This is my first attempt at composing a blog. Several of my friends and relatives have suggested I set it up in order for them to keep up with my new situation in life, so I guess I will give it a try. I am flattered by the number of people who want to follow along with my journey, and profoundly grateful for all the folks who are praying for me. I keep all of you in my prayers, too.
This morning after Mass we had a presentation by Fr. Paul Miceli, who is in charge of Spiritual Direction here at Blessed John. We all will have a spiritual director and a faculty advisor, both of whom we will meet with regularly, about every 2-3 weeks. Fr. Miceli spoke to us about how courageous it was for us to make the decision to follow God's call, something which I had not considered. He also mentioned that there frequently is a grieving process that men go through here as they leave their previous life for this one, which of course means not seeing family and friends as much, having to give up pets, leaving your co-workers (and having concern that your leaving leads to increased work for them!), etc. I'm not sure how detailed I am going to get about that if it occurs to me, so we will see about that.
Other things he told us: good priests need to know God more than they need to know about God (this comes from daily prayer, discipline to be disciples); we need to have a great devotion to our Blessed Lady, and to remember what she said at the wedding in Cana ("Do whatever He tells you."); silence and solitude are important in our lives, for that is frequently when the Lord speaks to us; and that we must pray...pray...pray.
I will finish this first, feeble post with something Father mentioned at the beginning of his talk. He told a story about how one of his sisters asked him how things were going at the "cemetery" and how they laughed at her slip of the tongue. However, he said that it was not such a language mishap as one would think, since in the seminary here we must die to ourselves, like the grain of wheat in the parable - it has to die before it can grow and yield its "fruit." Some interesting and thoughtful and thought-provoking comments....
Let us continue to pray for each other.
