pool with the guys that were now hanging out around the kitchen (our game room is now right across from the kitchen), and then went up to the chapel for a Holy Hour.  Usually we don't have an hour of Adoration on Saturday (the only day), but today there was enough interest to have one.  I said Evening Prayer, the Rosary, and then read some more out of The Priest is Not His Own.  This book keeps hitting me right in between the eyes.  Today the chapter was on being poor in spirit, and how the priest absolutely must not be attached to earthly goods.  As Bishop Sheen explained this doesn't mean that he can't own things, or all his possessions must be worn-out, but he must have the right ordering of these things in regard to the eternal goods.  Your fantastic quote of the day: "Poverty of spirit does not begin with an act of the will to do with less;  it begins with the Spirit of Christ in us." - page 126  Awesome!

After the Holy Hour I again wandered down to the kitchen.  I played a few more games of pool (I haven't won too many games, but it is a lot of fun!).  Corey was now working on fried oreos, which are absolutely fantastic, completely delicious, spectacularly phenomenal - in other words really tasty.  I played a game of chess with one of the other guys.  It was a lot of fun, I haven't played chess in forever (more like 3 years or something), and I eventually lost.  I didn't go down too easily though, my king was hopping around quite a bit for the last 10 moves or so...   

Good night everybody!  This post seems shorter than the others and it still took me over an hour to write...  Hope you guys are enjoying them!  Tomorrow the schola will be singing for Mass, so I need to get to bed (we are practicing before Mass)... We'll see what else happens!  
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Day 5 - A week in the life of a seminarian

Today, back to the normal schedule, we had Mass at 6:45 AM.  I wore a tie because I am assigned as extra-ordinary minister of Holy Communion for the next few days.  This isn't something required or anything,  but I like to dress up on occasion and this gave me a good excuse.  We had three priests at Mass, so I didn't have to fill that role after all.  Mass today was really, really awesome.  I don't usually know why a certain Mass, or hour of the office, or rosary hits me really well, but today was one of those days.  Fr. Joe Moriarty (our vice rector) gave the homily, and he reminded me of how important Jesus' question "who do you say that I am?" is.  Think about it!  Do you act in a way that shows your answer to this question?  Of course, as St. Peter, we will often end up falling, not believing, or being overcome by fear, but was must always come back to his answer "Lord; you know that I love you" - John 21:16.  In the office of readings I also just loved the passage (link click "office of readings" and scroll down to the second reading) from St. Vincent de Paul.  Partly quoted for your benefit: 

"It is our duty to prefer the service of the poor to everything else and to offer such service as quickly as possible. If a needy person requires medicine or other help during prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind. Offer the deed to God as your prayer. Do not become upset or feel guilty because you interrupted your prayer to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave him for such service. One of God’s works is merely interrupted so that another can be carried out. So when you leave prayer to serve some poor person, remember that this very service is performed for God. Charity is certainly greater than any rule. Moreover, all rules must lead to charity."

This is something that I have begun to also see in Pope Francis - maybe I need to work on it a little...  Love of Christ absolutely must appear in the rest of our life through love of our fellow man.   The question of Jesus, and are affirming our belief in Him as God, must go beyond just saying that we love Jesus.  We must answer with love to Jesus, and then follow His command to St. Peter: "feed my sheep".  

I had a small breakfast (small bowl of oatmeal) because I am fasting today.  One of the guys had a birthday yesterday, so a bunch of guys are going out tonight.  Knowing that, I decided to fast instead of skipping meat today.  I figure fasting is harder than no-meat, so I'm not really slacking...  

My first class, senior seminar, was cancelled today, so I began the school day at 10:00 AM with moral issues.  We talked some more about capital punishment, and how every seemingly clear-cut issue usually can be incredibly complicated when you are actually working on it in the real world.

In psychology we again continued to look at areas where young children are cognitively developing.  We talked some more about limitations, like irreversibility (when a young kid doesn't know what operations are reversible - opening/closing a box - and not - breaking a toy), and only being able to focus on the static state of an object (they understand that the show was untied, and now it is tied, but can't remember the steps along the way), and a lack of the concept of conservation (the same amount of liquid is taller in a skinnier glass).  Basically, their ability to think logically slowly grows from ages 3 to 7 or so.  They can think about objects, but can't manipulate those concepts.

I actually got out of psychology like 20 minutes early because the professor had finished everything he wanted to, so Andrew and I went over to the library.  I chatted with some others who were hanging out there, we talked about calculus (derivatives can be complicated), literature (Chesterton is cool), and philosophy (I finally get why the motion must be simultaneous to prove God through motion).  Then we went over to the Marian "shrine" (also called the Rosary walk) and prayed the Rosary.  I always find this really peaceful, but I struggle to concentrate on the mysteries because people are walking around, or mowing, or whatever...  Anyway, because I was fasting, I skipped lunch in the cafeteria and went back to the library to work on some calculus before class.

