When 2 weekends ago talking with a friend I mentioned:
"Why shouldn’t we do a trilogy of the Lord of the Rings??
Everything in a row... starting in the morning and ending at night?"
The reactions were quite positive and hence the invitation followed...
The name of the operation: "Only the braves survive"!!
At my place with the superb help of Ana G. (computer and surround system) and Luis (with the projector) we set-up the scene in Zaventem...
Amazing picture at the wall and a fabulous thrilling sound... and more important great fellowship!
Everyone understood that this will be just a perfect session!!
Will we have the courage for a new session?
Planned Schedule:
10:30: People arriving prepared (for what some will call massacre and others paradise)
11:00: People at their seats (or better known as floor) prepared to see Movie #1: The Fellowship of the Ring
15:00: Lunch
15:45: People at their seats (or better known as floor) prepared to see Movie #2: The Two Towers
20:00: Dinner
21:00: People at their seats (or better known as floor) prepared to see Movie #3: The Return of the King
01:30 ad-journ
Slightly different from what happen, nonetheless, we catch-up pretty well the initial delay.
Luis had the great idea of taking pictures of our positions each 5 minutes on an automated camcorder… the result is the following (what I laughed!!):
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Easter and beyond...
Greetings,
Before I forget, I just wanted to write to wish you a pleasant spring and Happy Easter.
The past couple of weeks have seen us here at the Novitiate continue our study of the Constitutions of the Society, as well as the vows of chastity and obedience. We have continued to work in our apostolates. This past weekend, our superiors treated us to a weekend in Santa Barbara, due in part to the fact that the facilities at the novitiate were being used for an event.
Our house jobs have changed and now I am the beadle, as well as the brooms boss. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, the beadle acts as the liaison between his classmates and the superiors. He confers with the novice master every evening to prepare the daily ordo and if necessary, discuss any issues that have arisen and need to be addressed. The beadle also keeps the official log of all activities that have been going on in the novitiate, and when the superiors are not around, though this rarely happens, he is in charge. As for the brooms boss, he is responsible for keeping the common areas of the house clean, so that involves vacuuming, dusting, and trash removal.
In comparison to my previous jobs -- guest master, haustus rex, and music rex, these new jobs may be a step up or a step down, depending on how you look at it! Since December, I have been responsible for cleaning guest rooms, preparing snacks for any type of social gathering, and choosing what we would sing at liturgies.
On April 15, we will depart on our pilgrimages, and be on the road for about 3 weeks. There is really not a whole lot that I can say about that other than the fact that we will all be making individual journeys with limited resources. Pray for us if you're so inclined. I'll be happy to discuss the pilgrimages that my novice brothers and I make in my next message.
Until then...
Before I forget, I just wanted to write to wish you a pleasant spring and Happy Easter.
The past couple of weeks have seen us here at the Novitiate continue our study of the Constitutions of the Society, as well as the vows of chastity and obedience. We have continued to work in our apostolates. This past weekend, our superiors treated us to a weekend in Santa Barbara, due in part to the fact that the facilities at the novitiate were being used for an event.
Our house jobs have changed and now I am the beadle, as well as the brooms boss. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, the beadle acts as the liaison between his classmates and the superiors. He confers with the novice master every evening to prepare the daily ordo and if necessary, discuss any issues that have arisen and need to be addressed. The beadle also keeps the official log of all activities that have been going on in the novitiate, and when the superiors are not around, though this rarely happens, he is in charge. As for the brooms boss, he is responsible for keeping the common areas of the house clean, so that involves vacuuming, dusting, and trash removal.
In comparison to my previous jobs -- guest master, haustus rex, and music rex, these new jobs may be a step up or a step down, depending on how you look at it! Since December, I have been responsible for cleaning guest rooms, preparing snacks for any type of social gathering, and choosing what we would sing at liturgies.
On April 15, we will depart on our pilgrimages, and be on the road for about 3 weeks. There is really not a whole lot that I can say about that other than the fact that we will all be making individual journeys with limited resources. Pray for us if you're so inclined. I'll be happy to discuss the pilgrimages that my novice brothers and I make in my next message.
Until then...
Monday, April 09, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Vienna
Sat 14 Apr 2007 3673 Brussels-National (BRU) --> Vienna (VIE) 09:10 11:00
Mon 16 Apr 2007 3672 Vienna (VIE) --> Brussels-National (BRU) 06:50 08:40
Mon 16 Apr 2007 3672 Vienna (VIE) --> Brussels-National (BRU) 06:50 08:40
Monday, April 02, 2007
February at the Jesuit Novitiate (continuation from previous postings)
To all, Pax Christi,
The month of February flew by, and 10 days of that month were spent in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, as I mentioned that we would be doing in my last email. My brother novices and I stayed at Santa Clara University, one of the three Jesuit universities in California. From there, we were constantly on the move, visiting schools in San Jose, San Francisco, and Berkeley. The Jesuit School of Theology is located in Berkeley, otherwise known as JSTB, and is one of the two theologates located in the US, the other being in Boston. (A theologate, by the way, is where all Jesuit studying to be priests do their final studies prior to ordination.) We also stopped at the Sacred Heart Center in Los Gatos, a huge old building which used to house the novitiate for the California Province and is now used as the retirement center, visited various Jesuit parishes in San Francisco and San Jose, and the province retreat center in nearby Los Altos. Our tour ended in Sacramento, where we stayed and visited the Jesuit High School there. Of course, we did not head to Sacramento until I had given some of my brothers a tour of San Jose's Little Portugal, and enjoyed a little Portuguese cuisine...
