30 years, 30 days, 30 stories, Day 1.

30 years, 30 days, 30 stories.

On March 23rd, I will cross a big threshold, 30 years old. It has occurred to me lately that all of our stories are ultimately, if we pay enough attention, stories that are ultimately stories of grace.  Over the course of the next thirty days, I want to share 30 of those stories with you.

Our Lady of the Way, Who has Always Watched My Way. Day 1 of 30. 

In the beginning, for me, there were six simple words which have ever since shaped my life: "Let her bring it with her," but in fact those word were more something like "let it be."  These are words the power of which I am not sure that I would ever fully realize the significance of for me until just now, "Let her bring it with her." The reality is that these thirty years that I am grateful for almost didn't happen. 

The Madonna Della Strada

            When my mother became pregnant with me it was dangerous to her health. The doctors cautioned bed-rest, and many doctors likely would have told her that for the purposes of her own health that she should have had an abortion. My mother never would have even considered it for a millisecond, and so it was bed rest for her, for months.  The truth is that my mother's doctor likely never even mentioned the possibility that she should abort me, he was an alum of Holy Cross, where I would later go to college, and a man who had at least a sense of faith. My mother went on bed rest so that we both could live.

            My Father, one day during his lunch break from work, went to the Catholic bookstore in downtown Hartford and bought a small plastic resin statue of Mary holding Jesus and put it by my mother's bed. This is a beige statue, no more than 6 inches tall that still stands in my parent's bedroom. Mary's veil is smooth, and she cradles Jesus in her arms. So when my mother was on bed rest, she would pray in front of this simple statue of Mary which stood on her night stand, and when she went to Hartford Hospital for the last days of her pregnancy, the statue came with her.

            Some time early on the morning of March 23rd, 1981, my mother had a stroke. There was a code blue in the maternity ward, and rather than being taken to the delivery room, my mother was taken to the operating room. As they were taking her out of her hospital room she reached out with her good hand to grab the statue, which stood there by her bed. The nurses said "no you can't take it" but my mother clung fast to it.  She had prayed. She was convinced that the Blessed Mother would hear her.  Even now when her life was in danger, when she could have lost her first child, and when everything seemed at its darkest, she clung to fast to her faith, and the belief that with Mary's intercession, God couldn't refuse her what she had asked for.

            It was at that moment, above the nurses objections, Dr. Stavola, her doctor, said "Let her bring it with her." Let it be... at 8:03 that morning I was born. Thirty years later my mother is still alive, still doing well, and much to the chagrin of some, she still has the gift of fortitude that allows her to stick with things through tough times, and the grace to not give up. If the story ended here, it would be a great story, but later in life, that day came to have even more meaning.

            When I was young I asked my mother about that statue, because from a young age I knew how important it was to her. She told me "That is Our Lady of the Way." Whether I knew it or not, from the very beginning of my life Our Lady of the Way has been interceding for me, pushing me along, and now I live in the same building in which the ancient Icon of Our Lady of the Way is housed.

            When St. Ignatius came to Rome in 1540 Pope Paul III gave him the chapel of Our Lady of the Way and from that point on, the Society of Jesus has held her as our patroness. My mother had no idea about this, she didn't really know the devotion all that well in fact. All that she did know was that she had a statue that she was told was Our Lady of the Way. That statue was always around in my house growing up, and at two other key moments in my life, it was the intercession of Mary that guided me.

The Church of the Gesù. Where the Icon is housed
and where I live. 

            When I was at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City after my junior year of college, praying in front of the tilma of Juan Diego, I had a deep interior sense that all of the things in my life were leading me to this life, and a little under a year later I was accepted into the novitiate. There was a moment as well when I thought of packing it in and giving up on being a Jesuit, and then it was listening patiently to the words of Mary in the gospel of Luke having the courage to say "fiat," Let it be done to me according to your will, Let it be, that I knew I couldn't do anything other than be who I am today. Years later, finally reaching the near end of this path of formation to priesthood I have come here, finally, to the Church of the Gesù to the Altar of the Madonna Della Strada, and finally with peace I can say back to the Lord along with Mary, let it be done to me according to your will.

            Our histories are graced histories, if we pay enough attention to see where God has been moving. From my first moment there is a sense in which Our Lady of the Way has been watching out for me. I like to tell my mother that she has only herself to blame for me being a Jesuit, though in fact she is proud of me.  The truth is, though, that reflecting on stories like these make me realize that from my first moments, providence has conspired for me, and not against me. Our Lady has watched me and prayed for me, and somehow I have been given just enough grace to realize it and be grateful. 

From the Altar of Incarnation to the Altar of the Chair.

      When I was in 5th grade Fr. Johnson the parochial vicar at the Church of the Incarnation, our parish in Wethersfield, CT, asked if any of the boys in 5th grade and up would like to join his training sessions to become an altar server. It was a group of 10-15 of us who committed to learning the different exotic names for things like "Chalice," "Ciborium," or the ever outlandish "Monstrance," and memorizing the confiteor, and I have to say that in those afternoons in the parish I probably learned more about the liturgy than I have in the almost 20 years that I have been studying and participating in it since.
       I remember that I wasn't supposed to serve the first time that I did serve the mass. I was supposed to have one more week of training, but Fr. Johnson saw a bunch of us there in the church that Sunday with our families and pulled us back into the sacristy to get ready. I also remember being terrified, because Fr. Johnson wasn't saying mass, it was Fr. Crawford.  I now know that Fr. Crawford was a great man and an excellent priest, but when I was 10, all that I knew was that he was the pastor... and I didn't want to screw it up. So I stood there, on the altar, biting my lower lip, trying to remember all of the prayers. I made it through well enough, and after to celebrate my family went out for brunch. I remembered that nervousness again this past November, though.

Processing in to the Mass. I am without my customary facial
hair here, because we weren't sure whether or not it was ok at
St. Peters, and we knew that JPII wasn't a fan.