Calculus class was complicated today.  Those problems I was struggling with before class - they were the topic of today's class.  Derivatives had been pretty easy for me (If f(x) = x3 + 2x2 – 11 then f'(x) [the derivative] = 3x2 + 4x).  However, today we looked at much more complicated functions, where instead of just moving the exponent around (notice how it works: if f(x) = xn then f’(x) = nxn-1).  But, what do you do if your function is a bit more complicated?  Like: y = (x3)[(4-x2)1/2]  Here you have to use the product theorem.  This basically states that you take the x3 and the (4-x2)1/2 and call them “f” and “g” respectively, then you can find what the derivative of the entire expression by calculating: y’ = fg’ + f’g.  This means you have to find the derivatives of f and g.  f is easy: f(x) = x3, so f’(x) is 3x2.  But, it isn’t as easy for g.  To find the derivative of (4-x2)1/2, you have to use the chain rule.  This, on its own, isn’t too complicated.  You take the term, move the exponent as we saw before and then multiply the entire thing by the derivative of just the “4 – x2”.  So this looks like g(x) = (4-x2)1/2, so g’(x) = ½(4-x2)-1/2.  Thus, the derivative of the entire function, plugging in the parts that we just figured out, is: y’ = (x3)( ½(4-x2)-1/2) + (3x2)[(4-x2)1/2].  Having fun yet?  Yeah…  Now, set that expression to 0, and solve for x…

So after calculus, my classes were done for the day, so I came back to Bruté and played a few pool games with other guys.  I only managed to win one game, but it was fun either way.  After that I wandered over to my room (there didn't seem to be much else going on), and did a few things on the computer (including working on the computer - plugging in all those equations takes a while...)  At 4:15 PM, I went up the chapel where we had a Holy Hour before evening prayer.  The Holy Hour was, once again really, really fantastic.  (I love it when prayer is like that!)  I said mid-day prayer at the beginning, then the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and then I read a chapter out of the book by Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen, The Priest is Not His Own.  I was debating on reading this book (on the priesthood) versus Forming Intentional Disciples (Wendell) on evangelization, but I eventually went with Sheen.  As it turns out, the chapter that I moved into was about evangelization - God works in mysterious ways!  Best quote (out of many really good ones): 

Our love of souls must be persistent.  We get used to reading the parable of the Good Shepherd, but do we understand that for us priests it is a spelling out of our obligation to seek the lost sheep?  Leaving a dinner, breaking an evening's entertainment, interrupting a siesta - all such efforts are summed up in being willing to leave "those ninety-nine others on the mountain-side, and go out to look for the one that is straying"  (Mt 18:12)"

After evening prayer, a bunch of us went out and played some two-touch football.   It was a lot of fun, but, as always with football, I feel like I'm not doing something right because I rarely get the ball.  I run around like crazy, wear myself out, and often get away from my defender, but I just don't seem to ever end up in an open spot.  Anyway, the teams were really well matched and we ended in a tie (5-5) after about an hour of playing.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, tonight we celebrated Adam's birthday by going to Macaroni Grill.  I ended up getting the lasagna - It was one of the cheaper options on the menu (always a big deciding factor in my choice), and it just sounded really good.  Let's just say that I was disappointed when it came out because it was half the size of a lot of other meals, but I had changed my mind by the end of the meal.  It turned out a lot bigger than it looked!  The evening was a lot of fun!  Right after the waiters sang "happy birthday", the guys in the kitchen (it was open to the restaurant) dumped ladle fulls of grease on the stoves.  So these "waves" of flame roared out lighting up the restaurant - maybe not the smartest thing to do, but it was pretty cool!

Alright, well I'm tired, so this post will come to an end.  Before heading to bed I caught the tail end of "The Hobbit - an unexpected journey", said night prayer, played some pool (actually almost winning!), and ate some ice cream with home-made chocolate/peanut-butter topping.  Once again, an awesome day!
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Day 4 - A week in the life of a seminarian

Wow, the week is just flying by - I guess that is what happens when your days are absolutely full of thing to do.  Today began with morning prayer at 7:15.  I was somewhat lazy, so I didn't do the Office of Readings beforehand, and said it after Morning Prayer.  Nevertheless, after a quick breakfast of yogurt, a toasted english muffin, and chocolate/caramel milk (we now have caramel syrup, and Adam said it was delicious, so I tried it - pretty good!) , I spent the next hour or so tidying up my room and reading up for different classes.  My room had gotten a bit messy over the past few weeks, and seeing some other guys who have kept their room spotless, I decided some organizing was in order.

In Augustine and Aquinas we talked about Anselm's defense and explanation of free will.  Your synopsis: Free will isn't the ability to choose between two options (alternative possibilities) such as good or bad, or cheerios or corn-flakes, though we do often have that kind of freedom, it is our ability to maintain rectitude of will.  What is rectitude of will?  This is the state our will is in when it is ordered correctly, that is towards the good, which, as Christians, we believe to be God.  Basically, Anselm says that when we choose something that isn't good (or we inordinately desire some temporal/temporary good) we are essentially giving up our humanity.  As humans, we have the option to choose the good, but Anselm explains that when we choose something that is not good we in fact become trapped in sin, and lose freedom.  Obviously, this is a super-summary of the stuff we talked about, but thankfully Anselm ends by explaining that we can get out of this cycle of/slavery to sin through grace that God freely bestows on us.

