Monday, September 20th, 2010

Today is pretty much a blank. Woke up super tired as always. When is that a surpise? Got to mass as they were walking in. Again, not a surprise. Didn't fall asleep during Monsignor's mass. THAT was a surprise. It's his voice. Its addicting to listen to.

7:30 with Father Marc. Couldn't even tell you what it was about. Honest to God.

I'm not even attempting to catch the 8:30 van anymore. Brother Chris (1) has turbo on that thing. He must launch out of the parking lot because at 8:31, all that is left is screetch marks on the pavement and lots of smoke. I think the smell of burning rubber too.

At 9am, I met with two friends from orientation (Andrea and James) outside of the library and hung out til about 10am. It was really nice to see them and everytime we hang out, we have lots of laughs. We did miss our friend Angela, but she was away on a school trip.

Caught the 12:10 van home to the house. We like to blast the music after prayer. We act pretty crazy at times, but in our heads we think we are cool.

Did my laundry for hours (3 washes...whites, dress clothes and blacks) and cleaned up my room... and who comes but the ALMIGHTY PADRE`! We went to a Jewish Deli...it was intense. I had never had jewish food before but I enjoyed my Matzaball soup.

Every seminarian or priest goes through what Father Mike (AKA The Padre) calls a Spiritual Storm. When a person struggles with their vocation or what they think their vocation is it can be awesome, and it can be terrifying. It sometimes can be a "little rain shower" and sometimes can be a "huge storm" with Hurricane Level 5 winds, etc. Now Father Mike tells me I'm going through what he calls "The Perfect Storm". Now I told you that so I could show you this:

I was in the Library the other night and I found this book. The book was completely irrelivent to what we discussed, but I thought it was pretty funny.

I emailed him a copy of this picture as soon as I saw it.

We had a great deal to talk about and I was extremely grateful for him coming.

A Reading from the Gospel according to Ralph: The Apocolypse
Brother Ralph entertained some of the guys in hysterics by explaining to us what would happen if the world ended and the only place to survive would be the Douglaston Seminary. He told us who survived, who didn't, who was late for the world ending, and who killed who AFTER we had survived. He also explained in extreme detail how we used the Crypt Chapel as a space ship to travel to the moon, and where we would live out the rest of our days. Monsignor Thelen, Father Fred, Father Fonti, and Father Marc all survived, along with most of the guys; amen. I will need copy rights from the publisher in order to write down more, and if I can, I definately will. Some guys, myself included were crying from laughing so hard. The story ended around 9:30.

At night prayer (15 minutes later), Monsignor said he'd give us a few minutes to calm down because he heard us from across the building laughing are butts off. I was still chuckeling at some of the things Brother Ralph had said and looking around at my brothers, I know I wasn't alone.