Archive
vocation Mass + Jubilee Rosary + 4 movies
VOCATION MASS – (Fr Manny) –the Miami seminarians were asked to serve this morning for a special vocations Mass on this feast of the Immaculate Conception. Afterwards, we helped serve refreshments outside the Main Chapel.
JUBILEE ROSARY – (Archbishop Favalora) — 7pm tonight was a Rosary with the Archbishop during this Jubilee Year Celebration of the Archdiocese of Miami here at our Main Chapel @ St John Vianney College Seminary. Beautifully done.
MOVIE DAY — today, I watched 4 movies throughout the day … The Muppet Christmas Carol … Back To The Future … The 5th Element … Rat Race … with L-Wendy’s & D-McNuggets … I have no explanation 🙂
dialectic + stoicism + Serra dinner
MASS – (Fr Joseph) — Francis Xavier – preach the Gospel … if necessary use words.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY – (Fr Santos) — Hegel’s “dialectic” … thesis – antithesis (“marker is NOT a turkey“) – synthetic. Look up Anthropic Principle = Hegel?
ANCIENT – (Fr Santos) — handout on Epicureanism & Stoicism. — I think I’ll do my reflection paper on Epicureanism.
SERRA CLUB DINNER – (Fr Manny) — the Miami Pre-Theologians (me) helped our vocation director at the annual Serra Club Dinner honoring Religious men & woman at St Martha Catholic Church next to the Archdiocesen Pastoral Center. — Great people, food and Christmas caroling!
3 people + yacht + multiple choir
MASS – (Fr Alvarez) — there are 3 kinds of people … those that live for things (most selfish) … those that live for ideas (most frustrated/ing) … those that live for people (most happy).
MODERN PHILOSOPHY – (Fr Santos) — intro on Kant.
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY – (Fr Santos) — discussed Aristotle‘s Nicomachean Ethics. What is true happiness? a yacht? … Virtue is connected with “habit” & “moderation”? … (for next time)
ARTS & IDEAS – (Fr Vallee) — today was our test for the Medieval Period. We were told (several times) that it would be multiple choice, matching & true/false. So, what was it? … fill in the blank and true/false. — must be yet another test in patience.
MIAMI MEETING – (Fr Manny) — the Arch of Miami seminarians had a meeting reviewing our handbook.
ORGAN CONCERT — 8pm tonight was “An Evening of Sacred Music” by St John Neumann Festival Choir (all volunteers) at our St Raphael’s Chapel. The event was done to thank all the benefactors who have financial assisted the seminary with various projects, especially the repair of our organ (damaged in a hurricane years ago). A beautiful choir performance, but I would have like to hear more organ (– or more cowbell).
bio-poem + Chinese food nite
OLD TESTAMENT – (Fr Michael) — discussed Major Prophets and practiced writing a Bio-Poem.
CULTURAL FOOD NIGHT — today was Chinese Food Night. — Great eating, even for the “Mail Men”!
DISCERNMENT GROUP – (Fr Manny) — a few of us Miami guys joined the monthly Miami Vocations Discernment Group on campus led by Miami Vocation Director Fr Manny Alvarez. Today was mostly older guys … great group of guys!
cemetery Mass
All Souls’ Day Mass today was with Miami Archbishop Favolora at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Cemetery in Doral, FL. A beautiful service and we visited the graves of Miami priests & bishops of the archdiocese. Our classes were cancelled for the day and we returned to finish setting up for tonight’s Vocation Awareness Weekend, where 50+ young men from all over Florida are considering the priesthood.
Divine Mercy Mass
MASS — today, the Miami seminarians were asked to serve/join Miami Auxiliary Bishop Estevez’s Mass for the spanish Divine Mercy Conference going on this weekend including some Sisters from Polish Saint Faustina’s order. A beautiful service. — I left my camera phone in my room … the pictures would have been nice.
Bishop funeral @ Cathedral
Today was the funeral Mass for Archbishop Ambrose Battista De Paoli, Priest of the Archdiocese of Miami and Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, at St Mary’s Cathedral. A beautiful Mass with bishop from the Vatican, pastors & priest (local & from abroad), religious and more.