After class I got an early lunch at the cafeteria.  Today I got salad, meat-on-a-stick (the consensus was that it was chicken, but who knows), and some pumpkin bread.  Everything was actually delicious!  After lunch I headed over to library where I worked on reading for metaphysics, chatted with other people (mostly seminarians, but other folks will join our little zone as well) about all sorts of topics, read a bit for other classes, and then prayed midday prayer.  I was glad that I didn't had too much going on because it allowed me to do some "hanging out" rather than forcing myself to get stuff done.  It's nice every once in a while!

 Alright, I'm already beyond half-way through the day!  Metaphysics was pretty cool today.  We dove straight into proving the existence of God.  Today we were going through the argument from motion.  This argument appears as early as Aristotle, but we were going through the version found in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae.  The basic propositions: (1) - Some things are in motion.  We can see things around us are changing and moving - in metaphysical speak, they are going from potency to act. (2) - A potency can be reduced to a potency only by an agent in act.  If that didn't confuse you, congrats!  Basically what this second proposition says is that the only way that things (people, animals, rocks, stars...) can be changed, moved, or caused to do something (this is going from potency to act) is through the action of something else that actually exists.  (3) - Whatever is [in] motion must be put in motion by another.  Basically, this says that something that potentially is one way cannot move/change itself to be actually that thing.  Example: a rock that is potentially at the bottom of a hill can't move itself there unless something else pushes it (or gravity pulls it).  This gets more complicated with living things, but it still applies.  Example: your leg doesn't move unless your muscles "fire".  (4) - There cannot be an infinite series of motions put in motion by another.  OK, this is where it gets really complicated, and where I don't understand it fully (yet), but basically, the world wouldn't work if you kept going back one step (to the previous agent) infinitely.  So, taking the earlier example, your leg moves because of muscles, which move because of nerves, which move because of signals going around in your brain, which move because your will decided to move your leg, which moved because??  See how eventually you have to get to some agent that isn't explained or moved by a previous agent.  Eventually, Thomas Aquinas says, you have to get to an unmoved-mover.  A being that isn't caused or moved or changed by something previously.  Actually, I've left out a large part of this 4th part, T.A. says that temporal sequences of causality can regress infinitely, but simultaneous sequences of causality don't.  Either way, he argues that God causing the universe/creation is an example of the second type of causality, so the point stands...

 Skip the next two paragraphs if you don't want any more metaphysics, but if you're adventurous keep reading...  :-)  During the second half of class, we went through properties which must be true of this prime-mover, unmoved-mover - you know - God.  First He must be immaterial (not made of physical, material, stuff).  Why?  If God is made of matter, he would have to cause the universe to exist through material contact/movement.  Why is this a problem?  Well, the only way that a material can move another material (think pool balls or something), is if itself is in motion.  Yet, if we say God "was" (thinking in our temporal mindset) moving when He created the world, that means He was changing, which isn't right.  We call God the prime-mover because He causes motion/change in the world, not because He was actually moving.  This is tough to think about, but physical movement means that God would have been moved by something else (which means that He isn't the original source of movement).  The second point that we made was that God, the unmoved-mover, is that He is not in potency at all.  This is connected with the previous point.  Remember, movement and change, in metaphysics  is talked about in terms of going from potency to act.  (Before moving, a being has the potential to move, or change, or whatever, and after if moves it is actually in the new state, or place).  So saying that God doesn't have any potency, is saying that He can't change.  If by causing the original motion (creation) of the universe, God moved, or changed, or is any way went from potency to act, that movement wouldn't have been unmoved.  (Something must have moved God from the potential state to the actual one).  I guess I won't get more technical, hopefully the argument above isn't full of fallacies and you can follow the train of thought a bit...

 Another point made during this talk of the unmoved-mover (God), the topic came up of how God, if He is in fact immaterial, could move/cause a material universe to move/exist?  I mean, how can something that is spiritual cause something that is material?  We just kind of assume that this is "easy" because God is God.  But in metaphysics we are looking at the issue without having the "back-up" of theology (Revelation and Tradition).  It's not like it is anti-religious discipline, but we are trying to figure out how things could work, or how we can explain what we see, without just saying that God did it.  Obviously, sometimes, God did just do it, and we can't figure out why or how, but sometimes we can answer those questions and that is much of what metaphysics seems to be about.  Alright, back to how God, as immaterial, could cause the world, which is material.  Basically, what the professor said was that this was a tough question, that we really don't understand, how God could do such a thing (using metaphysics).  This argument for God is a demonstration quia, which means it tells us that an unmoved-mover must exist for the universe to exist, but it doesn't tell us how this unmoved-mover works.  Interestingly, and once again we see how philosophy connects with theology, (even though for class today we were trying to prove God without theology as explained above) the professor noted that this paradox of immaterial moving material is very similar to how our (immaterial) will moves our (material) body.  How does it work?  We really don't know.  But it gives insight into just how much we are created in the "image and likeness of God".  It's not like God (pre-Jesus) had a body that looks like ours, but isn't it interesting that somehow God has connected our will to our body - making a hybrid of spiritual and material.  It isn't easily explainable, how this works.  Previously the professor had noted that the human "hybrid" is possibly the hardest thing to explain metaphysically - I am starting to see why.  Man people are cool!

