Climbing “Mount Bond” was a challenge that I always lost but never stopped trying to conquer while growing up. The closest I got in my attempts were smoothly ordering a “Coca-Cola, two cherries, no ice” when going out to restaurants, my own underage version of the famous vodka martini… I know, I know, you only wish you could be THAT cool.

There’s no such thing as a normal life, Wyatt. There’s just life.”
- Val Kilmer (as Doc Holiday), Tombstone

I myself am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions; I much prefer Lent when it comes to endeavors of personal improvement. For Catholics, the practice of sacrificing something of value for 40 days is like a New Year’s resolution, except with teeth.

With a pork burrito in my hand, a song in my heart, and Fudgie the Whale back in my life, I am feeling generous, so I agree to partake in the survey. The first question: why did I leave USAA?

The following is a continued account of my first year in seminary with the Paulist Fathers.

Holy Thursday 2006 was spent in a bar. The screen writing class I had been taking finished its six week run and we all decided to go out for a beer. After the evening was through, the instructor of the class (Jim) and I were walking to our cars. He had graduated film school a few years ago and was working during the day for a wine store while working on some projects, one of which he was in the midst of finishing for a producer in Hollywood.  As it happened, I was heading down to DC to visit American University Film Program in the morning, and I wanted to pick his brain about graduate school possibilities.

The conversation started at “career” advice but got around to where he’s at in his life—specifically whether he should continue pursuing film or start settling down. Jim was seeing somebody pretty seriously and he realized that he was soon going to have to make some decisions. I’m a few years older than him and I told him of some of my experiences of trying to live out dreams within the context of living a “normal” life and suggested that there might be ways to do both.

I went home after that and hopped on the computer before going to bed. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail… and ex-girlfriend no less… about a new television show that was going to be on that weekend: God or the Girl. The show is a four part series about four young men going through the discernment process for the priesthood, and at the end of the series they would each come to a decision. Gerry, knowing that discerning had been a big part of my life a few years ago sent me a link to the web site with the subject line, “Are you going to watch?”

Discerning religious life had been a big part of my life for over ten years, but two years before I had finally come to the …

On the day I was to serve as an acolyte for the first time, I was nervous. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, the acolyte is essentially an altar server. But I was nervous because while I believe I have been given many gifts in life, hand and foot coordination has not traditionally been one of them; to this day small beads of sweat roll down my forehead whenever I’m at a wedding and the DJ busts out “The Electric Slide.” Granted, assisting the presiding priest during Mass is a little different from taking a step forward, taking a step back, wiggling your tush, and turning to the side… but from what I’ve seen from the pews, it’s not different by much.

Fortunately the priest who would be presiding that evening was very patient with me. So as I fumbled around with getting all of the “equipment” set up ahead of time, he took some time out to guide me through the process. He began by telling me, “You’ll need to get the Paten from this shelf; put some hosts in the Paten…”

“You mean the dish? Put the bread in the dish?”

The priest stared at me for a VERY long moment; he rightly intuited that I was going to be a bigger liturgical challenge than he had initially anticipated. Finally, he replied “Yes” and continued.

He went on to describe the need for the Corporal to be folded in a particular manner, the Purificator to be placed near the chalice… and as he went on I became increasingly confused. I was expecting a Purificator to be an android that might do battle with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the T-2000. It turns out to be a simple white cloth… NOT to be confused with ANOTHER white cloth called the Corporal: it’s relationship to Corporal Max Klinger on M.A.S.H. I have still yet to discover.

Intuiting my mounting confusion, the presiding priest started to simplify the process for me. “Basically, what you are doing is setting a table. So you do whatever you …

Where I grew up, there really was a danger of grandma getting run over by a reindeer.

Fifteen years ago I was living in Phoenix Arizona and my mother—someone who was born in Brooklyn New York and has only thee times in her life crossed the Mississippi River—wanted to know what “IT” would be like.

“IT” was, of course, Christmas… and I knew exactly what she was talking about. The ninety-degree December in Arizona did not square with holiday landscapes created by the Frosty The Snowman, Jingle Bells, and Marshmallow World. Rather, the countryside described by Bing Crosby in White Christmas closely resembled the small New Jersey town I knew as a child. Where I grew up, there really was a danger of grandma getting run over by a reindeer. And if that wasn’t enough, the place where all of the cool holiday moves seemed to take place—New York City—was a mere ninety minutes away; Rockefeller Center and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade were considered to be next door neighbors.

So it was that year in the Phoenix desert when I had to come face-to-face with the expectations I had about Christmas as opposed to the reality of Christmas…
 my expectations of what Christmas was supposed to be and what it really was.

