Wednesday

Drove up to Montgomery today.

Gilbert, who has been cutting my hair since I was six, got me looking a little bit more human. He cuts hair out at Wynlakes, if any of you are in Montgomery and in need of looking fresh.

Then at noon I met up with the Pats.

Pat Arensberg and I are seminarians for the Archdiocese of Mobile. We have been studying together for the past three years in Rome. This coming October 6 the two of us will be ordained Deacons with the rest of our classmates at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. Needless to say we are pretty pumped.

Adding to the excitement and blessing of the event, we are organizing a pilgrimage for folks from the Archdiocese of Mobile to come over to Rome to share in the celebration. To organize this pilgrimage, we turned to another Pat Arensberg. This is the Uncle of the Seminarian Pat Arensberg. So, since we have started working on this, he has become "Uncle Pat."

Uncle Pat also spent some time in Rome in seminary--two years. During that time, he discerned that God was calling him to be a family man. The Lord has blessed him with a beautiful family in Mobile where he has taught Theology and coached football for several years now. Recently, however, he was made the Director of Religious Education for the entire Archdiocese.

Congrats Uncle Pat and Blessings as you make this big transition.

On the side over the past decade or so, putting his Roman experience to use, Uncle Pat has organized several pilgrimages for groups from Alabama and beyond. So naturally, Pat and I turned to him to arrange the pilgrimage surrounding our Ordination to the Diaconate.

Looks like we are going to have about 40 people coming to join us in Rome for 10 days and celebrate this great day in our lives! Looking forward to it.

Here are the two Pats

Got back to Enterprise just in time for some special prayers at St. John. For the past couple months, St. John's has increased its commitment to prayer. Every Tuesday morning, the Eucharist is exposed after 9AM Mass. From then until Wednesday evening, people in the parish sign up to come and spend one hour in prayer before our Lord. They make sure that someone is there every second during this time...even late into the morning....1am.... 3am.... 5am... always someone there. The idea is just to come and spend time with Jesus, like you would a good friend. To place yourself before Him, tell him what is on your mind and heart, and then just listen...just sit...just adore...just rest in his Presence.

Pretty awesome to see how this parish has responded to this new effort in prayer.

The prayer vigil concludes each Wednesday starting at 5 pm. At 5pm people gather to pray the Rosary. After that, Father comes and celebrates what is called "Benediction" in which a priest blesses his Congregation with Jesus present in the Eucharist. Right after that, they move right into Mass which finishes up about 6pm.

I have been encouraging the Youth to come by calling it the "RBM Challenge" (Rosary-Benediction-Mass). Despite my lame attempt at PR, about 3 of our Youth showed up today! I was so impressed by them. Several adults gather today as well such that we filled up our small Daily Mass Chapel. Nice.

Here is Father as he expresses our love for the Lord in the Eucharist by kneeling before and incensing it

Here, Father is blessing the Congregation as I incense the Eucharist expressing our Love and Thanksgiving for Christ...Emmaneul...being WITH us

Right after the RBM Challenge, we had Youth Group. It was my first time being with the Youth for one of their meetings & the first meeting of the summer. All things considered, I think it went pretty well. 9 girls and 1 guy showed up. Thanks Sean for boosting the male ratio!

Other guys...if you are reading this...come out next week. I mean come on...the odds are way in your favor....hahahha

Here are a few of their riveted faces. Probably right after my dynamic presentation. haha

Here are the readings from Mass today.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/072011.shtml

Interesting, today's OT reading and Psalm show how the Lord was preparing the way for the Eucharist even before the coming of Christ.

Check it out and see if you can make the connection

Aiight. That does it for today

Have a good one.

Peace