    The call came on a Monday night, one of the Jesuit Cardinals in town had died. St. Peter's Basilica had called the college looking for acolytes. (altar servers) Could we do it? It really wasn't out of any sort of merit or seniority, but really just dumb luck that meant that I got to serve on that morning. The main criteria for my selection to go to St. Peter's? I was one of only a few guys who fit into one of the collection of cassocks that we have in the house for just such an occasion. So on Wednesday morning, I put that cassock on and met up with the other guys who were serving. We got on the 64 Bus, and went over to St. Peter's.
    After a VERY brief rehearsal, we went into the sacristy of St. Peter's and waited for the mass to begin. Watching the Cardinals assemble is something to behold. Despite the large "SILENCE" sign posted in the sacristy, the moments before a mass in St. Peter's is something of a social hour for many of them, and rightly so, particularly when they are mourning one of their own. There is obviously a time for the prayer and reflection that that sign is asking for, but there are also times when it is ok to abrogate that silence for the time being. In the spirit of that, I went up to greet and congratulate one of the new Cardinals who had just been made a Cardinal the weekend before. As the immediate preparations for mass began, though, I was handed the thurible, the thing in which the incense is burned. The coals were already lit, and I was told to take the incense to the Dean of the College of Cardinals for him to fill the thurible... All of the sudden the 10 year old boy was back, my heart was racing, and I was biting my lower lip.
    I will not pretend that this mass was my finest hour liturgically. I didn't screw anything up too badly, but I wasn't in the sort of sync that I would have wanted to be. If you watch the video, you can even see a place where I almost fell down while holding the chalice. One little nudge led to another, and another, and another, and I could almost hear the old tennis coach inside my head saying "don't snowball because of a dumb mistake, just focus and get back to it." Then something remarkable happened.
   At the end of communion, the Holy Father arrived to give a homily and the final benediction, and everything just became calm. There I was three feet from the Pope, holding the thurible that he was going to use to incense the casket, and everything just calmed down. In that moment I realized something, that so many moments in my life had led to this one. While this wasn't an end point, or the climax of a story, or even necessarily one of the top ten most important moments of my life, I realized something very important. God calls me as I am.

Serving Mass in St. Peters, I am third from the left, right next to
my friend Gvidas, who is holding the Pope's Mitre. 

    Maybe it is because I am approaching 30, or maybe it is because I am (God-willing) getting closer to ordination, but lately I have been thinking about how so much of our lives lead us to bigger moments. The nervousness I felt that day serving mass for the first time came back on the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter, when I was serving Cardinal Navarette's funeral, and getting ready to hand a flaming hot thurible to Pope Benedict XVI. I think it is good to remember sometimes that no matter where we go, or what we end up doing, that God calls us as we are precisely for who we are. There is no reason to doubt that from the first moment of altar server training at Incarnation that God was planting the seeds of the moment on the Altar of the Chair, and more importantly of my vocation to the priesthood. It is also important to know that I am still that same person that God began calling all those years ago. I am that same person with the same ability to be nervous, and even some of the same nervous ticks, and I think God rejoices in that.  No matter how much I learn, how I grow, or how this formation for priesthood takes hold in me I am discovering that I am still that same person He called, with all of my weakness, nervousness, all of my fears and frustrations.
      Nothing in following God's call in our lives says that we become someone different, whether it is to married life, single life, religious life, or priesthood, what God is calling us to is to become more and more who we are. (A great insight of my friend, Jim Martin, S.J.)  The psalmist reminds us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and Jeremiah reminds us that God knew us before He formed us in our mother's wombs. Of course we are free not to follow that call, but trying to follow it at the very least helps us to become more fully alive, because we are more fully ourselves. As I was standing there in the midst of that mass at the Altar of the Chair nervously biting my lip I couldn't help but ultimately rejoice just a little, because I realized that I was perhaps in that moment, and in others like it, more than ever myself.

Teddy Ballgame, The Science of Hitting, and an exam on the Gospels.

Spring training, surviving the first semester, and realizing that I haven't written in a long time have all gotten me thinking..

Ted "The Splendid Splinter" Williams in his first at bat as a
member of the Boston Red Sox at Fitton Field at the College
of the Holy Cross.. He hit a homerun. 

When I was about 12 years old I tried out for little league baseball. I have to say that the simple truth is that I wasn't very good, and I was almost immediately placed in the minor league division. In any event, a big part of the reason why I wasn't very good was that I discovered that I could hit the ball pretty far when I really got a hold of it. Now, for those of you who are baseball fans, this may seem to make absolutely no sense, but the simple truth is that once I got a mere taste of hitting the ball hard, I never again saw a pitch that I didn't like. It could be high, low, fast, slow, I was going to swing at it, and I wasn't just going to swing at, I was going to crush it. This lead to a batting average that was well south of the feared mendoza line, and a baseball career that ended very abruptly as soon as my parents decided to put a Tennis racket in my hand.

            I was still a huge fan of the game though, and this week the wisdom of one of the greats hit me hard. Ted Williams wrote a book called The Science of Hitting, and the most basic, and best advice that the Splendid Splinter had in that book was that you should wait for your pitch. At the foundation of this is a basic humble admission, you can't hit every pitch, so you wait for the one you can and go with it.

            So often in my life I know that I can still be that 12 year old kid out on the Highcrest School Little League field, wanting to destroy every pitch that comes my way. The difference between now and then is, of course, that I have learned to hold up on swinging at a pitch that I can't hit (and now of course I am speaking in metaphor) and wait for what I can. The clearest example came only a couple of days ago in my Synoptic Gospels final. I walked in, and as with all other exams here, I had 10 minutes to prove to the Professor what I had learned over the course of a semester, the professor gave me two questions that I could answer. Question 1: Talk about  a question about hermeneutics according to the pontifical biblical commission. I hadn't anticipated this one. This was a pitch that was low and at my knees, nearly unhittable. I held back, strike one. Question 2: Do exegesis (explain) of the passage on the primitive Christian community. This pitch was a little high, I could hit it, but it was risky, no swing. Strike 2. I asked for a third pitch, and it was graciously given. Question 3: Exegesis on the Parable of the Lost sheep in Luke. Fastball, 90 miles and hour, right down the middle of the plate... swing, contact, over the fence... Homerun!