 OK, enough metaphysics (want more? check this out at catholic.com)!  After class, I immediately went over to the Marian chapel where, as usual for Thursdays, we had a Holy Hour with the Marian community.  I went to confession, said the rosary, prayed for different people (including all you folks), and prayed evening prayer with everybody.  Mass immediately followed.  Today I was cantor, so that required me to pick and start the opening hymn and lead the alleluia verse.  Usually, I am a bit nervous cantoring at Marian (more-so than at Bruté) I guess because there are more people and you have to use the microphone and stuff, but today it really wasn't that difficult.  After Mass most guys (including myself) went over to the cafeteria for dinner, for which I had a toasted pb&j (really tasty) and a few other things (that I now forget).  

 After dinner I hung out in the library because I was supposed to attend this talk about an hour later.  It was a talk about ecology/environmentalism from a Catholic perspective, so I was barely interested, but not really.  Senior seminar class was canceled tomorrow, so the professor asked us to attend this lecture...  Anyway, nobody was at the theater in the library, so I had to look up the event on the computer about a minute before it was supposed to start and found out that it was across campus.  I speed-walked over there, arriving late, but before they started (thankfully).  I don't want to spend too much time on the talk, but basically the guys said that the Catholic church teaches that we need to take care of the environment, you know don't destroy the place, because the Bible says so, and that was pretty much it.  He managed to stretch that into about an hour of talking, and there were a few other bits which I think he could/should have left out, but I won't get into it.  Whatever - I'm not one to complain...

 I got to the second half of schola practice after the talk.  We were going though Ave Verum, which we will be singing in 4-part harmony on Sunday.  It is a beautiful song, but I am on the soprano line this time (last song I was on the base line), and there is two places where the song gets really, really high.  I managed to hit the first such "spike" normally, but I have yet to get through the second one without going falsetto.  It actually doesn't sound bad, but I am always just waiting for my voice to crack at just the wrong time.  I guess I'm stretching my vocal range...  

  The last major thing today was night prayer (compline) which I was cantoring today.  We chant night prayer three times a week in common, and we use a cantor-congregation style setup.  Basically, the cantor chants one verse, and then the body of guys, and then the cantor and so on...  I was again, not really nervous about it today (which is awesome), and I think that myself and Aaron (the organist) did a really good job.  The speed seemed good, I didn't stumble on any words, the guys jumped into their parts quickly, it was wonderful (and beautiful).  It's amazing what happens when you do things for the glory of God rather than yourself!

 And with that, I basically made the rounds, finished typing this post up, talked with a few guys in my room, and now I'm off to bed.  It was another great day!
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Day 3 - A week in the life of a seminarian (updated)

I was going to try and make this post shorter than the previous two, but I started thinking about everything that has happened - and, I'm sorry to say, but I don't think that's going to happen...  Hope springs eternal I suppose!

Today began with my alarm going off at 6:00 AM.  Why do I mention that?  Because instead of Mass at 6:45 (like a usual Wednesday), we were having Mass this evening, and morning prayer at 7:15.  So, my extra half-hour of sleep was rudely interrupted by my cell phone going off early.  Even worse, it was across the room, so I had to jump out of bed, turn it off, and then go back to bed...  Anyway, morning prayer went as normal - meaning that I had to look back at it to find what had jumped out at me then: mercy.  It seemed like every psalm, the reading, even the canticle verse, all had to do with God's mercy.

Morning Prayer was followed by breakfast.  I decided that today I was going to eat more healthily than I had the last day or two, so I made myself a bacon/egg sandwich, and I was debating what to have with it, when Andrew decided to make pancakes.  Of course, I wasn't going to pass up pancakes, and when he decided to add chocolate chips, I wasn't about to complain, and when I thought about drizzling chocolate syrup on top, I didn't hesitate   Let's just say that it was a very good pancake, but my intention to eat something healthy, had quickly disappeared.

Anyway, classes began with senior seminar at 9:00 AM.  We continued talking about Introduction to Christianity, today covering the (recent) history of how people have perceived Jesus.  Basically, the view swung between seeing just the "Jesus" we can find historically and the "Jesus" of faith.  These positions generally disconnected the two realities - something that Ratzinger advocates must stay connected together.

In moral issues we covered the death penalty.  The class very much followed strait down the line what Catholic teaching is on the matter.  Since Tertullian (3rd century AD), one of the first Christians to write on the matter (that we still have record), the teaching has basically been that capital punishment is within the authority of the state, but should only be used in necessary (and today, probably few) instances.

In human growth and development we moved into cognitive development during early childhood (3-7 years).  It is so cool to see how many major cognitive advances kids overcome during this period.  They can understand more and more advanced concepts, and see the world in much more developed ways.  Pretty cool stuff!

After that class, as usual, I went with a few guys and prayed the rosary at the Marian shrine (across campus).  It is such a beautiful moment to just forget about everything going on in classes and focus on giving the day to God through His mother.  I was a bit worried about the calculus test and meeting with the dean that afternoon, and it was nice to just give it into God's hands.  

For lunch I went to the cafeteria.  My resolve to eat healthily (and minimally) was intact.  At least until I saw the blueberry pie...  A slice of lasagna and some salad joined the pie as my "small" lunch...

