A Hop, Skip, and a Jump

With the journey moving quicker than I expected and spending more time with the friars and less time on the road than last year’s trip, I decided not to post everyday like last year. As much as I love sharing, why take time away from the friars to go write an essay? Crazy talk.

The worship space is very intimate, perfect for a college community.

That said, we’ve seen a lot since we left Macon. Our first stop was just an hour and a half north in Athens, GA, where the friars are the Catholic chaplains at the University of Georgia. This is quite a ministry. When I was in college, I spent a lot of time with the Catholic group on campus, and was really happy by the time I graduated to see the group grow to about 25-30 regulars, a mass with about 100, and a few events on campus each week. The University of Georgia is just slightly larger. With more than 35,000 students, the campus has four Catholic masses on Sunday in it’s own church (we had to share ours with other groups), a Catholic student center complete with library, dining room, offices, and lounging areas, a paid staff that runs the programming and finances of the ministry, and two full-time friars. Add this to a beautiful campus, quaint downtown city, and excellent weather and you’ve got yourself a friar that would love to minister here!

IMG_2511

The original church building of St. Andrew’s parish in Clemson

After a quick visit here, it was off to South Carolina on Wednesday. In the morning, we stopped by the campus of Clemson University (the second of three campus ministries on our tour) where we met one of our friars for lunch and a tour. Relatively new to the friars, Clemson University and its Catholic presence there has a lot of history, changing shape and hands many times. Officially a parish with a student center (unlike UGA that is a student center with parishioners), it has a different feel for sure, with more focus on the larger community around it rather than just the students. There is still a lot going on for the students and the friars have made an effort in just a few years to get involved on campus not just at the Catholic Center but also reaching out to the administration, professors, and other organizations to offer a Catholic presence in a relatively non-Catholic area. For me, there was a lot of potential for growth here, and I’m excited to see what the friars do now that they’ve been established there for five years.

IMG_2552

Even the windows had a Franciscan spirit!

With places to be and people to see, we left campus late in the afternoon for our next stop, Anderson, SC. Originally a mission to African-American Catholics in South Carolina, the parish was founded by the friars back in the forties and has remained a steady mission for us, despite changing its focus a few times. Today, the parish is roughly 40% white, 40% Hispanic, and 10% black, giving it great diversity and a lot of different needs. The friars were great to show us around and give us a little insight into the challenges and joys of running the parish, allowing us to ask questions ourselves.

The whirlwind tour ended as all good days should: dinner with the brothers. With friars from Anderson and Clemson getting together every Wednesday, we lucked out on a great dinner and exceptional conversation, laughing around the table for more than an hour. It was a great way to get to know the friars outside of their ministerial capacities and to just be brothers with them.

More pictures are up on Facebook if you want to check them out! Check back tomorrow for a look at our stop in Greenville, SC, and see if it stacked up to the other places!

 Posted on May 14, 2016 by

 Fraternity, Ministry, Trips

     , , , , ,

The Surprise of the South?

Greenville and Triangle be advised: if you’re hoping to woo the friars on our road trip, you’ve got some stiff competition: Macon, GA was impressive.

Known only as “the place where we got a flat tire driving home from spring break” and “the school that kept us from the playoffs in baseball one year” prior to this trip, Macon was not an impressive place in my mind. When the province announced last summer that we would be taking a small parish and a school there, I didn’t think much of it. “Oh, cool, a new ministry in the south,” but my initial response was not of excitement.

Having now visited the quaint, historic town, I’m a big supporter of the friars’ presence there. We all were.

Good food, good people.

When we arrived Monday afternoon and met the friars, we were given a quick tour of premises—parish, school, friary, and offices—and told that dinner would be in about an hour. But rather than going out to eat and catching up with the friars in private, one of the friars organized a pot-luck dinner with 15-20 of the staff, sisters, and involved parishioners to welcome us and informally share what the place was like. Besides the fact that the food was amazing (this friar is an accomplished chef), the time with everyone was fantastic. We got to hear their stories, get to know what makes the parish special, tell a little about our lives as friars, and really, just laugh and have a good time for a few hours. Rather than spending time in empty buildings or talking about the things they do, we were in a sense thrown right into the heart of the parish, the people.