            You see the simple truth is that somewhere, deep down, I didn't want to wait for that last pitch. I wanted to try and answer one of those first two questions to impress the professor, but I held back, I was humbled by the fact that I didn't know the responses to the questions well enough to try to answer and do well, I would have had to fake it, and in the name of protecting my own pride, I may have lost out in the end. So often it is the case in our lives, we hesitate to do anything that might demonstrate that we are weak, and in doing so we can find ourselves undone. I had to ask for that third question, I knew I couldn't do the other two justice, and when I did, when I admitted my weakness, I was able to wait for a question that I could. Jesus once said that the truth sets us free. The truth here was simply this, sometimes we need to be honest about who we are and where we are at to have any hope of success, even if that truth is that we can't hit a given pitch. 

On Retreat....

In my room I have an icon of St. Ignatius that was painted by William McNichols. In the Icon St. Ignatius has one finger up to his lips, and the other near his heart. The finger up to his lips is in the typical gesture to remind us to be quiet, and boy do I need that reminder right now.

Rome is noisy. I live over Piazza Venezia, and not a moment goes by without a motorino passing under my window. My life is noisy. I have two soundtracks, one in English, one in Italian, running in my head at all times. My heart right now… a little noisy. So I am headed north, and east, into the mountains for a week to be quiet and pray.

Those of us who are Jesuits have the privilege of doing this every year, of renewing our life in the spirit by just being quiet and being with the One who makes our vocations both possible and meaningful. It’s the time to listen to that still small voice, and the time focus all of our thoughts and all of our intentions one the one who loves us.

Augustine once said that prayer is like breathing for the soul. Imagine your first breath after coming up from a prolonged stretch under water… that is what retreat can be like for your soul. This is why I am so excited to come up for air.

Ignatius lived in this house, and I can picture him being here at the cross roads of Rome knowing just what I am talking about, that he needed to be quiet and pray. So do I.

So I am off to the mountains to pray, and this blog will lay dormant for a week or so. Pray for me and know that I will be praying for you. 

Descending into St. Peter's Prison Cell.

Sometimes the simplest places are the ones that can fill us with awe. Today I visited a cave that was turned into a prison in about 500 B.C.  It was in that prison that St. Peter was held before his death. Below is the video, enjoy.

A Visit to the rooms of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

I am fortunate to live in the same house that a couple of Saints lived in, most notably among them St. Ignatius of Loyola. Here is a visit to where he lived.

Enjoy!

The Capella Clementina and the Communion of Saints.

5:00am. I know that for many religious this is midmorning, but for this nocturnal son of St. Ignatius, 5:00am is an ungodly hour. Why did I get up at 5am today? The answer is in a conversation that I had with a fellow Jesuit last month in Florence, when a good friend of mine invited me to a mass that he was celebrating in the Capella Clementina, at 7 am this morning.

St. Peter's Basilica at 6:45 in the morning.. just barely after sunrise.

For those of you who don’t know, the Capella Clementina is the Chapel closest to the tomb of St. Peter. It is the oldest part of St. Peter’s Basilica, and it is here that, under the altar you can see the remains of the “Old” St. Peter’s, namely the basilica of Constantine. If you go up to the altar and look down through the grate you can, in fact, see the actual tomb of Peter, where it was rediscovered during the archeological digs under St. Peter’s. People have worshiped in this space since the martyrdom of Peter in about 64 AD. The chapel was rebuilt by Pope Clement VIII in about 1592, and adorned with marble and gold. Clement left his mark, literally, on the chapel and all around it you can see the 8 pointed stars that are a part of his coat of arms. (You can also see these stars worked into the floor of St. Peter’s Basilica around the papal altar)

The interior of the Capella Clementina, it is only able to hold about 6 people. 

So today we went to pray literally at the tomb of St. Peter, two other Jesuits and I woke up very early and took the bus across town and were actually the first people to pass through security at St. Peter’s Basilica this morning. At the tomb of Peter this morning I prayed for everyone in the path of the Hurricane back in the states. I figured the tomb that we were praying at was the tomb of a man who had seen the Lord rebuke a storm, and who had asked the Lord to rebuke a storm in scripture, so why not. After mass we went by the tomb of John Paul II, and I prayed there for a relative that was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s because it just seemed to make sense. A few weeks back, when I first got to Rome I stumbled upon the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, which is literally a block away. The body of St. Catherine of Siena is buried there, and so I prayed for a friend of mine who, like St. Catherine, is a woman who both loves her faith and Church, but who also passionately works for justice in it. In Venice I prayed for my friends who teach scripture at the tomb of St. Mark.  In Assisi I prayed for a Jesuit friend of mine who keeps finding himself on TV at the tomb of St. Claire, since she is the patroness of TV. Then there are the rooms of St. Ignatius, where I go to pray each day. In those rooms I have prayed for BC High, where I just completed three happy years, and I have prayed for many Jesuit friends of mine there as well.

A great cloud of witnesses indeed, as the writer of Hebrews says, surrounds us. These great saints not only serve to inspire us and intercede for us, but they also serve to connect us to those around us, because the communion of saints doesn’t just include them, but all of us who are living and still on pilgrimage. These saints have served, all too often, to connect me with the people that I care about most back home, even as the journeys to these places have served to bring me closer to the people I live with here in Rome. This morning in the Capella Clementinum, as I prayed for everyone in the path of the hurricane which now seems to be weakening, I didn’t feel quite so far from home. Maybe that is really in the end what the communion of Saints is all about. 

Gearing Down to Understand Gearing Up.

In Jesuit communities in the U.S. there is almost always some dessert option after dinner. If you are as lucky as I have been in the past three years, you are blessed to live in a community where the cook is particularly talented with cakes and desserts. So when I came to Rome, I was sad to hear that we wouldn't have that everyday here.  Now don't get me wrong, I certainly don't need dessert. In fact, truth be told, I am better off without it, but it seemed like it just might be one more annoying cultural adjustment that I would have to make, then I strangely realized that I kind of liked it. 

The view from my desk as I write this. 

In addition to losing a little weight, this arrangement is made all the more enjoyable by the fact that we have a fairly simple way to mark special days here in Rome. For example, today was the feast of St. Augustine, and so after lunch we had cake. Tomorrow is a Sunday, and Gelato will be served. On regular days though, its just fruit, and that's increasingly becoming something that I kind of strangely enjoy. For example, this past week, on the feast of St. Bernard I sat down with a piece of cake, and jokingly said: "Thank you St. Bernard for your life of austerity and poverty, for this we will enjoy cake."  Now irony aside, I didn't know it was a feast day before I walked into the dining room, in fact I quickly pulled out my Ipod to see which feast it was, and read a little about St. Bernard. The thing is, in the US I am not sure that I would have looked up which feast it was had we not been celebrating, and the fact that we even do something so simple to mark those days is a very cool thing. 