I ate quickly, so as to give myself some time to whip through a few more calculus problems for review.  I managed to get myself confused by a certain kind of equation (derivatives of square roots), only to figure out how to get around the difficulty moments before class.  Thankfully, the test wasn't too hard (at least I don't think so), and there was some extra credit, so I am hopeful in getting a good grade.  We'll see, it wasn't as bad as I was thinking it could be.

After calculus, usually I would be done, but not today.  Today I had to meet with the academic dean.  Basically, my problem is this: because of the way that credits transferred into Marian I am at a deficit of 200 level classes.  This means that technically to graduate I need 19 more 200+ level credit hours - no big deal, just one more hour than this semester - but, I also have to take logic (PHL150).  So, that leaves me taking 22 credit hours next semester, 12 of which are hard philosophy classes, and the others all of which will have to be above 200 level (so, pretty hard too).  Let's just say that I don't really want to do that.  Anyway, I met with the dean, and he said he would look into some of the transferred classes to see if they were equivalent of 200 level classes at Marian, but if none of them worked out, I would be stuck finishing those 22 hours.  We'll see...

At this point (2:30ish), I finally headed back to Bruté.  While walking to my room I saw a few guys were watching World War Z, so I stopped to check it out and ended up staying to watch the movie.  It was good I suppose, I guess I'm not the type that usually goes for zombie movies - but it was well done, full of action, and had a good message (you know, save humanity).  After that I worked on a few things, caught up with email, and then raced off to Mass/Evening Prayer at 4:30.  Today was a discernment dinner - which basically means we invite guys who are interested in seminary to spend the evening here and kind of figure out what seminary is like.  The Gospel reading today at Mass jumped out at me at one point where Jesus "gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick." - Luke 9  I thought that it was interesting that Jesus sent them out to "heal the sick" - I haven't thought about this point too much.  I guess I often focus on fixing problems rather than healing them, and there is a difference.  Jesus' touch is one of healing and mercy.  Certainly, there is a balance here, but I think that in some sense I need to see that love isn't "hard" and tough, but mercy... 

After Mass we all drove over to Marian for dinner.  If you have been following the renditions of what I ate the rest of the day, you can probably see where this is going.  Once again, they had blueberry pie, so of course I grabbed a slice of that, and what is better than blueberry pie?  Blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream!  (So, I grabbed that.)  It also must have been fry-everything day, because most of the cafeteria's food was fried.  Chicken nuggets - grab 3, corn dog - grab one, fried pb&j (!) - grab one...  You can see where this is going...  I did grab some carrots/peppers to add some nutritional value, but I don't think it really helped.  Oh well, tomorrow is another day...  (of course, I say that every day.)

After dinner, we came back to Bruté where we played a quick game of two-ball (lots of fun, but the other guys were more cut-throat that I was, so I was knocked out mid-way through).  Then we had a fun time while the freshman/sophomores told their favorite memories of Bruté life.  It was hilarious, and while I can't duplicate the stories here, I hope you can imagine 40 guys laughing hysterically at renditions of different episodes from around the seminary.  There were stories about crazy drivers, late-night games, people who ate just the tops off of muffins (don't ask) - it was incredibly funny!

Alright, well I just hit paragraph number 14, so this post needs to conclude asap.  After the story-telling session I played a bit more two-ball (again losing), talked with guys about more funny stories of days gone by (again funny), went to Adoration for an hour (it switched between splendid, peaceful, distracted, prayerful, and tired), then talked with Declan for an hour about philosophy (how it's cool, sometimes) and Bruté (in general).  Then I spent another half hour working on this post, and now I am going to bed.

Good night everybody!  As Corey would say - sleep with the angels!
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Day 2 - A week in the life of a seminarian

Today Archbishop Tobin celebrated Mass (at 6:45 as usual) for us.  I was tired again, but his short but well-done homily managed to keep me attentive.  During the first reading, about the return of the exiles from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple, I wasn't seeing much that applied to me.  The Gospel, which was incredibly short, related how Jesus hears that His mother and brothers are in the crowd and responds "“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it."  I was thinking, ok, how is anyone supposed to connect these readings up.  I know that the daily readings aren't chosen in such a way that they are supposed to match up, but usually I can find some parallel between them that I need to work on.  Anyway, Archbishop Tobin related these by saying that God's will, the acting part of Jesus' message, is to rebuild His church.  I didn't get this connection at all until he mentioned it, and I thought it was so cool to see how these two readings came together.  We become brothers of Christ when we hear the word of God (come follow me, be fishers of men) and act on it.  Neat!
After Mass, I immediately went down to the kitchen and cranked on this griddle thing we have next to the stove.  On Tuesdays, following the example of a seminarian last semester, I have started cooking breakfast for whoever wants it.  Today, since we had lots of eggs and leftover toppings from tacos on Saturday, I made omelettes.  It took a bit of trial and error to figure out how to get the insides of the omelettes hot without burning the outside, even more finesse to make sure that they folded reasonably well, and the 3rd and hardest part was getting them off the griddle onto a plate.  (OK, it wasn't bad at all, and for the most part the omelettes stayed together...)  Anyway, I think the guys enjoy it when I make something a bit beyond the run of the mill, and it's always fun to whip up a large batch of something or another.

