At least some of us will be home for Christmas!

Friday night of the 4th week of Advent... Christmas Eve is tomorrow! All of us are going to the Midnight Mass at the Vatican, which means that a little more than 24 hours from now we'll be... in line. We've been told to get there hours early, as it will be a packed basilica. So that's future news, but first let me tell you what's been going on here the last couple of days.

As many of you know, in the Bernardi house this semester it was not just students from the Catholic Studies program, but the house also hosted a bunch of students from the University of St. Thomas' liberal arts program. It was definitely an experience for both groups, to be living together in one house - but I think it turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for all of us. I think many of them were surprised by our joyful living of the Christian life (and really took away some of that joy with them), and I think all of us were strengthened in living that faith, through their presence among us.

The liberal arts students had a shorter semester than us (they were on a "regular American" semester schedule, whereas the Catholic Studies program is integrated with the Angelicum's semester schedule), and so, bright and early this morning, at 4:30am, they loaded up onto a bus and headed off "home for the holidays." Such sorrow, the house is now half-empty!

Of course, all of us got up too in order to give them a hand and see them off! And of course, I have photos coming right up...

For all our Liberal Arts program friends, God bless and have a wonderful and joyous Christmas with your family back home - and throw a few snowballs for your snowless friends left behind. :)

Everyone, please keep our fellow students in your prayers, that they may come away from this unexpected encounter with a Catholic household with a renewed hope and desire to seek God, and that any spiritual seeds planted by their experiences here in Rome may, by the grace of God, continue to grow.