Granted, that year the only gap I had to deal with involved the difference between grainy sand and soft-falling snow… but the truth is we all have to do that. For the past four to six week, we have been fed this steady diet of wintry perfection, family harmony, and holiday bliss. This sense of a “magical” season is so pervasive that even Elvis once asked—in all of his Elvis-ness—”Why can’t everyday be like Christmas?” He sings that, of course, because Christmas is a special time. But as special as the time can be, for a lot of us Christmas is a mixed bag.

I don’t know about you, I don’t think my waistline or my glucose levels could handle it if every day was really like Christmas. It is of course a time of coming together… …

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.”
- Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Almost Famous

After the road trip ended in September 2006 and we arrived back at St. Paul’s College in Washington, DC, I began to see what one of my bigger struggles would be during my time here: my Inner Fonzie.

My Inner Fonzie is that part of myself that should have been left behind when I accepted my High School diploma. But just when I think of myself as a mature adult, there’s the Fonz, hanging around my psyche like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t all bad – he makes sure I stay up to date on the latest Bon Jovi albums and still employ the phrase “jiggy with it” as much as possible to maintain my street cred. (I know what you’re thinking, but I said “Inner Fonzie,” not “Inner George Clooney.”) But he’s also the guy who tells whispers in my ear to, no matter what, stay cool… even though he hasn’t always proved to be the counsel.

I mention this because it was just beginning to hit me just how much of a unique sub-culture seminary really is. Words like “Presbyteral,” “Ecumenical,” and “Novice” were slowly entering my everyday vocabulary; words that when they slip out of conversation with “lay people” (another unique word) earn me funny looks from those outside of the jungle. My Inner Fonzie was giving me funny looks as well; he was starting to look nervous that the jukebox he likes to lean against is slowly but surely being filled with Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith songs. He subtly let me know that the chicks won’t dig it if I genuflect too much in Mass… please don’t ask me why that’s still important to me.

But I also like to think that he is trying to keep me grounded in the midst of all of this Catholicism on steroids—indeed, I was trying to keep a certain mental detachment …

This continues a series of entries that describes the time when I first entered seminary in the Fall of 2006.

Leaving Chicago, I am in a bit of a mood. Learning that Fr. John left the community served as a reminder that my reasons for resisting priesthood all of these years extended well beyond prohibitions against kissing Marie again, let alone anyone else. This is a hard time to become a priest; the ten years I spent in putting off this decision give testimony that I am all too aware of this fact. I had been able to put the issue of declining vocation numbers out of my head after a few days of this trip, but hearing about some of the stretchers being carried off the same battlefield I am about to march onto has brought those concerns to the fore once again.

So before hopping into the van, I grab a USA Today. Yes, I know the USA Today is the journalistic equivalent of McDonald’s, but given that the primary source of nutrition along the highways we have been traveling consists of the golden arches, it seems vaguely appropriate. Besides, my head is tired and needs a break… I’m in no mood for something that will make me think.

This was a good day to pick up America’s Most Read Newspaper; Section D features an excerpt from a new book on the history of U2. This piece described the making of the album Achtung Baby, one of my favorite albums from college. Because they were breaking new musical ground, the band was having a hard time; they kept smacking their heads against the wall in trying to make the new album, almost to the point where a few of them started to wonder if they were going to break up. During that time, U2 was invited by the Dalai Lama to participate in a Tibetan festival.

Bono related in the book, “I love and respect the Dalai Lama but there was something a little bit ‘let’s hold hands’ hippie to me about this particular …

Today I am going to do something out of the ordinary and talk about a Gospel Reading that we didn’t read today.  In the gospel of Luke, we read:  And to another said, ‘Follow me.’  But replied, ‘(Lord,) let me go first and bury my father.’  But [Jesus} answered him, ‘Let the dead bury their dead.  But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a light burden to me.

When this is the daily reading the person in my position has to—at some point—get up here and say that we shouldn’t take Jesus literally.  And I have to confess, whenever I’ve been the person sitting in the pews and I’ve heard, “No, Jesus didn’t mean it that way,” I sometimes wonder if the priest is just trying to soften things up so as to not upset too many people.  I wonder if the path of Jesus IS AS rigid as it sounds and if there really is little room for error.   I’ve wondered if the yoke really is easy and the burden light… but then I encountered a story which has shown me why this is so.

Next week we will celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe… but today we celebrate the humble servant who encountered her, Saint Juan Diego.   As the story goes, the poor laborer encountered the Virgin Mary on Tepeyac Hill as he was walking one day.  She asked Juan to tell the bishop to build a church on that site.  The bishop was skeptical, so he asked Juan to bring proof of the Lady’s identity.  We know the rest of the story; Juan went back to the bishop, roses fell out of his tilma, and the image of Our Lady was discovered.  The church was built and continues to be a place of pilgrimage in Mexico to this day.