St. John of the Cross in his famous Dark Night of the Soul points more eloquently to the reality that I am getting at. He says that sometimes in our spiritual lives God allows us to go through dark, dry, dessert periods so that we can really appreciate what it is to feel God's presence. I like that thought, and I think that those of us who live in the US could stand to learn something from it. 

The simple reality is that when we become too contented, when everyday is a feast day, we lose sight of what it is to celebrate. When everything is too pleasant, we become dulled to life around us. I think there is a way in which an American lifestyle sometimes can lull us into a spiritual coma, if only by simple always giving us access to everything that we want. Maybe the best thing that we can do is save some of those pleasurable everyday things for special occasions, and to do some critical self reflection about what we can really do without, so that when we do enjoy those little things in life they are really a cause for celebration. 

There's No Place Like Rome.

Here it is: a very quick view of where I live. The video is sped up to get you through what is a 10 minute walk in 3 minutes or so, but you can catch glimpses of the important stuff. More detailed videos of different things in the house to follow. 


Enjoy!

Random thoughts from Rome.

   

Rome unfolding from the top of St. Peter's

1.     Apparently the bar across the street is where the Swiss Guard go to hang out… this should be interesting.

2.     I went to a Wal-Mart like store named Panaramo in the suburbs today via the Metro. I had to walk back with a laundry basket full of stuff through the Forum. Tourists were still annoying.

3.     Tourists in the forum have this habit of randomly stopping in front of you to the point where a single walk through the forum yields an average of 3.2 collisions.

4.     I can see a tower designed by Michelangelo from my bed as I fall asleep. What can you see?

5.      I went to La Storta this weekend for the first time. After we prayed in the chapel of the vision for an hour I went to get an espresso, when I emerged everyone was gone.  (So I just went to the train station…)

6.     Went to watch the Sox Game tonight at the ex-pat bar nearby,  they were playing trivia, I could have won on my own. (Come on, seriously, which Muppet lived in a trash can, as a question????)

7.     I bought a bottle of Coke today. The label, which was from before the world cup, advertised over a thousand free vuvuzelas in a give away…. Strange that Coke knew what a big deal they would be this time around in advance of the cup….

8.     I am actually beginning to have conversations with Italians fairly confidently, and they seem to be tolerating my horrible Italian.  I am told that Ignatius spoke horrible Italian too, so much so that little kids would correct him. I take consolation in this.

9.     I have learned that 30 Celsius is the upper threshold of gross sweatiness.

10.  The walls were paper thin at the little hotel that we were studying at in Verona, not a huge fan of not being able to talk to anyone after 10:30pm Verona time.  This isn’t be such a huge deal in Rome (where our walls are 400 years old and about a foot thick.)

11.  I realized today that horsemeat is a Veronese specialty, and that without knowing it I have probably eaten it. I have my suspicions about which mystery meat it was, but don’t ask how I liked it.

12.  I have begun to be recognized by the barista at the café across the street from my language school. This morning he had my espresso ready for me before I even asked.

13.  It cracks me up when Americans are clearly lost in my neighborhood, particularly trying to find the Pantheon, and I ask if they need help and I get something like “nope got it,” and then they wander off in the wrong direction anyway.

14.  I have learned that if you just stare down taxi cabs while you are in a crosswalk they will stop, the same cannot be said for moto-scooters.

            15.  Taking a walk like most Romans do at night for a little exercise is a good thing, the             positive  effects of which are negated when you merely walk to the Trevi Fountain for Gelato. 

A Letter which echoes back..

If Christ is for us.. who can be against us???

I had this thought tonight as I was standing atop a newly discovered terrace in our house here in Rome. If Christ is for us then who can be against us? If you look to the west, you see the Capitoline hill. Here they crowned new emperors; behind it lay the ruins in stone and brick of what was once the most powerful place on earth. If you look east, you see a hill on what was once the outskirts of that powerful city where the executed a man who was old and likely illiterate from a backwater town in a backwater country.

If Christ is for us…. Who can be against us???


On that hill today stands the most prominent point in the eternal city, the dome of St. Peter’s. The empire is in ruins, and yet the place where an impotent (in the classical sense of the word) fisherman was executed upside down is revered.

If Christ is for us…. Who can be against us???


If you look to the north you can see the space where nine college friends lived for a few years while they waited to figure out what they should do since their original plans were going to be delayed by war in the middle east. If you look immediately down, you can see where one of them died years later as one of the more influential men in Europe and in the Church. If you look down you can see where the letters that captured the imagination of an entire continent arrived from one of those men who went to India. If you walk down the stairs you can walk where their followers walked, like the son of the most notoriously violent family in Spain, and you can stand in the spaces where one of the wealthiest men in the world at the time decided to turn in his wealth for a life of poverty….


If Christ is for us…. Who can be against us???

I am not saying that St. Peter or St. Ignatius would be thrilled with the churches built in their names, in fact I suspect that they might be perplexed by them, but faith has overcome empire, and the indecision of the quarter-life crisis shared by Ignatius, Faber, and Xavier was transformed into the Society of Jesus.

So I ask, looking at Rome, boldy and bravely…

If Christ is for us… who can be against us.

I daresay that there is still even more to it than this, and that these symbols of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God are only half measures. We need to be as bold as St. Peter, and embrace what the world sees as futility in coming to Rome, a place where they were executing Christians.

We need to be as bold as Ignatius, Xavier, and Faber, to look with hope to the future even if/when our plans fall apart.

Now is not a time to be practical, but to embrace a holy boldness. We need to look at the world as it is and continue to pray that God’s kingdom come ON EARTH as it is in heaven, and believe it can happen….


If Christ is for us… who can be against us?????

Scenes from my first month in Italy.

So this is video from my first month in Italy. It is more a montage than anything else. In the future I plan to be more in depth with details about what you are looking at, here is just a nice little video showign you what I have been up to. Enjoy!

Peace,
Mike

A quick note on the new background.