The following morning, we got to see these wonderful people in action. Starting at the elementary school, we stopped by the kindergarten, sixth grade, and pre-school classrooms to meet some of the students and to get a feel for the life of the school. They were energetic and excited to see us, and despite their large gap in age, were all fascinated by our habits with many pockets (it’s a universal reaction I suppose.)

IMG_2444 (1)

Despite being a high school, I could definitely see myself ministering here.

After that, we headed to the high school where one of the friars is a chaplain. Had you have asked me prior to going what I thought about going to a high school, I would have said, “Eh, we don’t have to see it. It’s just a high school.” I would have been very wrong. This school was lively, diverse, growing, and active. Walking through the halls and into a few classrooms, all three of us were amazed at all of things that were going on, how mixed the student body was, how welcoming all of the teachers were, and how Catholic the school was in its prayer and charitable works. As one of the teachers told us, “Too often kids think that community service is a punishment for committing a crime not big enough to go to jail. Here we show them that community service is part of who we are as Catholic, and all of us do it together—students, teachers, staff.”

IMG_2489 (1)

Coffee shop? Nope. Homeless shelter.

After an inspirational time with the students and teachers, we finished our tour at Day Break, a day facility for the chronically homeless in the area. This might have been the most impressive aspect of the whole trip. While many cities have shelters for people to stay at night and soup kitchens for people to get food, there are rarely any places for homeless people to go during the day. For the most part, they’re told to leave until the next meal or until the next evening comes. Day Break fills that void. Whether someone needs a shower or some medicine, a comfy chair or a book to read, Day Break is the place to go. Resembling a college town coffee shop more than a facility for the homeless, we were amazed by the comfort of the place. Here, men and women could hang out all day and feel like they were in a restaurant, living room, or recreational facility. For those trying to get a job or get back to school, guests had access to not only a computer lab and telephone, but could also register a private voice mailbox for employers or landlords to call without knowing that they were calling a shelter. Tremendous.

On paper, Macon is admittedly not that impressive. The parish is quite small, likely able to fit every Sunday worshiper inside either Raleigh or Durham’s sanctuary at one time; the elementary school is under capacity and has a little bit of debt; the friars minister to a neighboring Catholic high school; and there’s a downtown center for the homeless. All great things, but nothing extraordinary.

And yet, in person, the sum in much greater than its parts. The people were welcoming and alive with the Spirit; the ministry was dedicated and unique; and while there were some nice gems in the area, there was also a lot of room for imagination and innovation. Don’t be surprised if you see me ministering here in the future!

I took a lot more pictures, so check them out here!

 2 Comments

 Posted on May 11, 2016 by

 Fraternity, Ministry, Trips

     , , ,

Raleigh/Durham

Our first day of our “Southern Exposure” began with a tandem of ministries in central North Carolina: Raleigh and Durham. To say that it was a busy weekend is an understatement. Besides being the feast of the Ascension, it was also Mother’s Day, graduation weekend for a few of the area colleges, first communion at Immaculate Conception Durham, and there was even a baptism at one of the masses. Put in the context of two of the largest parishes in the diocese of Raleigh (more than a couple thousand families each) and you have yourself a busy weekend pulling the friars every which way.

And yet, we still had a great opportunity to spend time together, share a few meals, get a tour, and hear about their lives.

From a ministerial standpoint, St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Raleigh and Immaculate Conception Parish in Durham are among the liveliest, most efficiently run parishes that I’ve experienced.