But let’s back up to a point before Juan made his famous visit to the bishop.  Before Juan could go back to Our Lady after his first visit with the bishop, he found out …

This continues a series of entries that describes the time when I first entered seminary in the Fall of 2006.

I’m thinking that my earlier college analogy doesn’t feel quite right; this time of my life feels more reminiscent of the years I spent after college as a full time volunteer. The adventure of meeting new people, having a fairly open schedule, being able to do work that directly matters, and seeing new places… for some reason, the times in my life when I have had the least amount of money have also been the times when I have seen more of the world; this new chapter in my life is proving to be no exception.

I do feel more “plugged in” than I have felt for, well, nine years. When I moved back to Baltimore nine years ago to resume a “normal life” after the challenges of full time ministry had burned me to a pretty fine crisp, I felt that it was important to unplug from activities involving religion and saving the world. I’m very glad that I did, both for the experiences I’ve had in the worlds of working, dating, and mortgages as well as because that time made me a much more complete person. Yet I do have to confess that during those in-between years, there had always been a part of me that had been missing the “old life.”

We met Father Rick in Chicago, who himself was a novice last year. Having served as a parish priest for roughly 20 years in Virginia, he joined the Paulists as a novice last year and was sent to Chicago half way through the year. While I can say that practically all of the Paulists I have met so far have turned out to be really solid, down to Earth guys (and trust me, I am not grading on a sliding scale for “down to Earth”). But Fr. Rick was especially great to talk to because he is someone on both sides of the fence in the process; a full-fledged priest who is also …

There are many days when I lament celibacy.  Valentine’s Day is one of those days.  The release of the SI Swimsuit Issue is another day.  But while watching holiday movies Thanksgiving night and being subjected to commercial after commercial about husbands and boyfriends buying their significant others jewelry that’s ON SALE for $5,000, a deep wave of satisfaction covers my being.  On this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to be single.

Seriously, what family sits sits around the dinner table and comments “He went to Jareds!”  Dude, if you ever visit your woman’s family and they know what jewelry store you went to, saw that ring off of her finger and get out while you can.  If I ever do change my mind about this priesthood gig, I am going to do my ring shopping somewhere else, just so people around the holiday table can look at my fiancee’s ring and say, “He went to Costco!”

Not that I myself have not been swept up by the spirit of the season.  The Pope is coming to Washington, DC in April and if our paths do cross, I have a question for him: Why do we call the day our Lord and Savior was killed Good Friday and we call the day with the most totally awesome day of shopping deals Black Friday? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

I have been keeping dutiful watch on the upcoming Black Friday deals online – when talking about getting up early, my dutiful sister reminded me of the homily we heard just hours before.
when describing my plans. And I know, Wal Mart is evil… but I am now on a budget. The thing is, I don’t know what is expected of me in terms of Christmas presents. Now that I am in seminary and “earning” $240/month, I think it’s understood that lavish gifts are not required of me.  At the same time, long before I chose to follow God’s call of biblical simplicity, I could sometimes be …

In the interests of being topic, this post describes one of the first Thanksgivings I spent with the Paulists and the very special day that came after it.

I’m kind of a four trick pony in the kitchen. As it happens, three of those tricks revolve around Thanksgiving Day, so I volunteered to cook again this year for the big Thanksgiving feast along with another student. We were the same duo that cooked the feast last year and we compliment each other well. I make the turkey, sweet potato casserole, and homemade cornbread stuffing; he makes the greens, mac and cheese, oatmeal cookies, corn pudding, and spiral ham. If you have been taking notes, you will notice that all of the food items listed are brown; even the inconvenient color of the “greens” is rectified by cooking them in grease and stirring in large quantities of ham.

Because dinner is at noon, we have to get up at 4:30 in order to put the turkeys in the oven. It has been tradition of mine to listen to Frank Sinatra during Thanksgiving prep, so after the turkeys are in the oven I put on the “Franks Thanks” playlist on my iPod and start on the homemade stuffing. The corn bread was made the day before so I get the rest of the ingredients together. My recipe calls for 2 cans of evaporated milk. This leaves me perplexed – if it’s evaporated, shouldn’t the can be empty? It’s too early in the morning to ask that question, never mind the paradox of “non-fat” BUTTER-milk. I mean… you know… isn’t butter essentially fat?