So you may have noticed a pretty radical change in look, if this makes it harder to view this blog, or makes it unnecessarily slow, let me know via comment and I will try to fix it. I chose this background, however, because if you look in the bottom left hand corner, just below the Vittorio Emanuele monument, you can see the facade of a Church. That, dear readers, is the Gesu. That is where I now live, and where these posts will (mostly) be coming from. So I figured it was as good a reason as any to put it up there. Any comments on the new design are welcome!
In Christ,
Mike

From the Opera....

The First Video I will post up here is a simple one,  most will be far more edited and have far more information, I just don't have the bandwith to upload those from Verona. This is the aria Nessun Dorma from the Verona Opera Festival.  Every year the city of Verona hosts an Opera Festival in its famed Ancient Roman Arena. For the low price of 23 Euros you too can sit on solid granite for three hours where people have sat for thousands of years... 




This Aria is at the beginning of the third act of Puccini's final opera, Turandot. Far and away my favorite Aria, Marco Berti did a great job. This is the Encore, I just sat, listened, experienced, and welled up a little the first time he sang it. The shear beauty of this moment can only conjure gratitude to God. 


In this song, Calaf, the deposed prince of the Tartars is singing about his plan to win the love of Turandot, the princess of China. Turandot to this point has been the original ice princess, Calaf actually calls her as much in the previous act, but this bold young prince has a plan to win her heart. The words (in Italian and English) are below, this is really just the end of the encore though, there was no way I was going to ruin this moment by taping it the first time through. 

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che fremono d’amore
e di speranza.

Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun sapra!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo diro
quando la luce splendera!

Ed il mio bacio sciogliera il silenzio
che ti fa mia!

(Il nome suo nessun sapra!…
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)

Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All’alba vincero!
vincero, vincero!

 English Version

None must sleep! None must sleep!
And you, too, Princess,
in your cold room,
gaze at the stars
which tremble with love
and hope!

But my mystery is locked within me,
no-one shall know my name!
No, no, I shall say it as my mouth
meets yours when the dawn is breaking!

And my kiss will break the silence
which makes you mine!

(No-one shall know his name,
and we, alas, shall die!)

Vanish, o night!
Fade, stars!
At dawn I shall win

(It's so much better in Italian...) 

More Random Thoughts From Verona.

A Disclaimer first. This will turn into more of a video blog as soon as I am back in Rome. The internet is simply too slow where I am to upload video in Verona.

Without further ado...

More Random Thoughts From Verona.

(The Winged Lion of Venice, a reference to St. Mark, or a Character from the Chronicles of Narnia? You be the judge....)

1)    I really value a language that puts such a heavy emphasis on the verb “to nap.”

2)    Washcloths could be America’s next great gift to the world, I anxiously await a shipment of them from the states thanks to my Mom.

3)    Venice has it right with all the canals, but the flooding of the streets at High tide has to be a constant reminder that the city is sinking.

4)    I am not sure how well a city can venerate the remains of a saint that were stolen from another city during the crusades (The remains of St. Mark were stolen by Venetians and brought back to Venice)

5)    The Lion with wings all around Venice looks like something out of Narnia.

6)    “How you like me now” by the heavy is a song that everyone should have in their I-Tunes Library, if only for it inherent ability to build self esteem, despite its poor grammar.

7)    The good people of the tourist industry will do everything they can to rip you off. For example, it was 104 degrees (40 Celsius) in the Dogge’s Palace in Venice on Sunday, we emerged looking for water in Piazza San Marco, and found a 2 liter bottle for 4 euro, which we though was a bargain until we saw it on sale for 50 Euro cents in the supermarket down the street.

8)    Once you know Italian, going to the Opera is like going to a broadway show, only the lyrics and music are better. The Turandot in the Arena di Verona makes Les Miserables (my favorite broadway show) look campy.

9)    That being said, it is easy to write poetry and lyrics in a langue where almost every word ends in a vowel.

10) Romeo and Juliet really loses its zip in Italian.

11) Itunes movie rentals are an important part of any expat’s sanity diet.

12)  A sanity diet are those little things that you do to feel a little bit more at home during a transition.

13) Everyone here seems to assume that: I play basketball well, I can throw a baseball well, I know George Bush/Barack Obama, and that all I really want is a cheeseburger simply because I am American.  Only one of these is really true, guess which one.

14) I responded to an email in Italian for the first time to an Italian Jesuit today. It was probably a hot mess, but I am still proud of myself.

I am glad that I got out of town before the Sox started to tank. 

Random Thoughts from Verona.

     1)    Dental floss cost me € 4.50, that is like $5.60. The same amount costs much less in the states.

2)    Not everything costs more, and it all depends on where you get it, going to the outskirts of town makes things much much cheaper.

3)    Nuns are pretty awesome and we don’t treat them nearly well enough, the sisters here are pretty spectacular.

4)    Verona is extremely beautiful, now that I know how to get in an out of the town center.

5)    When one is going into the town center, one should remember to put batteries into one’s camera.

6)    Its hard to believe I have been here a week, it seems much shorter.

7)    No matter how beastly hot it is, I can find Gatorade nowhere.

8)    I was sitting in class today learning how to say we are afraid of something, when asked what they were afraid of, my classmates said “Tigers” and “Lions” one even said “An Elephant stampede” Then I realized that they were all from Africa and India and had, in fact, encountered these things.

9)    I love Pasta, but wow people, just wow.

10) I played basketball today with a bunch of people from Africa and India. I was picked first because I am American. In about three minutes the team captain realized his mistake.

11) Juliet’s balcony is easily seen from the street, unless you are taking pictures I can’t imagine why you would pay to get into the courtyard. That said, how Romeo could have gotten himself in there past the gate and over the three story walls is beyond me. (and yes I know its just a scene from a play, and that that house likely has nothing to do with it.)

12) I like that Verona is both cooler and quieter than Rome, I also love the air conditioning in my room. I have it set at 20 Celsius, though the cleaning lady keeps turning it back up to 24 (which is like 75, and is reasonable enough)

13)  I ate dinner with some guys who were speaking a Slavic language last night (rather than the Italian that we are all supposed to be speaking) I asked an Oblate of Mary Immaculate that I was sitting with f they were Russian, he told me they were, I asked them where they were from in Russia (In Italian of course) they all stared me down and told me they were from Poland…. Oops..

