Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts

Rejoice! God Transforms our Crosses!

Today was the first day of classes, but, instead of just running through the day as I usually do, I want to connect the day with faith.  I mean, I'm in seminary, but often my posts, at least when I don't have a lot of time, just tell you what happened and leave it at that.  That, I think, isn't enough.  The point of this blog is to show seminary life, but seminary life is so much more than what happens to me each day, it also involves what God does to me each day.  It is learning to depend on God, and that is the topic of this post.

In my last class today, the mission and history of Catholic schools, which is the only evening class that I have taken at Marian (it goes from 6:30 to 9:30), the teacher ended class with a prayer from Thomas Merton.  The rest of the prayer is at the end of this post, but for now I just want to concentrate on one line: I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  

Now, having said that, lets look at the rest of the day.  I woke up tired because I went to bed late last night (after midnight).  I was trying to get things ready for today - order books, figure out my schedule, write a blog post, etc.  However, while it isn't a big deal when I would go to bed at midnight at home because I could sleep until 8 or so, here I am getting up at 5:45, which means I only had about 5 hours of sleep.  (Side note: I'm the type of person that really wants 8 hours of sleep, maybe 9, so 5 is not cool at all...)  

Anyway, today my classes started at 10 AM with Philosophical Themes in Catholic Authors, then at noon Logic, at 1 God and Philosophy, and the one on Catholic education at 6:30.  Don't get me wrong, philosophy isn't easy, but I still have been learning a ton in my philosophy classes and have started to look forward to them.  Well, this morning I wasn't quite as enthusiastic (I'll blame it on the lack of sleep), and so I went to class hoping that whatever the professor said would get me interested.  

Well, in the first class, Philosophical Themes in Catholic Authors, the professor opened class by lambasting students who don't read everything from the works they are assigned, and proceeded to explain that we would have a quiz every day so that he could ascertain that we had read everything and had thought about it.  Now, again, don't get me wrong, I always intend to read what I am assigned, but I was really hoping that this class wouldn't be the hard kind - I know, it's philosophy, how would it be easy? - but still, I was really hoping that despite my taking 19 credit hours this semester it would turn out easier.  On top of this, the teacher explained that we would have a 7-9 page paper due at the end of the semester, which I really did expect, but for whatever reason was really hoping I wouldn't hear this morning.

I had a break of 1 hour before my second class which I spent in the library, mostly just wasting time (I had nothing I could do just yet in class and I didn't force myself to do something else productive - you know, finish my application to the NAC, or write a blog post, or something).  Then I grabbed a bite to eat and headed over to logic.  Now, this is the same professor as Metaphysics last year - and his classes are always rock solid and just plain fantastic, so I was really hoping he could get me fired up for this semester.  Well, as you might guess, it didn't quite happen.  The little things, like the fact that the room was packed, or I wasn't concentrating too well, or the joking around that would normally have been a lot of fun, but instead was distracting, just annoyed me I guess.  I mean, I wasn't mad, I just wasn't very happy...

Alright, well the same pattern continued into my third class, again, one I was sure I would enjoy, God and Philosophy.  This was the topic that finally got me interested in philosophy last semester - how we can understand something about God, how faith and reason can overlap - and it was a teacher who I had only heard stellar things about.  Guess what, again, I failed to get enthused.  I guess I was just a bit tired or something, but for whatever reason I was only concentrating on how difficult the class could be - all that reading, the quizzes, the paper, whatever - and not how awesome, or fun, or educational it could be.

So, back to my final class, the dreaded Mission and History of Catholic Schools.  It is a 5 week class that meets on Monday evenings - so I was thinking it couldn't be too hard - but it was still in the evening, I was still tired (despite a short nap this afternoon), and I was still a bit glum from not having a great first day.  So, basically, I was pretty unexcited.  I didn't even want to offer the difficulties up - it was just an off day.  Anyway, I sit down around 6:30 and a few minutes later the teacher walks in and proceeds to spend the next hour introducing the topic (which I was happily surprised, looked to be pretty solidly Catholic) and then having the rest of us introduce ourselves (myself and another seminarian are in the class along with 5 young ladies, all of whom seem to be pretty strong Catholics, and most of whom are planning on becoming teachers).  I was starting, in the class I least expected to, to become interested.  We continued to run through some basics, she outlined how the 2 fundamental differences of Catholic schools are the fact that it is meant for the furthering of the Church and the faith (seems pretty solid) and is funded by the Church, not the state (which is partially accurate, but certainly still a big differentiator).  Finally, she ended with that prayer.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
Bam, it hit me.  I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  I went back to Brute and got to catch the last 10 minutes of Adoration, after which I prayed a rosary, and what kept running through my head was the fact that anything, even if it is tough, not what I want, or not what I expected, can be offered up to Christ and transformed by Him so that it brings me - if only because I have to pray more to get through it - closer to Him.  Just wanting to do something for Christ is doing something for Him.  While praying about this, I started thinking about all this and I was trying to see how I could say that joy could be found, even in things you don't like, just by doing them for God, or maybe even seeing them as part of His plan.  I settled on the fact that doing anything for God brings us closer to Him, where true joy and peace and love is found, and so, wham, you are better off (even if you didn't like whatever you were gonna have to do).  