Mass is at 10, about 2/3 of the way into cooking preparations. We don’t really have time to change into something more presentable, so we rush upstairs not completely covered in flour. My superior is presiding, and during his homily he reads a homily given one Thanksgiving by his good friend Joe Gallagher. After reading Joe’s homily, my superior concludes with his own thanks – because he had already prepared a homily before he found Joe’s, he would not have to write a …

Sorry it has been so long in between posts – the pastor at the church in which I am currently stationed passed away suddenly this week.  Please keep the soul of Fr. Jim Wiesner in your prayers.

This continues a series of entries that describes the time when I first entered seminary in the Fall of 2006.

From Oak Ridge, NJ we head for Columbus, Ohio on the second part of our Northeast Road Trip. This is my first time to Ohio – looks about the same as Pennsylvania. We did drive alongside a big pile of coal along side Route 80 outside of Youngstown. As a tribute, I put on the Bruce Springsteen song “Youngstown” about the miners who lived there—man, Bruce just travels everywhere.  We are now driving under a road sign for Lodi, which brings to mind the Credence Clearwater Revival song “Lodi.” When I first heard it I thought they were referring to New Jersey; now I’m struck with the reality that maybe that’s not the case. Add that to the list of areas in which my faith is being challenged.

What I know of Ohio is mostly from the 2004 election.  I know that I am going to have to resist the temptation to grab random citizens of the Buckeye State by the shirt and shake them while shouting “Why?? WHY did you vote for that stupid man!?!?  It’s all YOUR fault!!!” However, I fear that would make me an odious and ungrateful guest, so I collect the energy to refrain.

In Columbus, Ohio is the University of Ohio, where the Paulists run the Newman Center there. Newman Centers, for those of you who don’t know, are like Catholic parishes on college campuses. The Paulists run several (but certainly not all) of the Newman Centers throughout the country, including University of Tennessee, University of Texas (Austin), and UC Berkeley. I have to admit that it’s one of the things that attracted me to the Paulists is their work on college campuses. I also have to admit (and might be evident by those who know me well) that …

This continues a series of entries that describes the time when I first entered seminary in the Fall of 2006.

I know that this is going to sound dumb to some, but one of the things I had an issue with when I went to seminary is that I would be going back to a twin bed.  I’m 34 years old and downgrading to a twin bed – it might be YEARS before I ever sleep in at least a full size mattress again, to live again like that group of people commonly referred to as “grown-ups.”

There may be some people out there thinking, “Why would YOU need a double bed? (heh heh heh)”  Well, I know people who have no hope of scoring in this decade and yet have at least a full size bed, so shut up.

After I finished my years of volunteering out west a few years ago, I was sleeping in the same bed I grew up in: a twin.  Because that’s the time I had started wrestling with feelings about religious life, I felt my life was in a kind of limbo and I was reluctant to make any big purchases I would have to dump in a year or two anyway.  Eventually, during one of the frequent times when I thought—thought—that I was winning the debate against God as to whether or not priesthood was in the cards, I decided to buy a full-size mattress; it was a lower-end model (just in case) but full size nonetheless.  Of course the salesclerk at the store after learning how much I was looking to spend said, with a raised eyebrow and a smirk on her face, that it was a good bed to buy if I was just going into college.  I still fantasize about meeting her sometime in the future when she is gravely ill and denying her last rites.

After our visit to the New York house, we head back to the retreat center in Oak Ridge, New Jersey where we are staying.  And although I am …

This continues a series of entries that describes the time when I first entered seminary in the Fall of 2006.

It’s probably appropriate that when I crawled downstairs during the early morning hours of Good Friday in April 2006, Jerry MacGuire was on.  I’ve never known how quite to describe preceding two hours; some people might call it “metanoia” (a word I had never even heard before until recently), others just a straight conversion experience.  For me, the only language I have been able to come up with to describe what was going on within me is taking the decision of Tom Cruise’s character to write a mission statement, Kevin Costner’s hearing of a voice in the cornfield, and then pressing the “puree.”  Except at the end of this movie, I realized that the time had come to finally join the priesthood.  This was opposed to shacking up with Renee Zellweger or building a baseball field, two options that actually would have ranked higher on my list.

As with all things in life, this particular evening did not happen in a vacuum; I had been experiencing taps on the shoulder about religious life for roughly ten years before my sleepless night, but effective guideposts for discernment during those previous ten years had been few and far between for me. Most stories I encountered fell into one of two categories. The first involved people who always wanted to be a priest and grew up playing with “Lives of the Saints” action figures. The second category usually featured somebody waking up one morning laying face down in a pool of his own vomit next to “Circus Circus” on the Las Vegas strip, suddenly realizing he needed Jesus.  I fell into neither category. On the one hand, my action figures growing up usually featured light sabers, not rosary beads. On the other hand, I never lost my soul in Las Vegas… only $500.

