My seminary journey

2006-12-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a very very long time since I have posted to this blog, but I thought I might today. For those of you who wonder where I have been. I have been both lazy and a bit scared to post here. Let me explain: I am lazy because I have thought about posting for a while, but just never willing to find the time and a bit scared because the name suggests that this is my seminary journey

2004-09-20T22:29:00.000-04:00

It seems to me that God is often looked at as a problem to be eliminated by much of modern/ post-modern thought. As if we could actually eliminate God from the whole schema of creation. The Post-Modern feminist deconstrctionists believe God is an invention and that this invention is in place ony to keep a corrupt system in place that is out to oppress and to keep people where they are at. They

2004-09-16T14:22:00.000-04:00

Well I am back to the seminary to begin my second year of studies. Things have been going well. I have found an acedemic advisor, I have begun spiritual direction and have began to learn about my new classmate. Second year almost always doubles because of minor seminary guy being added in. Classes are not too terribly bad, but I am excited to learn more about the sacrements and the crusades. It

2004-03-05T13:41:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone, just thought I would post a little about Lent. It seems to me that Lent is the perfect time to examine the very inner depths of our souls and to see both our good parts and bad. To foster one and change the other. I hope things are going well for you all. Have a blessed Lent, Shawn postCount('25');

2004-01-22T20:50:00.000-05:00

Seminary 2004: How I have Changed. Well J-Term is over tomorrow afternoon. It is a relief. We had ministry assignments as well as classes. It did not leave a lot of time for personal reflection and reading. I was hoping to at least have that over J-term, but that's OK there is always the next semester. Of the reflection I did get to do: Seminary is an interesting place. Not only are there

2004-01-10T15:26:00.000-05:00

Well I have been back at Saint Meinrad for about a week and things are going well. The whole community is not back quite yet, but will be back at the end of January. I only have one class, a celibacy seminar, and some ministry assignment and that means we have extra time on our hands. Thank God for extra time. It is good to be back at any rate. God BLess, Shawn postCount('23');

2003-12-22T00:41:00.000-05:00

Aborton Ads on the Big Screen I went to see Lord of the Rings 3 tonight and it was awesome, but prior to the movie I was watching the ads and saw one for Planned Parenthood. The ad makes the woman look so happy and content, it is more of the happy for the choice poo. Her expression in the ad is one of great relief, but I think back to a girl I dated that (prior to dating me) had an abortion and

2003-12-12T00:25:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone, I am still alive. It has been a long few weeks in the seminary. Papers, exams, new bishop installations. Actually I had almost a two week break for thanksgiving, because of my bishops intallation and then I was back a school for less than a week and now I am back home untill January 5, 2004. That will be nice. Anyhow, I have nothing interesting to say at the moment, but just

2003-11-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

Celibacy and the Priesthood Continued With the response that I received from my celibacy and priesthood blog, I thought that this one is also in order. One of my commenter's said that he is a married man that feels he is called to be a priest and if he would have been ordained, he would have been a priest with a call to marriage. Well I also have a question. Who calls a person to orders? The

2003-10-28T09:49:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I have not posted in a while, it has become a busy semester, but just a little food for thought. Vocations are so very important to the life of our church and the entire people of God. I have been thinking over the past few days, and it has occurred to me, that if every pastor made it their mission to find one young person in everyone of their parishes that may have a call, and the

2003-10-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

Celibacy and the Priesthood I do work study in the library here at Saint Meinrad and I ran across an interesting book about a man who wishes to be a married priest. It is called The Unnatural Law of Celibacy: one married man's struggle to become a Roman Catholic Priest by: Ronald N. Eberley LC Call #BX1912.85 E24 2002. The premise is (and I only browsed the book) that this Canadian man's

2003-10-07T16:38:00.000-04:00

A Joyous Day for the Diocese of Toledo Bishop Leonard P. Blair has been named seventh bishop for the Diocese of Toledo. Last February our Bishop died of cancer and we have been waiting for a new bishop. Today the prayers of the faithful have been granted and we again have an ordinary. His installation will be December 4, 2003. Please pray for the seminarians of the Toledo Diocese as well as

2003-10-02T17:39:00.000-04:00

Busy, Busy, Busy That is a good description of life in seminary. There is always something going on; whether it be meetings, schoolwork, prayer, or building community, you are always busy. Though you do find time to have some fun. It is not all work, but you must learn to balance all of these things and learn to say no to some of them. It is worth it as I have said before. You do learn a