But, the amazing thing is that as I write this post I have become more and more excited about all these classes.  I, right now, can't wait until Wednesday to dive back into this stuff.  You know that rush of adrenaline that happens when you are excited - yeah, that just hit me!  Oh man, this is going to be a great semester.  Those Catholic Authors - come on, it's Flannery O'Connor and C.S. Lewis, bring it on, quizzes or not!  Those dry logical arguments - forget the boring stuff, I'm in a class with 20 other seminarians and one of my favorite teachers, this is going to be a blast!  That work-intensive God and Philosophy class - this stuff is the absolute epitome of philosophy, it's what I loved so much about last semester, it's going to be fantastic!   That Catholic education class - its full of excited, young Catholics, ready to dedicate their lives to the church and to their God, talk about enthusiasm!

Yeah, so God managed to not only get me to offer up the struggles to Him but also completely transform my way of looking at them.  Thank you God!  This semester is going to be great!  And with that, I'm going to bed... Huzzah!  As always, there is so much more to say on this topic, but I really do want to post more often, so I think I may just stick to a big point or two and try to show how seminary life connects up to them.  We'll see if it works out.
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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 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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Deep Conversations

This will be a quick, but I hope that it will offer an interesting glimpse into one of the (many) facets of seminary life: deep conversations.  Last night, after the Holy Hour and Compline, I wandered into the pope room (named that because of the pictures of many popes adorning its walls), and spent the next hour talking about deep philosophical and theological questions/concepts with a few other guys.  We spent time on how Jesus and Mary have bodies in Heaven, which, isn't a physical place, how souls can suffer in purgatory (or, God forbid, hell), or "feel" bliss in Heaven, how other religious see heaven, how other religions are related to truth, the real focus of ecumenical (and interfaith) dialogue, how the indelible (lasting forever) mark on a the soul of the priest (who is Alter Christus) effects a priest's soul in Heaven, whether a priest in an apparition could dispense the Sacraments (as reported here, before the priest was found to be alive),  and whether apparitions are made up of physical matter (ie: Gabriel "takes on" a body before appearing to Mary) or whether it is more that they have the appearance of (but don't actually have) a body.  (If that wasn't a run-on sentence I don't know what is...)  

Obviously, we aren't theologians, so don't think that my/our terminology here is necessarily correct, that the questions are really even usable in the form that we were working with, or that our "answers" were totally logical or truthful (I didn't give them here for just that reason), but, the experience was quite fun, and I truly enjoyed trying to wrap my brain around some of the ideas that we were working with.

Seminarians are pretty weird sometimes, aren't they? - I love it!

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Preliminary Thoughts on my Classes

OK, well it has been a few days, but, as always, I have been busy.  That said, it's about time that I said something about the classes that I am taking this semester.  On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have 4 classes, and on Tuesday and Thursday I have 2 classes - combining to a total of 18 credit hours.

MWF - 9:00 AM - PHL 490 - Senior Philosophy Seminar
MWF - 10:00 AM - THL 216 - Moral Issues
MWF - 11:00 AM - PSY 220 - Human Growth and Development
MWF - 1:00 PM - MAT 215 - Fundamentals and Special Applications of Calculus
TR - 9:30 AM - PHL 205 - Augustine and Aquinas
TR - 2:00 PM - PHL 330 - Philosophy of Being (Metaphysics)

I (so far) really like my schedule this year.  MWF is tight, boom, boom, boom, and the day is done, and TR has tons of time where I can actually get work done for class (or whatever).  Both setups are great for getting stuff done, and I think that for the most part I will have a good ratio of breaks and classes (I guess it would be bad if I have a bunch of hard assignments line up on a certain Friday...).

Now, of course, there is also the issue of the quality of the classes, and as far as I can tell, in that area everything is fantastic.  All three philosophy classes are taught by great professors, who know their stuff and are passionate about it, the theology class is taught by a solid Catholic (yay!), and the calculus and psychology classes also seem to have knowledgeable teachers.  We will see, but I am genuinely excited for pretty much all of my classes.  Now, this doesn't mean that my semester will be easy.  Along with the relatively packed schedule, all the classes will be challenging.  All three philosophy classes will require 10+ page papers, I haven't touched math in almost 3 years, the psychology class has a relatively tough collaborative project (and it's psychology), and the theology class... Well, I don't know if it will be hard yet or not - we will see.  I can't wait to learn about all the stuff, philosophy will be intriguing, theology will be fun, calculus will be cool, and psychology will be...  Yeah, don't know yet on that one either.

Overall - I am pumped about my classes this semester.  I have a good schedule, all the classes should be interesting (but tough).  Fun times!  See the good folks - dwelling on the bad won't get you anywhere.  I was dwelling on all the negatives of this semester for the last few days until I remembered that the entire thing was in God's hands. There are so many positives if you just look for them!

On another note, schola has gotten off to a good start.  I have been moved to the roll of base, something that I was petrified of until we practiced today and I found that I could hit all the notes...  We'll see, but I think the song we are currently practicing will turn out beautifully.  Seminary is awesome folks!
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