St. Francis is a very large, very beautiful church with thousands of people attending each weekend

What caught my eye immediately about Raleigh—besides the sheer size!—was how involved the laity was on a large scale. At one of the masses, I counted 25 eucharistic ministers, complete with two assigned to oversee the refilling of patens and chalices in stations that ran empty, and they all knew exactly what to do. There was no needless standing around, awkward pauses or stumbling over one another. They all knew how to receive, where to be, and how to make it move. For a congregation that amassed more than a thousand people, there was no sense that things were taking too long; it flowed much more efficiently that parishes I’ve seen that are half the size! Is this the best aspect about this parish, the way it distributes communion? Of course not. But it is representative to how St. Francis is run: smoothly with a well-trained and highly involved lay staff. When you look at their ministries—a whole two pages of one-line listings in the bulletin—you see a different lay person taking charge and leading it. This is not a parish in which “Father” comes up with everything or oversees everything strictly. This is a parish in which the people realize their baptismal call to be priests, prophets, and kings, and the friars are there to walk with them, not for them. Truly a remarkably run parish.

Sometimes the best way to learn is to do, using all of one’s senses!

Similarly run and designed as St. Francis in Raleigh (they share an architect and founding pastor), what caught my attention about Immaculate Conception in Durham was the culture: culture of the people, the town, and the parish. Unlike St. Francis that leans on the homogenous side of things and is located in the suburbs, IC is split almost 50/50 between English speakers and Spanish speakers in a traditionally African-American neighborhood, is located on the main street of a historically significant but newly thriving city complete with art, leisure and great restaurants, and is just minutes away from one of the finest universities in the country in Duke. Although smaller than St. Francis in Raleigh, its location and ministerial focus makes it seem much busier, adding a dash of chaos to the creative mix of ministries. One  thing in particular that got my imagination going was one of their elementary religious education classrooms: complete with a mini altar, baptismal font, giant rosaries, and religious symbols, tiny children are taught through a hands-on approach, getting to “play mass,” pretend baptize baby dolls, and learn about the prayer life of the Church by leading it themselves. What an amazing way to teach students in an experiential way that transcends language and culture!

But this trip is not all about ministry and so our time was not spend simply at mass or in tours but also with the brothers at table. On Saturday night, the three traveling brothers sat down with the friars in Raleigh for a delicious dinner prepared by one of the friars, and on Sunday evening the friars from Durham joined the friars in Raleigh for a cookout. This, I have to say, is when friars are at their best. Having met all of these men before but not particularly close with any of the six, we all immediately felt at home, laughed almost constantly, and found ourselves included in the fraternal teasing by the end. We talked about the Church, our lives, politics, ministry, school, sports, art, philosophy, you name it. And we had a great time doing it.

Unfortunately, though, our time was short-lived, and come Monday morning it was off to our next stop: Macon, GA. Our newest ministry, it is unlike Raleigh and Durham in almost every way, and yet an incredibly place in itself.

For more pictures of Raleigh and Durham, be sure to check out my Facebook page here all week!

 1 Comment

 Posted on May 10, 2016 by

 Fraternity, Ministry, Trips

     , , , , , ,

Southern Exposure

In my last post I made two major announcements about what life would hold for me over the next year, beginning with two months in Mexico on May 31. I’ve appreciated all of the comments and the congratulations, and thank all of you very much!

But there is another announcement to be shared now. As some of you may have been wondering, and a few of you even asked, why there is a big gap between now and May 31. What exactly will I be doing until then?

How about another road trip?

As some of you may remember, I traveled from San Diego to Washington with a classmate of mine last year, writing about our journey and beginning my filming “experiment” on the road. This year, our trip is less practical as it is fraternal: traveling with two other friars in formation, we plan to visit all of our “southern” ministries over a period of a week, spending some time with the friars and getting to know their life and ministry.

Even though we’ve always had friars living in the south (and, if you ask me, our best places in the province today are in the south) it is sometimes treated as “mission territory” among the friars of the “New York” province because it is not located in Manhattan. As a result, most guys in formation don’t get a chance to see many of our places or get to know the southern church.

Just over 1500 miles in 8 days, this trip will be less about the road and more about being with our brothers.