2003-09-26T10:43:00.000-04:00

Today I was thinking about dissenters in the church and vocations to priesthood and religious life. It occurs to me that these people don't care about the church or are so focased on thier own personal agenda that they forget about God's will for thier lives and the rest of the church. I often feel that I am correct in my opinions and that everone else is wrong, but does that mean I am

2003-09-17T23:46:00.000-04:00

For those of you who read this in hopes to know a little bit more about seminary either for a decision you are trying to make or one that you have already made. It is worth every bit of effort you need to exert to get here. You begin to learn so much about yourself so quickly. You notice your really good qualities and some of you less admirable ones, but in all that you also realize just how

2003-09-11T11:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was fun for those of you who follow the things I say. It was a nice bonding experience for the first year class. The car I rode in decided to share the stories about how we all got here. Some of them were what you would expect. "I have always felt this way", "it was tough only in the sense of marriage and children", etc., but others were very interesting. I cannot go into great

2003-09-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

Seminary is a busy place. There is of course a lot of studies, but there is also work and prayer, but once in a while we get to go off and have just fun. Today the first year class is going on a class trip. I think it is for bonding purposes so that we might become even more like a family than we already are. Well anyway. We are going into Loisville to Mass at the Cathedral, the we are

2003-09-06T14:53:00.000-04:00

Saturday. It is a great day, I got to sleep in till 10 am. I know sounds early to most of the world, but here at Saint Meinrad, that is pretty late. Tonight myself and men from the Diocese of Toledo are going out to dinner and just hang out a bit as a diocese. That sould be nice. Tommarrow I need to study a bit and pray a bit and relax the rest of the time. It is nice because the scedual is

2003-09-05T10:08:00.000-04:00

Finally Friday! So many things have happened since Monday. They found that I already had 40 hours of philosophy, so they took me out of the intro to philosophy classes and put me in things more suited for me, while still upholding my diocese desire for five years of formation. I have decided to drop Spoanish until next year when I am more ready for it. I have gotten into a routine here and

2003-09-01T00:33:00.000-04:00

Labor Day Monday is for us a Saint Meinrad an official day of prayer. Here are the rules: We are to observe as much silence as possible. We are to attend morning prayer A conference given by a bishop the is present Stations of the Cross (optional) Evening prayer Urged to put class studies away for the day But we are expected to do more personal reflections during the day. And you all must

2003-08-30T12:12:00.000-04:00

It has officially been a week since I have arrived a Saint Meinrad Seminary and it has been a good week. Although I must admit it is a bit disorienting. I was talking to a friend the other night and I had relized that I had not watched TV or listened to the radio or read the paper. While this may not sound like a big deal, it is. I have no idea what is going on in the world outside the

2003-08-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

Today was jam packed full of things to do, and classes have not even started yet. Over the past 17 months Saint Meinrad has been renovating Saint Thomas Aquinas Chapel and it is finally finished. So we began tonight in the temporary chapel and processed up to the newly renovated space for vespers. These were solom vespers, we had no lights on in the space and we did not reverance the alter,

2003-08-26T11:31:00.000-04:00

Well here I am at Saint Meinrad. I may not be able to read other Weblogs because of a proxy server, but I will be able to keep this up. On my way here through the hills of Kentucky and Sothern Indiana, I realized just how good God is. I mean just being here beginning this process of priestly formation has changed me so much. My own reflection on this week will be comming, but I just thought I

2003-08-12T13:07:00.000-04:00

I only have three days left as a systems network administrator and formal public school educator. As I reflect on this past year and the things I have learned I derive a lot of peace from this experience. See I was put on hold for one year before the Diocese of Toledo would accept me as a seminarian. They wanted me to be more rooted in Catholicism and to go to a normal parish rather than a

2003-08-10T19:50:00.000-04:00

This weekend has been a long weekend. It was filled with both joy and pain. Friday was the funeral of a freind of the familiy. My sister had hung out with him, and he had graduated from my high school in 1993. His name was Gary and he was 28 years old. He died from a bit of life style and bad luck. He offically died of cancer, both testicular and brain, but the cancers were complications of

2003-08-08T13:59:00.000-04:00

Next Friday is my last day here at the Toledo Academy of Learning. I am relieved that my life is moving past this place. I keep reflecting on the year and I realize how much I have learned, how much I do not know, and that this is not where I am supposed to be. I know this must all sound redundant and silly, but really, I have learned so much from this assignment. Now I am about to move on to

2003-08-04T09:46:00.000-04:00

This weekend was a great weekend! This was the annual seminarian retreat weekend and I was able to meet all of our men in seminary or entering. We have 22 men in formation and 9 of us are just entering this year. It is so positive for my diocese and for the men in formation. We have all taken the first step to Gods caall in our lives, we are at least explorong what God wishes for us and are