St John Neumann + Jubilee Vespers
MASS – (Fr Michael) — Today was our monthly Sunday parish visitation. This week was 11am Mass at St John Neumann Parish in south Miami. All 64 of us seminarians were in the front rows in our black suits in a beautiful parish (tour of their parish on their website here). The homily highlighted the lives of both Pope John Paul II and the founding Archbishop Coleman Carroll. We stayed after Mass to talk with parishoner and were treated to lunch. — A great experience. Special thanks to Fr Carmelo Romanello for concelebrating the Mass.
JUBILEE VESPERS – (Archbishop Favalora) — today is the 49th birthday of the Archdiocese of Miami and the beginning of a yearlong celebration leading up to the 50th Jubilee of our diocese. At 4pm, the Miami seminarians joined Vespers (evening prayer for Liturgy of the Hours) at St Mary’s Cathedral led by the Archbishop. It was a beautiful service with clergy, religious and laity from all over the archdiocese praying vespers with cantors, organ & choir.
pre-T house blessing
Today, the Rector’s staff met with the Board of Trustees, who are mainly the bishops of Florida. Just before lunch, we had all the Pre-Theology guys and bishops at the 2 new off-site housing locations (1 block away) to be blessed. The picture I took of Rector Fr Michael and Archbishop Favalora blessing the grounds was located in the shared back yard of both duplexes. There’s still some detail to take care of (like adding grass), but the new residences look great.
Y.E.S. Retreat video
I can’t seem to install my Pinnacle video editing software on my laptop to finish editing the Y.E.S. Retreat video. I’ll have to finish it on break in October. Sorry for the delay, everyone!
For status of the Y.E.S. Retreat video, the MASTER LIST of YES event links is HERE.
Covenant House
I finally filled out the volunteer application for Covenant House, a Catholic shelter for homeless teens (under age 21) on Ft. Lauderdale beach. They’ve been looking to fill a “Pastoral Minister” position for years, but only recently found someone for the last couple of months. They organize spiritual activities like prayer services, council, Bible study, and take kids to church (of various faiths). It sounds like a difficult, but very necessary service for these teens.
After last months YES Retreat, which had a speaker from Covenant House, I decided to see if I could volunteer some time on the weekends, especially since our youth group is no longer active. While trying to get to the place today, the police had 2 blocks around the building blocked off — I thought it was a hostage standoff. Apparently, a dump truck driver knocked over some electrical poles and cause a major power outage. Of all days that I pick to go!
Just to top things off, I found out the new “Pastoral Minister” is leaving in a couple of weeks. — These kids just can’t get a break!
Y.E.S. Retreat video
I just finished editing DAY #2 and added 42 more pictures!
For status of the Y.E.S. Retreat video, the MASTER LIST of YES event links is HERE.
Miami seminary
I was looking on the Archdiocese of Miami website for a video of catholic military chaplains that is no longer on their video page (–I downloaded it last year). There is, however, a great little video about St. John Vianney Seminary in Miami (which I’m starting next month) called “A Call to Faith” (DSL or dialup).
While I continued searching the website, I found a great article from last year called, “The people of God deserve the best.” It’s an interview with Father Michael Carruthers, the new rector of St. John Vianney Seminary. He spoke about the quality and “wholesomeness” of the young men who are entering the seminary today. I found a profile on him as well as 24 other priests on another page called “Building the City of God.” Besides hearing some great homilies last November @ the “Seminary Vocation Weekend,” I personally met with Father Carruthers (as part of the application process) and was very impressed by his sincerity, encouragement and attentive ear. — he’s definitely someone I look forward to grow with.
YES pics available
Francis (Broward Youth Coordinator) from the Miami Office of Youth has posted some pictures from the Y.E.S. Retreat a couple weeks ago. All 11 pictures can be found here. This is just a reminder to me to GET THE VIDEO DONE! — Slacker
Review YES Retreat 2007
The Youth Enjoying Service (Y.E.S.) Retreat is a 5 day (June 6-10th) service project experience for high school teens from all over the archdiocese of Miami. It’s is held at the Madonna Retreat House in Hallendale. This year had a small (but very lively) group of 12 teens.