14) I am beginning to really like it here. 



A Few new ones...

-       I realized that my family is essentially from the West Virginia of Italy while watching TV tonight. I will be much more careful about making redneck jokes in the future. (there you have it John Brown, Kevin Dyer, Carrie McGrath, Megan James, and anyone else I would consider to be from “the South outside of New Orleans”)

-       I still want to go down to Calabria to see where my great grandparents were born, and I am still proud of my heritage, particularly if it is as bad as northern Italians say it is my grand father and mother are proof that there really is an American dream.

-       Went to a pizzeria in the piazza of a little Italian village with a nun from Burma, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate from Texas, a white father from Nigeria, and a seminarian from Cameroon who recounted his tale of staving off a lion.

-       I was shocked by how similar an Itaian supermarket is to an American one, found Powerade, it didn’t taste the same.

-       Can’t find Old Spice in Italy, they do have Gillette though. Something nice about switching to a brand with it’s “World Shaving Headquarters’ in South Boston.

-       6 words. Turandot in an ancient Roman Arena. Nessun Dorma… Nessun Dorma.

           -      I plan to go read Romeo and Juliet at a sidewalk café outside of Juliet’s house, what are you doing with your Saturday afternoon?

A new look for an old blog.

For the past three years I have been teaching High School in Boston, MA, and this blog has been dormant. Now, however, I have moved to Rome and there may be need for a creative outlet again, so back to the Blog.

It is going to be different this time though, while I may still be posting some reflections, a bigger part of this blog will be dedicated to pictures and videos of my time here. I am going to try to focus on those things that the casual tourist might not see in Rome, and of course when interesting things happen over the course of my time in Rome, I may do some guerilla journalism as well to give you a sense of what the event was like on the ground. The first video will sum up the past three years, and the next will be a post from Verona, where I am studying Italian.

Ciao!

Mike

A Reflection on the Trinity

This is a reflection I offered at my College Reunion Last Year,
Enjoy!

Michael Rogers, S.J.
Reflection for Reunion Mass.
Trinity Sunday, 2007
Today, Trinity Sunday, at Churches throughout the world, those preaching will talk about how the Trinity. They will talk about how it is that there could be three distinct persons in one God and how it is a mystery. They’ll talk about how its beyond our ability to understand it, to grasp it, to put it into words, more than a few will reference St. Patrick and his famous shamrock, maybe a couple will talk about what St. Augustine had to say about how the way our minds work mirrors the trinity which made us, but most will say it’s a mystery and move on. Its true, the trinity is a mystery, and its one that has inspired debates and schisms from the time when Christ walked the earth until now. However, there is something about the trinity, about God being three persons in one God, which I think appeals to something more basic about how we understand God than the mystery of the metaphysics involved in such a reality. You see, the trinity, the thought that God constantly exists in loving relationship and that it is that love from which the Son and the Spirit, from which the world and each of us in it issues forth, ultimately points to the profound reality that in the end it is relationship, and more importantly love, that makes everything that exists make sense.
Applying the old Jesuit Maxim of finding God in all things, I think that what we discovered most profoundly, what we learned which was most important to us here at the Cross, was not learned in the Biology Labs or Philosophy Seminar rooms. We didn’t pick it up while cramming in Dinand or in some grand lecture. We learned the most profound lessons in the late night B.S. sessions, in the sometimes two hour stretches talking to friends in Kimball, in the countless road trips, some for Appalachia and some for less savory purposes. We learned it in being here, with each other, we learned it in learning how to be with, befriend, and hopefully love one another. The trinity makes sense to us, I think, because when we experience relationship with others, when we experience friendship, and ultimately come to understand that as love, we come to find God in each other, and in the midst of those relationships. It makes sense that if, as John says, God is love that God then exists in just the sort of relationship that love presupposes. When we love one another, when we care for one another, we experience what is often thought of as the most profound mystery of our faith because we participate in something which is at the very core of who God is. The trinity is all about love, its all about relationship. To the extent that we learned more and more how to love, in all of that various ways one does love, we learned our most profound lessons here on this Hill not in the classrooms, but in the care of those who sit around you now.
The readings today point to God existing in just that sort of love. The reading from Proverbs says that the wisdom of God, which we often think of in terms of the Holy Spirit, was God’s delight from the beginning of time. The Spirit was in loving relationship in the Trinity from the beginning. Jesus, in the Gospel, says that everything that the Father has is his also. The sharing of God’s self with Christ points to the love which exists between the Son and the father, just as what Christ has is also the Spirit’s to proclaim. Yet this love clearly spills over, it is too much to be contained, and as Paul tells us in the Letter to the Romans, it is this same love which exists between the Father, Son, and Spirit, which is poured into our hearts, which makes us capable of sharing in that divine mystery by loving one another.
Its nice to be back on campus after five years, a lot has changed, and its interesting to see the new buildings and the new construction. Its nice to walk past places and reminisce, but this is just a material place. Now for a second look around you, go ahead, look around you. Those faces you see, that’s Holy Cross. The buildings are just reminders. The institution itself rolls on without us. We are always a part of it, though, because we are a part of each other, we have indelibly shaped each other. We return to this place after five years a little older, hopefully a little wiser. Most of us have new responsibilities and roles, some of us are married and have children and many of us have interesting jobs in far flung places. We have learned and grown a lot since we left. We are different people than we were 5 years ago. Yet the bonds of friendship remain, and I hope that deep down that it is the people in this chapel right now that brought you back. It is in those faces that you just looked into that all of this begins to make sense, and it is in the context of their friendship, love, and care, that we came here originally to attempt a beginning at making sense of the world. The trinity tells us that God is love, and in the end it is the love which we had here for one another and continue to bear towards one another which makes this mystery not so mysterious.

A Man, A Thesis, A Mission

Hey everyone,

Welcome back! Sorry I haven't posted in forever. There were two reasons for this:

First, I had a Thesis to write. I am happy to say that it is done and I passed the Oral examination with distinction.

The Second Reason is more mission driven. The Society of Jesus issued new rules on publication, and included electronic media among the things which one needed permission to publish. This permission is pending with my new superior, so check back in the next few days for the first official post post-graduate school.


Peace,
Mike

Embracing Reality and the World Series...