My first class today was at 9:30, so right after breakfast I spent about an hour reading St. Anselm's On Free Will (which, go figure, is about free will, and how it is a really awesome gift from God).  I managed to finish the dozen pages or so before class, which was great, and then headed over to campus.  In class we got our tests back, which we had taken last week, and I was pretty happy to see I got an A.  First tests are always tricky, and thankfully, I had at least a rudimentary understanding of most of the questions.  He also slightly curved the grade (which, I suppose, is a good thing - though maybe I shouldn't put so much emphasis on grades...)  Then we finished up talking about Anselm's Proslogium, in which he attempts to prove the existence of God.  Last week we had finished most of it, but hadn't gotten through his response to critiques leveled at it.  Basically, Anselm says that we can know that God must exist, because in our mind God is "that than which nothing greater can exist", so for that concept of God to be accurate, God must exist.  I think most of the class was annoyed by finding that the argument seems quite good (but I haven't taken logic yet, so maybe there's a fallacy someplace), but something seems missing.  Anyway, for some people the argument was convincing and for others it didn't seem substantial enough.  Pretty interesting way to philosophize nonetheless.

After class, I quickly chatted with the teacher about my upcoming term paper in senior seminar, and he gave me a bunch of insights into how the shift in philosophy occurred in unison with the protestant reformation.  He noted that with the reformation came a different view of human nature (especially in Calvinism), essentially, before the reformation philosophy had this view of the world in which you had different "levels" (for lack of better word) of being.  God, then angels, then humans, then animals, etc.  However, with the protestant reformation, and, I suppose, the (closely) simultaneously happening scientific revolution, humanity lost some value.  Think about darwinism, this makes man just another animal, just a slightly better developed ape, that's not very in line with the whole "image and likeness of God" now does it?  Again, Calvinism, especially in the beginning, focused on man being pre-destined and how God has already decided who's going to Heaven (and who's not...).  This disconnects the stages of being, it disconnects God from man.  Alright, enough of my musings on philosophy, and back to day-to-day life.

After Augustine and Aquinas, I walked over to subway, got some lunch, and then headed over to the library where I spent the next 2 hours doing calculus (derivatives are only bad when you make silly mistakes speeding though them), reading metaphysics (it was short today!), taking a nap (it was wonderful), and eating a snickers (it actually only lasted about 5 minutes, but anyway...).  

At 2:00 PM I had metaphysics class. I guess I won't give you everything we went over, but some of it is actually pretty cool.  The first part of class was a recap of last class: all the sensible beings that we see have three act/potency distinctions (existence/essence, accident/substance, and form/matter).  Don't worry about what each of those mean (I'll do that), but basically these "qualities" or "properties" of sensible objects mean that they must be caused.  They are contingent, don't have to exist, and require something else to cause them to go from potentially existing to actually existing.  In the same way, sensible objects (by which I am talking about everything that you see, feel, or encounter in life), can also only change through something else causing it - some change or movement in them only goes from a potential change to an actual one when something else (called the agent cause) causes them to change.  This is pretty obvious, a rock doesn't move unless you push it, and you don't move the rock unless your muscles are caused to move by chemical reactions, which are caused by nervous signals from your brain, etc.  Metaphysics (at least what we are looking at) gives every little part of this picture a name so that we can "track" these bits in other scenarios or beings and find how all the parts fit together.  OK, today we moved on from this knowledge of causes, to finding/proving the primary cause, Aristotle's prime mover, and what most of you call God.  (This is the philosophical understanding of God.)  Throughout the rest of class we looked at different ways that different people have tried to prove that such a being must exist.  Some (Anselm) try to prove God's existence without using empirical evidence by using a nominal definition, and others use more demonstration-based arguments (of which there are various kinds, but basically they prove something by looking at the world around us).  Alright, I could literally write something about 5 times this long based on how many notes I have, but I won't...  Hopefully, you got an idea of how complicated (but cool) and intricate (but incredible) philosophy is.

After metaphysics I was hoping to get a lot done.  Maybe study for my calculus test tomorrow, or get another nap in (I still had a bit of a headache), or read something - you know be productive.  But, I hate to say it, but I managed to waste most of the time between 3:30 and 5:00 doing stuff on the computer.  I mean, I did do some email and worked on this blog post some, but I also distracted myself with less important stuff on the internet...  Ah well, I guess one can't always be working...

Anyway, at 5:00 we had Evening Prayer in common.  Following that, I met with some guys to pick teams for intramural football (which begins on Sunday).  I was torn between "stacking" one team or trying to balance out the talent between the teams.  Eventually, we leaned towards making one team as good as we could.  Last year we got creamed (even though we only had one team), so if we want to stand any chance of keeping up with the other Marian teams, we needed all the best guys together.  Of course, that means that half the guys will feel like they are "lesser" or whatever.  So goes the balancing act of being athletic director.  I'm on the B team because, to be quite honest, there are a lot of guys who are better at football than me.  I know the guys will understand, but it still involved trying to weigh one guy's talents against another's and they often just aren't comparable...