This blog post will be the master directory of all the events & pictures from the video in case the locations change. You can find most of the events on PAGE 3 & PAGE 4 of my archives, but the link to each event is below:
——————– Day #1 / June 6 / Wednesday ——————–
(evening) Welcome + “Human BINGO” + “4 Winds Blow” + Dinner (11 pics)
(talk) “Catholic Social Teaching” (4 pics) — by Gloria Luna
——————– Day #2 / June 7 / Thursday ——————–
(morning) Breakfast + Prayer + Leaving by Bus (3 pics)
(project) St Elizabeth Gardens arrival + games + lunch + BINGO (27 pics)
(dinner) “Class” Dinner (5 pics)
(talk) “Immigration” (2 pics) — by Sr. Ondina Cortes
(evening) End of day sharing + making lunch (6 pics)
——————– Day #3 / June 8 / Friday ——————–
(morning) Breakfast + Prayer (? pics)
(project) Providence Place (? pics) — women’s shelter
(free time) S.W.A.T. training (? pics)
(talk) Monica Santos (? pics)
——————– Day #4 / June 9 / Saturday ——————–
(morning) Breakfast + Prayer (? pics)
(project) Daily Bread Food Bank (? pics) — food pantry
(free time) Football (? pics)
(talk) Convenant House (? pics) — shelter for runaway teens
(talk) “Eucharist” by Bishop Estevez (? pics) — a great surprise visit
(dinner) Dinner (? pics)
(service) Commissioning (? pics)
(nightime) Dancing? + “Mission Impossible” (? pics & 1 video)
——————– Day #5 / June 10 / Sunday ——————–
(morning) Breakfast + Prayer (? pics)
(closing) Closing Mass (? pics)
——————— STATUS of VIDEO EDITING ———————-
July 18 — finished day #2 (35 minutes) – “Class” dinner, immigration,
sharing, & making lunch
July 17 — working on day #2 – finished aerobics & BINGO (10 minutes)
July 03 — working on day #2 – finished wheelchair races (14 minutes)
June 29 — finished editing day #1 (7 minutes). See pics on PAGE 4 (middle).
June 28 — I found a 2 minute video clip on my memorystick. See it here.
June 27 — added blog posts of retreat events (without pictures, yet)
Francis also posted pictures of the retreat on the Office of Youth website.
Y.E.S. D5: Closing Mass
To close day #5 of the Y.E.S. Retreat, families were invited to celebrate Mass.
[pictures coming soon]
NOTE: MASTER LIST of all Y.E.S. events & video status HERE.
Y.E.S. D5: Breakfast & Prayer
Day #5 of the Y.E.S. Retreat had breakfast & opening prayer.
[pictures coming soon]
NOTE: MASTER LIST of all Y.E.S. events & video status HERE.
Y.E.S. D4: Dancing?
Usually, on the last night of a retreat, nobody can sleep. Well, after 4 days on the Y.E.S. Retreat, this was no exception. Most got involved in an interesting version of “So You Think You Can Dance?” to grooves by Mixmaster “Upsidedowny” on the laptop. Since I only had 15 minutes of videotape left, I saved it for tomorrow’s Mass. I think that was God’s plan. 🙂
NOTE: MASTER LIST of all Y.E.S. events & video status HERE.
I found a 2 minute video clip (accidentally recorded on my memorystick) recorded by “Esmerelda” in the hallway at night just before lights out. I think they’re playing “Mission Impossible” or mountain climbing??? WARNING: If you get motion-sickness, this is not the clip for you. (12 MB in size)
Y.E.S. D4: Great Commission
On the last evening (day #4) of the Y.E.S. Retreat, we had a evening prayer service which included a commissioning service.
[pictures coming soon]
NOTE: MASTER LIST of all Y.E.S. events & video status HERE.
SJVCS Seminary Life Album
July '09 -- hospital chaplains @ IPF
Easter '09 -- Miami SJVCS friends
the Son always finds a break in let the clouds
Feb '09 -- school vocation talks @ AMHS
Feb '09 -- cold breakfast with brothers (Matias, Fenly & Randy), now at SVDP and Imad (at SJVCS)
Superbowl '09 -- eating great @ SJVCS
Sept '08 -- Worklist Coordinators?
St Raphael Chapel mural @ SJVCS
Sept '08 -- retreats @ SJVCS
"It's not easy being green"
Catholic Kermit 
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