2003-07-27T00:51:00.000-04:00

Ok so if anyone ever tells you that they do not beleive in Satan or his demons, they are wrong. Anytime God has something good planned for someones life Satan is not happy and will do what he can to try and stop that. Take me for instance, my car, that has ran very well for a long time has suddenly began to have water in the oil. For those of you not familiar with cars, that is very bad! Like

2003-07-25T09:39:00.000-04:00

29 days! 29 days untill orientation begins for me at Saint Meinrad. What a wonderful gift is excitement anddesire for good things. That is what I reflected upon after Morning Prayer. So many times in our lives we are excited about one thing or another, but many times our excitement exists for such worthless things. We are excited about the new video game or our favorite football team, or

2003-07-22T10:09:00.000-04:00

Last night I read books IX and X of Agustine's City of God. Book IX was kinda boring, but book X was very interesting. Book IX talked about the Platonists and was really an argument directed at the Platonists in an attempt to prove their thoughs on the divine and the demons in world are false, but not that demons exist only that they are not our intermediaries between God and people. Book X is

2003-07-21T11:23:00.000-04:00

This weekend was good. I was able to hang out with some friends from college and that was fun. I also got through about 100 page of Augustine's City of God. It is a very meaty book. It is also a bit boring overall, but I am only 300 or so pages into it and he is finally getting to the christian aspect of building a city of God. It has been so slow so far that it has nowhere to go but faster.

2003-07-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up with the song: "On Eagles Wings" in my head. I have been humming it all day. I realized that I have not woke up with songs running through my mind since high school. It is nice to have happening again. It brings me so much peace first thing in the morning to be humming to God. I know it probably sounds silly, it really is a grace to wake up with God on your mind. I

2003-07-17T09:54:00.000-04:00

I finished morning prayer this morning and began thinking about how one takes up the cross and following God. Then I began to think about my life to this point so far and I realized that when I had no money and a job that was mediocre at best, that cross was easier to take up. In fact it was always before me and did not seem as heavy. Though once I began making a bit more money it became

2003-07-16T11:25:00.000-04:00

I just read a post in the blog A Son Becomes A Father and I am even more excited to begin seminary. Fr. Todd wrote about his first funeral and the joy he recieved from his service to that family. It just validates how important our priests are to all of us. It is stories like his that really validate for me the call of the community and my local church to begin seminary. Now I hope that God

2003-07-14T13:33:00.000-04:00

This weekend was a great experience! Not only for the high school students, but for me as well. I thought that I would in some way or another be in charge of some children or a floor in the dorms or something like that. Instead I was just present with six other seminarians in our Diocese and one from the ARCH Diocese of Cincinnati, but we can forgive him for that. Anyway it was fun watching

2003-07-09T09:56:00.000-04:00

Well I am going to be a chaperone for Youth Conference this weekend. The are going to study part three of our catechism. It should be a rewarding experience for the kids and I am sure they will have fun. Not to mention that it will be good for me, like a mini vacation. Speaking of vacations, my sister and I were talking about how long it has been since I have went on a vacation. We put our

2003-07-08T09:40:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't written in so long, for any, if any avid readers. Well I have 1 month and 7 days before my job at the Toledo Academy of Learning is over. The closer I get to that day the more excited I become. God has blessed me so much throughout my lifetime, and I am excited to be training more formally for the lord's service. Don't get me wrong. I know that even currently I am in

2003-07-01T23:07:00.000-04:00

I am having problems with my comments section. Leave your comment, but it will just not tell me how many comments I have. Sorry about the inconvienience Shawn LinktoComments('<$BlogItemNumber$>') ">Comment

2003-07-01T10:32:00.000-04:00

This weekend was Toledos ordinations. We ordained two men on Saturday. Fr. Tad Oxley and my friend Fr. Tim Ferris. It was a wonderful day, the joy on the two mens faces that they had done it and they were priests and just the simple fact that God brought them to it. I certainly hope that one day I will be in that same Cathedral doing the same thing. I am up for the callenge and I am ready.

