Friday, May 19, 2006

End of semester musings

As I was walking back from my last final of the semester, I was two deer come running from behind our house and cross the bottom of the little cul de sac where we live. It was quite an unexpected sight, especially in broad daylight (the only other time I saw deer was about three weeks ago, around 10pm).

It is interesting to see the classes of '56 and '81 come back to campus. Today, the class of '56 served for the Liturgy and I don't remember if there were six or seven priests, but at some point it struck me: put together, they had over 300 years of priesthood among them.

Finally, I had been "wondering" about this for a while. If, while here, we are semi-narians, do we, at graduation, become full narians?

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Musical Beginnings

This semester, a few of us students and spice (plural of spouse, obviously) got together to begin an a-capella ensemble here at Holy Cross. On Thursday we teamed up with several of the campus children who had been taking violin lessons and we had a concert. I have to admit that I had been rather worried about pulling it off, but in the end it turned out pretty well (and I am saying this not having seen the recording one of the parents made - I might change my mind after seeing it).

The program for the first concert of the HC/HC Chorale:

An Die Musik - Franz Schubert
Salve Regina - Franz Schubert
The Last Rose of Summer - traditional
Nobody Knows - traditional
Rejoice, O Virgin - Rachmaninoff

Here's to many more!

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Seminary life

I have one more year here, so it may be a bit early to start thinking of things I will miss once I'm gone, but this is definitely one of them: coming home from chapel with one seminarian or another and, as we go to our apartments on different sides of the street, shouting "Christ is risen" in as many languages as we can remember.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Brief update

It's been a hectic three weeks or so. Holy Week was truly blessed. We were in Pensacola, FL at the Annunciation Church. Magda felt right at home back in the South, the people were friendly and very active in church life, the church itself was beautiful, and the weather was ideal. Thank God for such a week and many thanks (which will hopefully be put into writing this weekend) to everyone in Pensacola.

Bright week was a continuation - I was on chant duty at the school, so I think I have a pretty good handle on the (quite different) services of that week. This week, I'm trying to get ready for a choir concert this coming Thursday and looking towards finishing up the semester.

I hope that by next weekend things will have cleared up a bit, so blogging can be slightly more regular and more substantive. We shall see.