No longer. Starting from Washington, D.C., we’ll stop in Raleigh/Durham NC, Macon and Athens GA, Clemson, Anderson, and Greenville SC, Stoneville NC, and conclude with a stop in Triangle VA before heading back to DC. In a span of eight days, we’ll get to see six parishes, two universities, and a retreat center, not to mention 23 different friars living in nine different friaries. Unlike last year in which much of our time was on the road and all of the things I shared (videos and blogs) had to do with the sights and tastes of each region of our country, this year we’re hoping to spend most of our time with the friars, sharing more about the Franciscan presence in each area. I don’t plan on making any videos this trip, but will definitely be blogging and posting to the Facebook page. (If you’re interested in seeing pictures, you’re definitely going to want to “like” the Facebook page.)

This was my mom’s reaction when she saw me at church today. Worth it.

As a final note, being that we we’re starting day three of the trip today and will be behind in sharing come the first post, you might be wondering why I didn’t announce this in the last post with the other announcements or get ahead of the story with more pictures or posts. Funny story. We planned this trip two months ago and I told my mom about it. Being that my parents live two hours away from Raleigh/Durham (where we are staying now) and were not planning on adding two hours to our 1500 mile trip, she accepted the fact that we wouldn’t see each other and forgot about it. Since it was Mother’s Day yesterday, however, she later made plans to see my sisters in Raleigh and to attend mass at the parish we’re staying out now, forgetting the fact that I would be here. When my sisters and dad found this out, we decided not to remind her, and since she reads this blog, I decided not to announce it. Her reaction was worth the wait…

 8 Comments

 Posted on May 9, 2016 by

 Fraternity, Ministry, Trips

     , , , , , , , ,

Moving Out!

With my last paper turned in and exam taken, another school year comes to a close. Free at last! Over these past eight months, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about the Church and Scripture, acquired skills in preaching and pastoral care, and explored new visions of liturgy and prayer. When I think about to where I was in August, I’m just truly amazed at how much I didn’t know, and continue to be inspired to learn more.

But that will have to wait.

With the close of the semester and the books put away, I’m finally able to make two announcements that have been developing all year.

Internship year

As I’ve mentioned too many times to count or cite, the formation process is a long one with many stages. After completing three years of school, it’s time for me to enter the final stage of formation before taking solemn vows: internship. Placed right before one petitions to take final vows (God willing, August 2017), the internship year is intended to be a time of discernment, taking a leave of absence from one’s studies to gain pastoral experience in the province as a full-time minister and to live in fraternity outside of the “safety” and structure of a formation house. As someone who is not solemnly professed or ordained, and given that it will only last one year, the experience is but a taste of what the rest of my life will be like as a friar. But it is an important and long-awaited taste.

So where will this be taking place? I’m happy to announce that I will be living and ministering at Immaculate Conception Church in Durham, NC. It’s a vibrant multi-cultural parish in one of the best places in the country (not biased!), with more things going on that I can possibly find time for. At this point, I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing, but there is a lot of options when it comes to adult faith formation, justice and peace work, prison ministry, elementary school help, liturgical preparation, and general pastoral work in all capacities. It is definitely an exciting place to be and I’m really looking forward to starting this stage of my life in August.

Summer Immersion experience

The reason I say in August rather than in a few weeks is because there is a second, potentially more interesting announcement to this post. On May 31 I will be traveling to Mexico with another student friar to live and work with the Franciscans for two months.

While our main task will be spending 3-4 hours a day in private tutoring sessions to become more proficient in Spanish, it will definitely be more than a language immersion experience. Living at a migrant center on the Guatemalan border, our days will be spent with people so desperate that they’re willing to travel hundreds, even thousands of miles, with little-to-no money, contacts, or place to stay, face danger of violence and abduction along the way, and be greeted with hatred and inhospitality in their new country. They are in need of sustenance, housing and medical care, for sure, but they are also in dire need of safety, respect, and someone to advocate for them. No doubt, this will be an experience like none other for me, and I hope to be able to share it through written reflections this summer and potentially a video when I return.

Until then, it’s time to pack up my things, kick my feet up, and glory in the fact that I’m done going to school for 15 months! Here’s to moving out!

 13 Comments

 Posted on May 4, 2016 by

 Formation, News, Post-Novitiate

     , , , , ,

Breaking In The Habit

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.