2003-06-24T11:13:00.000-04:00

Well I officially talked to my replacement for next year. He seems alright, but he has on the computer hat that I had on when I first got here. There is a certain amount of idealism and just plain not understanding the administration. There is such a power struggle that goes on at TAOL, everybody seems to know better than everyone else. It is kinda annoying. He is by far more professional

2003-06-23T23:38:00.000-04:00

Well everything is official. I have both my letter from the Diocese saying I am a seminarian and an acceptance letter from Saint Meinrad Seminary in Indiana. I will need to be there on Aug. 24 2003 for orientation. I am truly excited for the journey ahead of me. There will be 3 or 4 of us from the Toledo Diocese at Saint Meinrad. Eric, Eric, and myself (Shawn), and Jeff (on pastorial year).

2003-06-18T12:11:00.000-04:00

I was speaking to my friend Tim Ferris who will be ordained on June 28 and I was explaining how I am ready to get the ball rolling on this seminary thing and he understood. He had an assignment on the weekends throughout lent and many times he seemed frustrated because he was ready for ordination. I am just glad others feel the need to move on with thier lives and are truly ready for the future

2003-06-17T09:42:00.000-04:00

I was speaking with one of my friends at work today and she is greiving for a godson I beileve. He drove his car left of center and died instantly. He was 29 and it is remarkably hard on the families and my teacher friend. She wanted to talk to me because I am probably the closest person she knows to the Catholic priest, but I found myself mostly without words. I listened a lot and gave

2003-06-16T10:16:00.000-04:00

I attended a seminarian retreat this weekend and it was a very good experience. We simply got together and talked about our experience and the current seminarians explained a little bit about what to expect when we get there and we just talked. It was interesting because I learned a little bit about what summers are going to be like once I am in seminary. The Diocese assigns you to a different

2003-06-13T11:54:00.000-04:00

It is the last day of school where I am teaching and I almost hate to see the kids go. It will be so quiet around here this summer and it will be just me and the administration. I will get a lot more work done, but running ethernet is not nearly as fulfilling as teaching the kids. Anyway I hope God is blessing the people who read this. God Bless, Shawn LinktoComments('<$BlogItemNumber$>') "

2003-06-07T12:40:00.000-04:00

It is Saturday and my cousin Amber just graduated from High School. She is the first one of her siblings not to drop out or fail out of School. So she is excited. It is interesting because high school graduation was not really exciteing to me. It was expected. I wasn't expected to fail and when I sucedded it was a huge deal. I just find the expectations of my extended family to be very

2003-06-04T15:52:00.000-04:00

I talked with a friend of mine who works for the Catholic Youth and School services for the Diocese of Toledo. He was a seminarian in the 1980's and he encouraged me to do work study in the library and I mentioned that I would much rather work in the IT department in one aspect or another. He seemed to think that this was a terrible idea and that I would be doing myself a diservice by doing

2003-06-02T08:54:00.000-04:00

I don't know if anyone who might read this is a network administrator, but if you are out there you might understand this. Hotmail seems to have locked us out of our Email and my boss tells me that this has been the case for about two weeks. Hmmm it would have been nice to have known this sooner. Anyway she expects me to be able to fix a problem where I have no access to their server and I

2003-05-29T12:42:00.000-04:00

Well back in Findlay for another technology workshop. I am just dealing with implementation of Windows XP in school, but I have already done that. It is interesting though with some of the fun hidden tools I am learning. Anyway I will probably go out later tonight to Harvey's and listen to music. It should be fun. Anyway that is about it. God Bless Shawn LinktoComments('<$BlogItemNumber$>

2003-05-28T11:39:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if anyone out there has had the experience I am having, but the moment I was accepted as a seminarian, I am getting invited to all kinds of stuff. The Sisters of Notre Dame have invited me to their anniversary. I have been asked to help with retreats, it is an interesting dynamic what happens once you are a seminarian. I also want to congragulate my friend Mike at being accepted

2003-05-24T21:21:00.000-04:00

It is Saturday night and I have spent most of the day by myself and I got to thinking, when I am a priest many days will be like this. Probably not all day long, but when I am not working I will be by myself and I actually realized that I am ok with that. I know it probably sounds trivial, but it is a reality that I must think about. Am I ok with being by myself or even more am I ok with

2003-05-23T10:36:00.000-04:00

Last night I heard Alex Jones Speak. He was a penticostal minister who realized the Catholic Church was the one true church, converted and brought half of his congregation with him. Pretty cool in my opionion. He was a very powerful speaker and his reasons for changeing made sense. He gives me a lot of hope that one day my familiy might share in the fullness of the church that Jesus built.

