The Week in Review
Wow, this week is flying by... Seems I just got back from Florence and I'm already getting ready for our Saturday "field trip" to Assisi (yay - back to Assisi!!). The week has been hectic, and I'm sure all the next weeks will be too.
It's not so much that I have no time (though, yes, I am needing to be much better organized than I have been about using it!) but that there's just so much. I can't believe we've been here over a month (and over two months for me in Europe), there is so much that I am used to and at the same time so much that I don't know that I will ever be used to, like the prices of a pair of jeans over here (average price is at least 75-100 euro, like 100-150 dollars!). And that's before the tailor job (jeans are sold in one long length, you're expected to take them to a tailor to have them custom-hemmed to your size).
Classes continue to be awesome, particularly the two Theology classes I am taking. The Moral Theology class is like an avalanche of solid information (the good Fr. starts talking and doesn't stop until the break, with no repeats, and even then he can't tell us enough!) with all of us furiously taking notes as fast as possible -- but it isn't humanly possible to keep up with him. In other classes I might be more frustrated, but in this case I'm more disappointed that I can't keep up, it's all so good! If you want to see the difficulty that we have, check out this web page that (somehow, someway) has an entire collection of notes from Fr. Giertych's class -- boy were we glad to find this treasure online to help us fill in the gaps!
My other Ang class is equally wonderful as Fr. Giertych's class, but also in a completely different style, Spiritual Theology with Fr. Murray can basically be compared to a having a lovely block of time with a spiritual director every week. His focus is going to be on the Johannie tradition and understanding of the Spirit's life within us, of our prayer as the "manifestation of our baptism" in Christ... It is so beautiful.
One of these days I will post my notes from one of his classes. Maybe I will even post more, they're definitely good enough! There is a great talk by Fr. Murray available online here, on Recovering the Contemplative Dimension for anyone interested in seeing something of what our classes are like.
Anyway, life is going well as you can see. We are going back (well, back for me) to Assisi on this Saturday for a day-trip. (How's a picnic lunch on the Assisi hillside sound to you?) And then, on Sunday we are going to be at the big closing Mass at the Vatican for the end of the Year of the Eucharist (also a Canonization Mass for five Blesseds -- five newly declared saints on Sunday to learn about and see as models of the Christian life, five new prayer partners in heaven!). So, busy weekend... I might not get back here until early next week (but then again, I would love to get some of those notes up here for you, so I will try to do that tomorrow maybe...)
I still do not have a camera working, and I can't get my pictures off my old dead camera yet -- however I am hoping to get a new camera ordered and brought over by the parents of one of the seminarians here by Halloween. Here's to hoping!
It's not so much that I have no time (though, yes, I am needing to be much better organized than I have been about using it!) but that there's just so much. I can't believe we've been here over a month (and over two months for me in Europe), there is so much that I am used to and at the same time so much that I don't know that I will ever be used to, like the prices of a pair of jeans over here (average price is at least 75-100 euro, like 100-150 dollars!). And that's before the tailor job (jeans are sold in one long length, you're expected to take them to a tailor to have them custom-hemmed to your size).
Classes continue to be awesome, particularly the two Theology classes I am taking. The Moral Theology class is like an avalanche of solid information (the good Fr. starts talking and doesn't stop until the break, with no repeats, and even then he can't tell us enough!) with all of us furiously taking notes as fast as possible -- but it isn't humanly possible to keep up with him. In other classes I might be more frustrated, but in this case I'm more disappointed that I can't keep up, it's all so good! If you want to see the difficulty that we have, check out this web page that (somehow, someway) has an entire collection of notes from Fr. Giertych's class -- boy were we glad to find this treasure online to help us fill in the gaps!
My other Ang class is equally wonderful as Fr. Giertych's class, but also in a completely different style, Spiritual Theology with Fr. Murray can basically be compared to a having a lovely block of time with a spiritual director every week. His focus is going to be on the Johannie tradition and understanding of the Spirit's life within us, of our prayer as the "manifestation of our baptism" in Christ... It is so beautiful.
One of these days I will post my notes from one of his classes. Maybe I will even post more, they're definitely good enough! There is a great talk by Fr. Murray available online here, on Recovering the Contemplative Dimension for anyone interested in seeing something of what our classes are like.
Anyway, life is going well as you can see. We are going back (well, back for me) to Assisi on this Saturday for a day-trip. (How's a picnic lunch on the Assisi hillside sound to you?) And then, on Sunday we are going to be at the big closing Mass at the Vatican for the end of the Year of the Eucharist (also a Canonization Mass for five Blesseds -- five newly declared saints on Sunday to learn about and see as models of the Christian life, five new prayer partners in heaven!). So, busy weekend... I might not get back here until early next week (but then again, I would love to get some of those notes up here for you, so I will try to do that tomorrow maybe...)
I still do not have a camera working, and I can't get my pictures off my old dead camera yet -- however I am hoping to get a new camera ordered and brought over by the parents of one of the seminarians here by Halloween. Here's to hoping!
posted by Maria Neva @ 10/20/2005 10:11:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home