There were twelve of us who journeyed through the Holy Land – from October 15-23. With a lot of barrenness and one mountain and hillside looking just like all the rest, I can completely understand how Moses and the Israelites wandered for 40 years. Gratefully, several thousand years later, we had the assistance of highways […]
About a week before we left for the Holy Land, we were given “packing instructions.” In addition to being told to ‘pack lite – if for no other reason than it’s 90-95 degrees in Israel – we were also told to leave our computers behind. (Seeing as I use my netbook to store all the […]
Sorry for the erratic posting. The internet connection here at the seminary is anything but ‘high speed.” In fact, it seems like the old dial-up would be faster than what we seem to be getting here. It’s taken me about 20 minutes just to get this short message typed and posted. I tried uploading picture […]
I find it hard to fathom that I’ve already been in Rome for a month. It seems like I arrived yesterday – but I also look at the calendar and realize that this sabbatical experience is nearly half-over! This past week we spent countless hours studying Paul’s letter to Philemon. But, before you get too […]
For the last 10 days, there’s been little opportunity to explore the city of Rome. The scheduled activities of the day begin at 8:45 with Morning Prayer (although my days often begin at 5:30-6:00 with a trip down to the seminary gym. While I expected to be the only one there at that hour, I […]
For the last week we’ve been in class 4-5 hours per day with Fr. John Fuellenbach, SVD – a noted Catholic theologian. When Fr. Fuellenbach first introduced himself to us, he spent a few minutes talking about his educational background – which included classes taught by Karl Rahner and others taught by Cardinal Ratzinger. He […]
There are 34 of us participating in the ‘Institute for Continuing Theological Education’ (ICTE) here at the North American College here in Rome. Our group includes priests from across the US and Canada, as well as a gentleman from Australia and two priests from American Samoa. During one of our days of orientation we learned that […]
A rather frequent question asked of me since I first announced my sabbatical last May is “Are you getting excited?” Most are surprised by my answer – but find that they completely understand my rationale. I equated the time between May and September to be a lot like the last semester of one’s academic career […]
The year was 1993. I was the associate pastor at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, and I had recently heard about the sabbatical program that was available to the priests of the Diocese of Cleveland. Though I had only been ordained seven years at the time, the recommendation of the priests who lived […]