The purpose of the tour was to get us new Jesuits to meet some of the other Jesuits in the province, and to perhaps get us to start thinking about where we might want to serve in the future. My trip led me to the conclusion that there will obviously be a lot of work to do in the future, due to the fact that many Jesuits are approaching retirement, and there are few young Jesuits around to replace them. I definitely felt attracted to the education apostolate. In the future, I may very well find myself working at one of those schools that I visited up north. But, as I may have shared with some of you, I still cannot see myself working in a parish in a regular basis.
We barely had time to catch our breath after our trip up north, when it was time to head to the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, an annual gathering of over 20,000 people (maybe 40,000, I can't remember exactly) in nearby Anaheim, right across the street from Disneyland. It can perhaps best be described as the largest Catholic Trade show in the U.S., probably in the world, with exhibitions and workshops on a variety of different topics. Us novices helped man a booth for the Jesuits, and that in itself was a lot of work, with the set up and the take down. We all returned from the event completely exhausted and happy that it was over.
So now, we will be here in Culver City, with the exception of a weekend in Santa Barbara to visit a Jesuit parish there at the end of March, until after Easter. My weekly apostolate at the elementary school in East LA has been going well, and has mostly involved me tutoring elementary school students in reading and math. This week, we finished our class on the vow of poverty, the vow which I like to describe as a "vow of detachment and indifference that leads one to freedom." One must be detached from material goods and the like, and therefore indifferent towards them, so that he can freely serve others. It does not mean that one live in poverty, but rather that one "preach in poverty," as St. Ignatius wanted. Next, we will move on to our study of the other vows and the Constitutions, and will be discerning our pilgrimage destinations. At the end of April, us novices will head out for three weeks on our own, on a symbolic journey to help us understand poverty better and deepen our trust in God.
For those of you observing the season of Lent right now, enjoy it...
Until next time...
The month of February flew by, and 10 days of that month were spent in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento, as I mentioned that we would be doing in my last email. My brother novices and I stayed at Santa Clara University, one of the three Jesuit universities in California. From there, we were constantly on the move, visiting schools in San Jose, San Francisco, and Berkeley. The Jesuit School of Theology is located in Berkeley, otherwise known as JSTB, and is one of the two theologates located in the US, the other being in Boston. (A theologate, by the way, is where all Jesuit studying to be priests do their final studies prior to ordination.) We also stopped at the Sacred Heart Center in Los Gatos, a huge old building which used to house the novitiate for the California Province and is now used as the retirement center, visited various Jesuit parishes in San Francisco and San Jose, and the province retreat center in nearby Los Altos. Our tour ended in Sacramento, where we stayed and visited the Jesuit High School there. Of course, we did not head to Sacramento until I had given some of my brothers a tour of San Jose's Little Portugal, and enjoyed a little Portuguese cuisine...
The purpose of the tour was to get us new Jesuits to meet some of the other Jesuits in the province, and to perhaps get us to start thinking about where we might want to serve in the future. My trip led me to the conclusion that there will obviously be a lot of work to do in the future, due to the fact that many Jesuits are approaching retirement, and there are few young Jesuits around to replace them. I definitely felt attracted to the education apostolate. In the future, I may very well find myself working at one of those schools that I visited up north. But, as I may have shared with some of you, I still cannot see myself working in a parish in a regular basis.
We barely had time to catch our breath after our trip up north, when it was time to head to the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, an annual gathering of over 20,000 people (maybe 40,000, I can't remember exactly) in nearby Anaheim, right across the street from Disneyland. It can perhaps best be described as the largest Catholic Trade show in the U.S., probably in the world, with exhibitions and workshops on a variety of different topics. Us novices helped man a booth for the Jesuits, and that in itself was a lot of work, with the set up and the take down. We all returned from the event completely exhausted and happy that it was over.
So now, we will be here in Culver City, with the exception of a weekend in Santa Barbara to visit a Jesuit parish there at the end of March, until after Easter. My weekly apostolate at the elementary school in East LA has been going well, and has mostly involved me tutoring elementary school students in reading and math. This week, we finished our class on the vow of poverty, the vow which I like to describe as a "vow of detachment and indifference that leads one to freedom." One must be detached from material goods and the like, and therefore indifferent towards them, so that he can freely serve others. It does not mean that one live in poverty, but rather that one "preach in poverty," as St. Ignatius wanted. Next, we will move on to our study of the other vows and the Constitutions, and will be discerning our pilgrimage destinations. At the end of April, us novices will head out for three weeks on our own, on a symbolic journey to help us understand poverty better and deepen our trust in God.
For those of you observing the season of Lent right now, enjoy it...
Until next time...
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