Christ is indeed King!

This past week has been both busy and typical... not really a whole lot to blog about in particular.

Today however, I hope everyone has had a royal feast day of Christ the King, to begin the last week of the liturgical season (can you believe Advent is coming up next Sunday? Ack!). Here at least the feastday has been quite the solemn occasion (using solemn in its original meaning of "sublime sobriety", not the dreary modern notion of the word!)

To begin our celebration, last night the seminarians of the house organized our usual Lord's Day evening (a tradition we have continued from back in the Twin Cities, with Saturday evenings spent in communal prayer and fellowship as a way to prepare for the coming Sunday, the Lord's Day). For the occasion we chanted Evening Prayer in a chapel wonderfully prepared for the coming of the King, incense billowing and candles blazing! Afterwards we had a wonderful dinner of something that is a rare find in this seemingly-beef-deprived country - juicy cheeseburgers!

This morning then, a few of us walked over to meet up with Fr. Carola in Piazza Farnese, to go with him to solemn Mass at the English College nearby (where the British seminarians have stayed since 1581!). We were met there by one of Fr.'s current seminar students, who was more than happy to show us around and tell us all about the history and legacy of the College (a very beautiful place I must say).

After Mass we all walked back up across the Tiber, it being "just another Sunday with the Pope" (as Fr. Carola put it), for the midday Angelus prayer. I am getting slightly better at praying the Angelus along in Latin, but I definitely still need to practice! Oh yeah, and if you're going to an Angelus, Fr. Carola is a good person to have handy, since he is able to give play-by-play translations of the papal messages in Italian, Spanish, French and German. Sweet!

So after our papal blessing for the day, we headed off to get some fab lunch (pranzo for you Italians) at a place owned by a friend of Fr. Carola's - another good thing to never say no to when Fr. Carola is around, any offers for dining. Like today, we had a great meal (spaghetti carbanara per mi) with delicious dessert and "vino novella" (new wine, from this season already!)... and the owner only charged us 5 euro apiece. O Happy Day!

Now, let's see... we've spent the rest of the day just relaxing on the Sabbath, watching a movie (Star Wars Ep III) and reading a bit, and soon to enjoy another community dinner here in an hour or so.

I pray that you all have had (are having? I always forget that time difference!) an equally enjoyable Sabbath day, wherever you are, and hopefully will have a wonderful week to conclude the year!