It’s not as if popular culture understands the process of discernment either. Dr. Phil doesn’t devote a lot of programming to people hearing THE VOICE OF GOD, and when he does aluminum …

This is the first in a series of entries that describes the time when I first entered seminary in September of 2006.

“Now I know that rose trees never grow in New York City…”

I find myself standing in front of the Carousel in Central Park in part because of a sleepless night six months ago; it was a sleepless night in which I heard THE VOICE OF GOD telling me that it was (finally) time to enter seminary. I know, I know; some of you might be asking how I knew that it really was THE VOICE OF GOD telling me that it was time to quit my job as a web developer, sell my house, and eventually have a very complicated conversation with Marie. Even if the fact that this night happened on Holy Thursday is merely a coincidence, I just ask you to assume right now that THE VOICE OF GOD was indeed speaking to me… and in return I promise not to suggest that unless one million dollars is raised for my university, I will be “called home.” Because what is more important than any personal need for head ware made out of Reynolds Wrap is the fact that I am stunned to be back at the Carousel in Central Park starting my first year in a religious community… and not going ring-shopping.

“Seminary” is actually in Washington, DC, but we are now on the first stop of a three-week road trip to visit other parishes of my new community, the Paulist Fathers. First stop: St. Paul the Apostle, the Paulist mother house located two blocks form Columbus Circle in mid-town Manhattan. The second largest Catholic Church in New York City, it is a gorgeous building dating back to the 1870s. It’s where the founder of the Paulists, former New England Transcendentalist Isaac Hecker, is buried. But it’s really known for being the place where Regis Philbin was baptized.

However I have not yet adjusted to spending every waking moment in a building with …

From time to time, I will be including homilies I am currently giving at my pastoral assignment in Austin.  Below is the one I gave today to commemorate the Feast Day of Martin of Tours as well as Veterans Day.

91 years ago in 1918, on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” a cessation of hostilities was signed between the Allies of the Western front and Germany, thus ending World War One. The War at the time, was known as the “War to end All Wars” because it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history… it was so bad that the citizens of the world said at the time that war was such an atrocity that it could not ever be allowed to happen again.

Perhaps coincidentally, November 11 is also the day we celebrate the Feast of Martin of Tours.   Born in the early 300s, his father was a Roman Soldier and he was named after Mars, the God of War.   He eventually became a soldier as well, but then early in life he had a conversation experience in which he maintains that he encountered Christ in the appearance of a beggar.  Soon after this experience, he determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, “I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.”

One of the reasons we remember Martin of Pours is because his life represents a transition from a condition of war, to a condition of peace.  And after World War One ended, President Woodrow Wilson establish November 11 as a national holiday to honor a day in which a similar transition from condition of war to a condition of peace was made: Armistice Day.  The day in America would eventually become known, of course, as Veterans Day in order to honor and thank all of those who have served our country in the armed forces, in order to honor all of those who put themselves in harms way to preserve our safety and our freedom.

The freedom and the safety we have received from these men and women as well as their …

I have never technically been a New Yorker.  Even though my parents both grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Northern New Jersey—the half of the Garden State that roots for the Yankees and knew Al Roker long before he moved downstairs to the Today Show—full membership into the Big Apple was always for me a distant beacon that loomed past the horizon… much like Karl Rahner’s description of the experience of God.  For me, it was not until I would be required to memorize subway routes in order to plan a regular morning commute could ever I hope to become a part of the club that understood Seinfeld on a deeper level.

But on a sunny morning this past May, I woke up to car horns and the magical smells of the breakfast cart five stories below… yes, I find ham and egg sandwiches magical.  Later in the day I asked three different guys which place in the neighborhood had the best thin-crust pizza… and got five different answers.  On the way to suggestion number four, I passed by a bar in which the Yankees were playing.  Do you have any idea how long it has been since I have lived in a city that roots for the Yankees?  Answer: too long. And all of this “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” was happening in my new mid-town Manhattan address: St. Paul the Apostle.

At this writing, I am at the halfway point of my formation towards priesthood: three down, three to go.  In the previous three years with the Paulists I have shopped in independent record stores in Berkeley, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, eaten gelato in front of the Pantheon in Rome, and visited Graceland.  In between these adventures I have been praying, studying, and discerning what the life of a priest might mean for me.  And the last two words of the previous sentence were added intentionally: “for me.”

There has been a charmed aspect of “unreality” in my formation thus far; an unreality I have certainly enjoyed but on some …