Busch Stadium right after the Cardinal's Victory
Originally uploaded by mikerogerssj.

“How about those Cardinals Man? Were you down there last night?” These were the words of a random African American man to me on the street this morning. We didn’t even say hello, nothing, just a quick greeting of “How about those Cardinals?” The reason why I mention that he was African American is because of the simple fact that this can be very racist city, divided very clearly somewhere near Delmar as being White or Black. By in large to the north, people are black, and to the south, people are white. Often times it is a horribly divided city, and then there is the reality of living in the city verses the county, where often the division is between the rich and the poor.
Divisions, all around. Here we are too often, contrary to Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians, Gentile and Jew, Slave and Free, Woman and Man. I think so often it is a component of our society, which transcends St. Louis, to put us all in a neat little box and to admonish us from birth not to go outside of it. It’s not even a race question primarily, though that is one way it manifest itself, it’s not a class issue primarily, though that is another way it manifests itself, it is the prevailing sense that this little box which is your identity is the context from which you are to relate to the world. This little box you are given is there to keep you safe, and increasingly for the purposes of your own comfort. This box can dull the heart and blind the mind too though, because being comfortable excludes us from large portions of reality, being safe demands a surrender to the mediocrity of out own myopic stances. The truth is that we come more face to face with the world, and with the wonderful reality of an incarnational faith, when we can see as brother and sister those who are outside our neat little boxes. Its when we transcend the plastic of our own little packages that we become able to really live, to experience joy, sorrow, love, passion, full rationality which is in touch with the world, and perhaps maybe, just maybe, the revelation of God’s undying love for the whole world. The incarnation is borne out of a love for the world both inside and outside of our little plastic boxes, but to love God means to love what God loves, which means everything beyond the little packages we are socialized into which keep us comfortable and safe.
“How about those Cardinals?” This man outside of the context of a World Series victory probably never would have said anything to me, and if I am honest with myself, I probably never would have gotten comfortably into a conversation with him outside of the context of my sense of duty as a Jesuit to do so. It’s strange how things like this help people to transcend the differences which make us feel uncomfortable. It is as if at that one moment something which is common to both of our realities provides the middle ground to, at least for a little while, encounter each other outside of our boxes as human beings. I was down at the Stadium last night after the game, walking around with some friends, and there was the normal celebration one would expect going on, but it seemed like, if only for a few hours, everyone could be joyful together. That common moment of joy provided the vehicle for a brief transcendence of that which divided us and made us stay content in our own comfortable little spaces.
As we were leaving, Ben Bocher, subject of a previous post on this blog, said “Man if only we could get people this excited about Jesus.” I think his intuition is dead on, but perhaps not for the reason he suspects. Something about these equalizing and uniting moments mirrors just a glimpse of the Kingdom of God for us strangely enough. In those moments if we pay attention and look beyond the particulars of the event (viz. the drunken revelry that was also going on) to the unified reality as a whole we can see what we are meant to be, people living out of a common love, which just is a to love and be loved by God. If we could get that reality out there, then we would love what God loves, each other. If only we could get people that excited about Jesus, about an incarnational God that comes from the ultimate space of comfort and safety, eternity, and becomes human, while still being God himself, a God who goes out into reality, to love it and bring it back to himself. The manifestation of that Love would be the kingdom of God. Simple Social Justice may not be enough, Social love may be the only answer.
Monday morning the parade will be done, the lights in Busch Stadium will be off for the winter, and North St. Louis, South St. Louis, the City, and the County will all probably fall back into their normal divisions, but for one moment there can be a brief glimpse into what should be, if only we look close enough……

Prophecy and Preparation.

The Prophet Jeremiah appearing to be in thought in the Sistine Chapel
Originally uploaded by mikerogerssj.

I have been thinking a great deal lately about the definition of prophets as being the interpreters par excellance of the Law. As someone who has felt a certain amount of indignation as the injustices of our society as being contrary to God’s Law, as one who has felt called to and has taken prophetic action at the gates of military forts and the steps of the Capitol building in DC, as some one who feels called, genuinely called, to be who I am becoming, the thought intrigues me, because now I find myself in that place of preparation to become the person I was created in God’s image and likeness to be in a much fuller sense. The thought that the prophets were the interpreters of, and the truest experts about, the law implies that in order to make one’s calling fully present, if it is to prophecy, one must necessarily first know the Law.
I know many very good intentioned people who would like to think of themselves as living or acting prophetically. These can be very genuine people of very good will, but often times it seems that they have accepted various interpretations of the Law or various ideologies not their own, or perhaps they lack the discipline, drive, or desire to learn, for themselves, about the Law. It seems that they encounter God’s law only secondarily, or worse even in some tertiary light, and they never fully get it, their faith praxis becomes bound up with political positions rather than tenets of faith and pangs of conscience. For some, I have seen the actions they take as being prophetic to merely be salve on their white suburban guilt, something which makes them feel like one of the good guys in the light of all of the poverty and injustice that exists in the contexts of systems of which they, themselves, are the greatest beneficiaries. There is a real arrogance in their ignorance, because they don't realize the privilege that makes their choices easy. Often times for those people there is a real sense of belonging in a community of prophetic voices as well; and those who have no genuine vocation, or who would choose not to speak in the fullness of truth join a cause for the sake of their own comfort. There is simply something too comfortable, to blissfully ignorant, and falsely joyful, and while these are good people, they often do more harm than good, making genuine prophetic action trite and genuine concern meaningless. I know that if I am not careful, I can just as easily become one of these people, and perhaps have been tempted to be one at times.
The prophets, particularly Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and Hosea, teach us that there is no salve for the fire that burns in the bones of the prophets; there can be no quelling of guilt, or easing of shame. They are, in fact, consumed with a zeal for God’s word. This is a sign of a true prophet. That they learn for themselves what the truth is, until like Ezekiel and Jeremiah they devour the very word itself, and it becomes a part of their being. Every word read, every thought produced in that tabernacle of the mind where man encounters God brings forth a moment ripe with the expectation of revelation. It is not about what the prophet wants the law to say, it is about what the law says, what the Lord says, even if it convicts the prophet’s way of life, and the way of life of those around him. It cannot be about one particular issue, but rather about the law taken holistically, as worship and justice, love of God and love of neighbor, so intimately bound up in one another that they simply cannot be put asunder. The role of the prophet is to speak the truth, but first he has to know the truth, first he had to have studied it, and have had in emblazoned on his heart.
So it is with me, I want to follow God’s call, but I want it for real. Each of us called to priesthood is called to share in the ministry of Christ, called to act someday in his very person. If we view Christ as prophet, priest, and king, then we too are called to share in those offices, to act with that authority. So I study, so I engage what some who are in the business of acting prophetically view to be the obsolete academic life. In the end, it is that loving relationship between God and man worked out in the mind that is the only thing that can really change the world, my prayers enforce my thoughts, my thoughts inform my actions, my actions always lead me back to prayer, and so it begins again. I want to know the law so that when I act in the person of Christ as a priest in the Catholic Church I can act with the fullness of the prophetic office of Christ. As the ordination rite commands I want to know what I am doing… and in doing that serve the people of God in the fullest, most genuine love and concern, so that in that I can serve the one who created me to someday act as a prophet.