2003-05-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I decided to check Saint Meinrad's webpage for next years calendar and to my surprise they had next falls caledar up. I looks like as long as I get my acceptance letter from the seminary I should be in Indiana August 24th. This is a positive thing and I am looking forward to getting down there. I do hope that my current job will last untill I leave, but who knows with the state

2003-05-20T08:34:00.000-04:00

Tuesday morning..... I was just thinkin, I need to get hold of Fr. Nuss and ask him a few questions about when Saint Meinrad will contact me. I also need to print him out a picture of myself to keep in my application. The road to this point has been a long one for sure. I have a feeling that while it will be fulfilling, the road is not going to get shorter. I have a road of learning

2003-05-19T09:22:00.000-04:00

It is Monday morning and I am back to work. This weekend was rather uneventful, I just kind of sat home and did nothing. I am faced with a dilema these days. I am under the impression that as of June 30, 2003 I will be without a job. I understand, they will need to hire someone in my place for next year and I am sure they will find someone excellent, but now I will need to find a job for like

2003-05-17T22:50:00.000-04:00

Well tonight I had a conversation with one of my friends who truely tries to gain in holiness everyday and he brought up an idea that I had not considered before. He was talking about a book called "Where have all the good men gone" and told me that it talks about seminarians and how many of them are homosexual and how they use that connection to gain power in the curch and that this is how some

2003-05-16T09:30:00.000-04:00

I was watching the movie "Rudy" last night. I believe most people have seen it, but for those who haven't it is about football, a guy who wants to play for Notre Dame and his journey to get there. If you haven't seen it I recommend it and since it was made in a time before pornographic language or situations was a requirement in movies, it is rather wholesome. Anyway there is a scene where

2003-05-15T08:33:00.000-04:00

It has been a couple of days since I have written anything, but I have been at a workshop on video streaming and createing streaming media content. It is actually pretty interesting and very easy. When I got back to the school I teach at I realized that even though I will not be here next year I am still putting forward ideas as if I was going to be here. I guess it may be hard for some to

2003-05-11T09:34:00.000-04:00

I went to morning prayer today with my spiritual director. I is good as usual because we talk a little about my journey and just how things are going. I am greatful to have such a great spiritual director. Anyway things are good today. I am looking forward to Mass today. It is first communion for our second graders and I look forward to seeing thier faces when they take Jesus into thier

2003-05-10T20:40:00.000-04:00

Today I had an interesting experience at a festival in Whitehouse. My grandfather had a booth set up to sell some of his crafts and I found myself watching people and I notice that our society dressing very inappropriatly! It really did make me sad. I noticed women with midrifts showing and tattos in areas that can direct attention to places that only married people should be look at thier

2003-05-09T08:30:00.000-04:00

Well today I am in the 5th and 6th grade classroom. Mrs. Fuller is sick and I have been asked to teach here. I must say in retrospect God had put me into this job this year. I have learned so much and my misconceptions of how to teach children have been set right. It is not easy to teach children esspecially in a school of inner city low income families they have a different set of problems

2003-05-08T08:46:00.000-04:00

Last night I was praying and I began to think about the debate on married clergy and celibacy. I think it would a mistake if we were to allow married men to me priests. It is not about whether or not they could do the job, but more of the fact is that what God wants. I know that many in the church talk about the early church and that ministers were married and that the celibate priest came

2003-05-07T11:01:00.000-04:00

I was just surfing earlier and found an article that is interesting. It talks about the clergy of the fifties and cronicals life after Vatican II. I am not sure that the entire article hold truth, but some parts of it are interesting. At least those talking about seminarians of today and my presupposition of thier point. Read the article "Sometime in the 1980s observers began to notice that

2003-05-07T08:23:00.000-04:00

I have been reading other Catholic blogs in recent times and I have found one that often has a lot to think about. He always links to valueable articles and in my opinion can help with your spiritual growth. The blog is called Musings of a Catholic Seminarian. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. LinktoComments('<$BlogItemNumber$>') ">Comment

2003-05-06T14:38:00.000-04:00

Has anyone ever noticed that once you know that you are destined for something other than the job you are doing, you are far less interested in that job? That is about how I am feeling right now. I would rather be about doing God's work in one form or another, rather that making sure that a network stays up and running. It occurs to me daily that I am ready to move on to seminary and that

2003-05-06T09:58:00.000-04:00

My name is Shawn and I have recently been accepted as a seminarian for the Toledo Diocese. I am very happy, but this joy did not come without work on my part. I actually applied in March of 2002, but the formation board put me on hold for one year. I understand better now than I did then. I am a convert and I had only been Catholic about a year and a half before I applied for affiliation.

2003-05-05T18:29:00.000-04:00

I will be in seminary in the fall LinktoComments('<$BlogItemNumber$>') ">Comment