I ate the rest of my subway sandwich (chicken pizzaiola) for dinner (along with a Little Debbie - thanks Aaron's mom!).  I spent a little while designing a Bruté t-shirt for when we do sports and what-not, and then I went to spiritual direction.  Unfortunately, this isn't something that I can talk about too much - you know, it's kinda personal.  But, it was a pretty good conversation for 45 minutes or so, and I can tell that I am growing...

At 8:30 PM we had a Holy Hour.  Usually, on Tuesdays we have our Holy Hour in common at 4:30, but today we had it later so that a group from campus (the San Domiano scholars) could join us.  It is the first time (to my knowledge) that a group has joined us for prayer, so it was kind of cool to have all the extra people and voices joining in.  I read some more out of Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity which today was about Jesus.  I really need to end this post, so I'll leave you with a quote that I read today.  Here (now) Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, is explaining how many modern theologians want to see the God-Man as either Jesus or Christ, either Jesus "who told all men of their common father and so made them brother" versus Christ "who then demanded faith and became dogma" - page 199.  Ratzinger notes that some want to pick just one or the other side of Jesus Christ.  Pope Benedict rejects this disconnect.  "[F]aith's decisive statement about Jesus lies in the indivisible unity of the two words "Jesus Christ", a unity that conceals the experience of the identity of existence and mission." - page 204.

 And with that, good night!  Thanks for reading!
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Day 1 - A week in the life of a seminarian

I've been thinking lately that while I have posted plenty of moments from the seminary (fun, academic, spiritual, and other topics), I haven't really tied them all together.  I guess, I haven't given the whole picture of seminary life, just bits of it.  Thus, for the next week I am going to try and post something each day basically giving you all the run-down of what I did that day.  I'm going to try and make it interesting, so I won't include everything, but I want to give you the big picture of what seminary life is like.  Enjoy!

Monday - 9-23-13

So this morning started with my alarm blaring to life at 6:00 AM.  I immediately fumbled around for snooze and then disabled my cell phone which went off simultaneously (back up alarm).  After slowly become conscious, my alarm again came to life and this time I rolled out of bed (6:15).  I quickly dressed, shaved, and got my contacts before heading up to the chapel around 6:30.  I prayed the Office of Readings before Mass (with Morning Prayer) began at 6:45.  Unfortunately, I was pretty tired this morning because I had stayed up till midnight or so to get some studying done, so Mass wasn't as transformational as I always hope it will be.  After Mass I said a brief thanksgiving, then the tessera prayers (Legion of Mary), and then made my way down to breakfast.  Today, as I said, I was pretty tired, so I just threw a banana in with some cheerios.  I chatted with the other guys who were eating, and then headed to my room around 8:00.  I quickly checked email, but then got down to some last minute cramming for my Moral Issues exam.  

So far we have covered pretty much all the basics regarding moral theology, and basic ethical stuff.  Basically, the gist of the class has been that throughout salvation history we see God asking people to trust and follow Him, primarily through love of neighbor.  This focus, of course, doesn't change with Jesus, especially as found in the great commandment (love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love neighbor as self).  Anyway, the class had managed to extrapolate that principle into about 20 pages of notes, and 5 pages of study guide.  I hadn't filled out the study guide much, so mostly I just skimmed my notes to study for the 45 minutes or so.  Around 8:45 I quickly changed, grabbed my stuff, and charged out the door.  I intended to ride my bike to Marian today because I wasn't heading back to Bruté at the usual time (when I can catch a ride with somebody), but Cody and Ray were heading to Senior Seminar (my first class as this morning as well), so I threw my bike in the back of Cody's truck, and we sped over to campus.  I can ride over pretty quickly (5-6 minutes), but it tires me out going that fast, usually I am sweating a bit, and my legs are wobbly when I get there, so it was nice to find somebody driving over.  By the time we got there the bells (which go off 2 minutes before class were ringing), so I grabbed my bike, rode across campus from the library (where we had parked) to Marian hall (where my class was), locked my bike up in record time, and ran into class.  Ray was joking that this would be the first time I had been late to class, but actually we made if over with about 30 seconds to spare!  

In senior seminar we are going through Pope Benedict's Introduction to Christianity, and today we were examining chapter 5, in which then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger expounds on the mystery of the Trinity, how it is something that requires faith to believe - it isn't obvious, or discover-able by reason alone - and profoundly stretches the bounds of the usual philosophical principles (substance, essence, relationship, etc.) that we use to describe/examine something.  An interesting analogy that he makes is that this belief in the Trinity isn't irrational, but just exposes the limits of human knowledge, in this case limits of theology.  Just like physics can't easily explain the dual nature of light as a wave and particle, theology can't really explain how God can be both one and three.  Cool stuff!