Coming Attractions....

Coming Attractions....
Originally uploaded by mikerogerssj.

Dreaming dreams can be a bit tricky sometimes, because we can dream for things which aren’t reality, or idealize things which just aren’t so ideal in reality. Such is the case with the discernment of my assignment to regency. As most people closer to me know by now, it looks like after I finish up here in St. Louis (hopefully) in May I will be heading to teach in a high school for the next three years, and I am actually really joyful about that possibility because it engenders a freedom I couldn’t have chosen for myself.

When the whole question of where my next assignment would be began to come up, there was some question that perhaps given my academic qualifications that I should go teach in a college. I went along with it, and was fairly puffed up and prideful about the opportunity, externally at least. Inside I was conflicted though, I felt a little bit of anxiety about not being ready, and about being a second class citizen at any higher education institution because of having only an MA. Now while an MA is good enough for a teaching assistantship at a big PhD granting university, most of the places I could have gone to work at pride themselves on being places where their faculty members all have terminal degrees. So I was nervous, at the very least, about that possibility. Meanwhile, I thought about going to a high school and felt calm and at peace at that opportunity. I felt like it was what I deep down wanted to do right now. Eventually maybe I would like to go back and work in Philosophy in higher education, but for now it just doesn’t seem to make sense. I couldn’t say that though, until my superiors said “let’s try high school” Which brings me to my point.

Sometimes we need help saying no to our pride to be really happy. There are things which we would try to do and commit the sin of presumption in attempting to do them in first place, simply because we’re not equipped to handle it at that point. I probably would have said yes to working in a college just to say “I teach at ___________ college” but been miserable for three years doing it. I wouldn’t have been happy simply because I am not sure I am ready to do that work yet. There was a strange and wonderful relief in the opportunity to work at a high school because I have done it, I have learned from my previous experience, and I know I can do it again. I think this is true for everyone too, sometimes we become so fixated on what we think the dream reality could be that we lose sight of the deeper realities. Sometimes, perhaps, we set up some sort of strange self image of what we think we should be, and we forget that what is most important is who we are, with all of our gifts, our talents, and even our shortcomings. We need, I need, to get away from that and just let ourselves be. When we can do that we become the gift God intended to give the world in bringing us into existence, with all of our abilities and shortcomings. To just be who we were created to be, to fulfill our vocation in the deepest sense, is to allow ourselves to experience radically that son or daughtership with God that Christ exeperiences in the Jordan “This is my beloved son on whom my favor rests…” That place of humility, that place where we can get past our own self aggrandizing deceit and get down to knowing ourselves more fully for who we are and in that we begin to experience ever deeper right relationship with a God who loves us.


So it looks like I will be coming to teach at a high school near you soon….. (that is of course if you live somewhere within the boundaries of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus)

The Dangers of Getting Greedy

The last one out has to turn out the lights at Fenway
Originally uploaded by mikerogerssj.

So I have to admit, I now expect that my beloved Red Sox, and my much admired Patriots will now always win, they will always make the postseason, and that now the next title is just around the corner…. And then I realized, good lord, I am becoming what I hate…. A sports fan in the style of one from New York.

You see, we were spoiled in the afterglow of 2004, when the Sox won the Series, the Patriots won the Superbowl, the banners at Logan Airport welcomed people to title town, God was in his temple, and all was well with the world. That was 2004, this is 2006.

I think I forgot that for 8 teams to make the playoffs, 22 other teams had to have their seasons end on October first. I remember now. I forgot that for many, many, years of my life that neither team made the postseason, and I think I forgot how much I despised people who had expectations like I now do. Now those people have returned with their smug grins and intolerable consoling “Well there’s always next year for you guys..” Growing up in Connecticut and along the Rhode Island Shoreline I grew up on the border of Red Sox Nation and the Evil Empire. I grew up in a place where fights would break out on playgrounds about what ball cap you were wearing, and where even our Yankee fan Cub Scout masters would taunt us poor Red Sox Fans, just a little. I grew up hating what it seems that I have to be careful not to become, or if I have become it, to now be humbled and eschew it.

Sometimes success blinds us to our past failures, and makes us forget what it was like when we were on the bottom. Sometimes the pride that one can take in success can make us forget deep down who we are, and how it is that we hurt and were humbled when we weren’t always succeeding. It’s an addiction, this success thing, and it becomes something we feel like we need to feel validated all of the sudden, as if the honor made the man, and not the man himself, or better yet God, in whose image and likeness man is made. We can’t rely on our success, or in this case the success of others who we live surrogately through, to make ourselves feel more alive, to feel better about who we are. That has to derive from that inner place that says “you know what, I am a child of God, God made me, and God doesn’t make garbage, in fact God only makes things that are good.” So it has to be with anything we do, we can’t measure self worth by success, but by love. We can’t measure self worth by honors, but by that deep sense of our own worth. It is at that moment that we can recognize ourselves as children of God and really, truly be free.

So the Sox season is done, sadly, disappointingly. That minor disappointment means less in the long run, if we can just remember who we are, and maybe that should be a new Mantra for the Red Sox organization, we’re not the Yankees, let’s not try to be. The season is done, that means that its time to dig in and do some schoolwork, and time to cheer for my other favorite team, anyone who will BEAT THE YANKEES.