back again

Last weekend's MIB camping trip was awesome. We had five high schoolers there, ranging from 15-18 who had all expressed an interest in the priesthood...how cool! I was very impressed with each one of them, especially with the thoughts they shared during our Lectio Divina. We also prayed morning, evening, and night prayer together which I'm glad we did.

We canoed 14 miles down Blue River during a nice sunny day and beautiful scenery but the paddling got a little old by about mile 11. It was nice spending time with the younger guys though and getting to know them. Please pray for their vocation.

I also got to know Pablo, one of our seminarians at St. Meinrad...he's got one year left. I was glad to hang out with him some; his joy at being a seminarian and good sense of humor was contagious. I was a little disappointed though when he spoke about giving homilies at Mass already...he's not a deacon yet.

I just got back from spending a week whitewater rafting on the New River. It was a blast and not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We ran with a company called Class VI, they're top notch. If you ever go rafting on the New, go with Class VI. They had awesome guides, nice facilities and equipment, provided a lunch halfway through the run, cold beer waiting for us when we got off the River (!), nice showers, and a bar and grill for some much-meeded beer and hot wings... man it was nice! They also had a videographer in his own kyak who would paddle ahead of the group, climb up on a major rock formation at each of the rapids and film each boat as they went through. Then while everyone's cleaning up after the trip he edits the film, puts it to a soundtrack, and burns it on a DVD to show everyone on a bigscreen in the bar. It was a lot of fun recounting near wipe-outs and watching the other boats tackle the rapids. I know you're dying to know: I never fell out.

So what does the rafting trip have to do with my discernment...well... on this long-awaited vacation the good Fathers definitely let loose, which was a little weird at first but I guess I'm still getting over the fact that orthodox priests are human too. (Don't worry, in retrospect it was nothing too terribly scandalous!) Maybe I held them on too high of a pedastal? I let loose a little more than I would have liked as well. I'm reminded of some advice a priest at Mundelien gave me when I went there for a vocation retreat. I was lamenting the difference in my behavior around my brothers (looser) and around my friends (tighter). I was saying how I felt hypocritical. The priest said that in phenominology we see that humans typically gravitate toward the lowest common moral denominator and that we shouldn't give ourselves a hard time when this occurs but continue to build ourselves up to resist this phenominon and increase our personal holiness. I shouldn't judge the Fathers.

We did have mass one day in the hotel room which was nice and they faithfully prayed the Hours which was a good witness.

Holy Mary, form me as you did your Son.