My next class, moral issues was the one that I had the test in.  I had about 5 minutes to run through the material one more time before the professor handed out the test.  Disconcertingly, a bunch of other students were anxiously quizzing each other over their complete study guides, so that wasn't very encouraging.  Nevertheless, the test was handed out, I whizzed through the first few multiple choice (leaving a few blank on my first pass), filled out the other fill-in-the-blank answers, and then went back completing the questions I skipped.  I felt good about the first section, being pretty confident with most of my answers.  The second session, an essay, had two options, and I picked the first one about explaining that God is anti-slavery (in the largest sense of the term) using the Old Testament, the New Testament, the current pretty bad situation in Haiti, and exorbitant pay for corporate executives.  I quickly whizzed through the first few paragraphs, explaining that God is love, and that God gave us freedom of will, and that we were made in the image and likeness of God, so we should be loving to others around us, thus giving them freedom (in having a good life, and being able to freely choose the true good, God).  I talked a bit about the exodus, and then the great commandment in the New Testament, and how both are related to freedom (found in love).  I awkwardly squished something about Haiti and even less about corporate wages onto the end of the paper, filling the sheet up to the last few lines, and turned in my test.  Actually, while I was on the last paragraph, the teacher announced that we had five minutes left, so instead of finishing early (like I was hoping), I had to quick-walk over to psychology, where my next test waited.

The psychology test, composed of 50 multiple-choice questions, was a bit tougher than the previous one in that class simply because I hadn't studied as much.  I don't think I bombed it by any means, but I had several questions that I wasn't very sure on.  We'll see, I don't think it'll be too bad.

After psychology, I went with the other seminarian that is in the class with me to the cafeteria and had an interesting lunch of chili-dog with noodles on top (I wanted a chili dog, but noodles went good with the chili, so I did both), some concoction with chicken nuggets (the nuggets were good, the goop was interesting), and some chocolate pudding with pulverized oreos and a cookie.  Now, if that isn't a healthy meal, I don't know what is!  Then a few of us met at noon at the Marian shrine on campus (not to be confused with Marian hall) and prayed the rosary.  As it turns out, there are a few of us that are open between noon and one, and we decided to get together and pray the rosary during the time.  I love the bit of time that I can spend in prayer in the middle of the day, it really ties my day together, and brings me back into focus (when usually I am pretty hassled by all the classes and what-not).  It's pretty awesome!

My next class, at one, was calculus.  Today we went over higher order derivatives.  We have a test on Wednesday, so this won't be on there, but basically it entails taking the derivative of a function that you already got the derivative of.  An example:  the position function gives the position for an object.  So the function says: H = -16t2 + Vot + Ho  -- don't get confused by the symbols, H is the position for whatever numbers you plug in, t is time, Vo is the velocity at the beginning, and Ho is the height at the beginning.  Now, if you want to know velocity, instead of just position, you take the derivative of this equation which turns out to be: H’ = -32t + Vo -- If I had to guess, you could care less about this math, but it turns out that you take the derivative again (H'' = -32), you now have the function for acceleration.  It's pretty cool to see the math behind all those atrocious equations from physics...

After calculus ususally my school day would be done, but today I met with Dr. Denz (the senior seminar professor) to talk about the 15 page paper that I would be working on for the end of that class.  I didn't have much of an idea on what I wanted to write, but one of the example topics he gave was a look at how philosophy changed greatly during/after the reformation.  I was intrigued because I figured history couldn't be that hard, and this is an important (and revolutionary) time in church history, and to be quite honest, most philosophy done since then seems a bit bogus (but that's just me).  Anyway, Dr. Denz was pretty enthused about the topic (I guess nobody else had picked it) and gave me a ton of ideas about how to go about it.  There is a huge book written on the topic called The Unintended Reformation by Brad Gregory, which will be my main source (and I'll have to kind of examine Gregory's argument and what-not), but then it turns out the topic is much deeper than history (I should have known).  Apparently, the great divide between medieval and modern philosophy (at least according to Gregory) is that the analogy of being is lost/eliminated/not accepted.  We have just been covering this type of stuff (analogical, univocal, and equivocal terms, and different properties/principles of being) in metaphysics, and so far my brain has just about melted every class.  I mean, it's crazy cool, mind warping stuff, but definitely requires a lot of thinking.  We'll see, I think the paper will be really cool (when it's done), and not so much fun while I'm working on it.  It will definitely force me to understand the metaphysics, that's for sure...

 OK, so that meeting was a very insightful 15 minutes or so, and then I rode my bike back to Bruté and settled in for an afternoon of catching up on some reading.  I read for about 25 minutes in several different books (in an attempt to keep myself awake), before heading (at 5:15) for evening prayer.  After that, I went back over to the caf. for dinner (toasted pita bread, a bagel with peanut butter, and some fruit - yeah, I was still pretty bored today).  After dinner we had soccer practice, which was entirely composed of a scrimmage between about 10 of the guys.  It was a lot of fun, all the guys are getting pretty phenomenal at soccer (they are leaving me behind - I'm going to have to up my level of play)!  I took a quick shower afterwords and then ran up to the optional Holy Hour that began at 8:30.  An hour later, after some good prayer time, and some spiritual reading, I was spiritually refreshed.  Then I skyped my family for about 30 minutes, spent an hour writing this post (took longer than I expected) and now I'm going to bed.  

 Yeah, so that was Monday, absolutely packed with things to do! I hope this kind of post doesn't bore you all completely, maybe some quirk in my rhetoric (or just a typo) will make you laugh.  I don't know...  I'll try to switch up the style a bit tomorrow - maybe focus on smaller happenings...  Anyway, good night, and God bless!
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