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Fr Joseph Kottayil
At the end of this morning’s Mass, we recognized the celebrant, Fr Joseph Kottayil, for his priesthood and brotherhood here at St John Vianney College Seminary. He is one of our “in house” Spiritual Directors. The Student Council, this year, decided to keep, in an extra-special way, a different priest of the house in our prayers each month. Last month, September 2008, we all focused on Fr Joseph. This month, it is Fr Santos. — Thank you, Fr Joseph, for you!
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Father Joseph Kottayil was born April 1, 1959, in Kerala, the most Catholic state of India, he is the fifth of seven children. Ordained Dec. 23,
1979, he came to the United States in 1990 and worked at St. Agnes Parish in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y. The cold winter did not suit him, however, so a priest friend invited him to come to South Florida. Since 1991, he has served at St. Coleman Parish in Pompano, St. Maximilian Kolbe in Pembroke Pines, St. John Neumann in Kendall and St. Catherine of Siena in Miami. On July 1, 2002, he was named pastor of the newly-created Blessed John XXIII Parish in Miramar. Today is a permanent “in house” Spiritual Director at St John Vianney College Seminary in Miami, FL
For more info, see some personal question & answers on the Archdiocese of Miami HERE.
Sign on his desk: “Be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.”
puzzling life + guardian angels
MASS – (Fr Alvarez) — Life is like a puzzle. When we’re young, it has big pieces and the picture is easy to put together. As we get older, however, the pieces get smaller, more numerous and the picture gets more complicated. We can only get so far on our own. We start struggling through confusing pieces, forcing pieces, missing pieces and trying to do too many puzzle at the same time. Eventually [hopefully], we acknowledge our need for help to see the bigger picture of our individual lives that God has planned for us.
Discovering God’s Will for our lives is what each of us should strive for daily. That’s better said than done however. When we have an “extra challenging” calling to a possible vocation, therefore, the busyness of our lives demands a extra-ordinary move to “remove yourself” to more intense “discernment” process like the seminary here. Am I called the the priesthood? the religious life? permanent diaconate? married life? single life? Even in the seminary, however, there come distractions that keep you from exploring the question honestly with yourself. I guess that’s why we have Spiritual Directors to help clarify your personal puzzle while the Seminary Formation Team help your puzzle grow into its fullest potential, assuming everyone involved is looking at the right picture. Discernment and formation may sound simple and easy, but I don’t think either word should be used if the puzzle is truly taken seriously … serious enough to stop calling it a puzzle … and embrace it as “MY LIFE” that God drew just for me … with images I don’t want to see … that the Lord reveals as I become open to accept … and ultimately live for His glory … knowing it brings joy … while short-sightedly focusing on the fuzzy gaps that fear clouds in doubt. [this last line took an hour to write]
Today’s feast day for “Guardian Angels” reminds me of yet another voice I have access to but don’t give an ear to often enough. Here is the Guardian Angel Prayer:
Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom God’s love commits me here,
Ever this day, be at my side,
To light and guard, Rule and guide.
Amen.
“From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their (the angels) watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life. Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united to God.” — from the Catechism of the Catholic Church; 336.
DOTS — Rector’s Conference on “Obedience” — VP debate in HD
croquet + Chris West + fresh cookies
After dinner, the Pre-Theology houses had some late night [low light] Croquet games, followed by part 1 of Christopher West’s “Proclaiming the Theology of the Body (for Priests)“ audio series. Everything accented by some freshly baked cookies. — real brotherhood
darkness falls + care pack + volleyball
DARKNESS FALL on us during Evening Prayer right before dinner. The winds picked up and there was an erie feeling in the air.
One of our Brother’s Mother made snack care packages for all 60 of us seminarians. Thank you!
Volleyball was tonight. Foot injury during basketball.
Vietnamese food night
CULTURAL FOOD NIGHT — today was Vietnamese food night. Egg rolls, spring rolls, multiple sauses and more. Great food!
CCD + free will + Bruce Almighty + prayer
Today in 10th grade CCD we did “free will” and prayer using clips from Bruce Almighty. We had a great debate of “free will” verses God’s “all-knowing” nature. Also discussed angels, being that today is the feast of the Archangels. It was a great day!
Here are most of the clips on “Free Will” from Bruce Almighty:
Another clip from Bruce Almighty:
Miami Jubilee Vespers + Primum Regnum Dei
Tonight, at 4:30pm, the Miami Seminarians were at St Mary’s Cathedral in Little Haiti for Vespers (evening prayer) and a special recognition awards service started by Bishop Carroll called Primum Regnum Dei.
parent dinner + talent show
To close Parent Day @ SJVCS, we had a delicious dinner and Talent Show by some gifted brother seminarians. Songs, poetry, music, and Randy performing “Mack the Knife” like Louis Armstrong. —Awesome night!
Parent Day Mass + lion tattoo
On Parent (visiting) Day, we had a beautiful Mass with all our families. Our Rector, Fr Michael, had a great homily about the formation of Men here at St John Vianney College Seminary using a story of a wuss getting a tattoo of a lion on his back. You can’t pick and choose areas that are easy to change. If you’re getting a tattoo, you can’t leave off some parts … it needs to be complete in order to claim the real thing. Any real formation requires some level of sacrifice and pain in order for true growth. It’s not just a Catholic idea, either. —powerful
golf cart labor Jefes + Bishop’s Day Off
WORKLIST — On Wednesday afternoons we all have a Work List Job that involves some kind of manual labor around the seminary campus. The job changes each semester.
This semester, I’m the Work List Coordinator Assistant (that’s why I can’t drive the golf cart). My job changes depending on the needs of all the areas of work but looking cool in a golf cart is the most important job description. : )
BISHOP’s DAY OFF — With all our work we’ve done over the last couple weeks, and most especially yesterday’s celebration for Bishop Noonan’s 25th Priestly Anniversary, we were given a DAY OFF under special dispensation by the Bishop himself … which is this Friday! — We LOVE our Bishop Noonan! (not just for the day off, but that’s nice too!)
legendary “Tree of Vocational End” @ SJVCS
Here at St John Vianney College Seminary (Miami, FL), there is a beautiful and gigantic tree outside the Library building with a legend attached. Apparently any seminarian that has tried to climb the tree has left the seminary [and not become a priest]. I’m not one for superstitions, but knowing that now may make the tree a temptation during a time of spiritual “desolation” or just on one of those “stressful” seminary days that forces the question, “Why am I here again?” I hope I don’t do something that extreme [and immature] to actually consider an avenue of “vocational suicide” in a moment of weakness. Fortunately for me, I have a long walk to that “tree” from the Pre-Theology houses … and I know my fellow brothers are there to keep me from “myself” in those moments. — Thank God today is a “good” day : ) lol
Bishop Noonan’s 25 year party
Tonight, we helped Miami Auxiliary Bishop John Noonan celebrate his 25th Anniversary of his priesthood. Us seminarians spent much of the afternoon preparing with table set-ups. The evening began with a beautiful Mass. The homily enlightened all to how personable Bishop Noonan has always been. Afterwards was a reception with dinner and stories mostly from former seminary classmates of the Bishop’s. Great food, fellowship and priestly fraternity. (I was a bartender and table server) — Congratulations again, Bishop Noonan!
my SJVCS bros Anthony A & Michael H
Our seminary website here at St John Vianney College Seminary has a new blog that features 2 of my brother seminarians posting “a day in the life” of a seminarian. Check them out! Anthony Antuono (2nd Year Sophmore) and Michael Hartley (1st Year Sophmore).
Click their pictures for their blog posts!
Theatre + intensionality + throwness + Back Wall + social animal + simplicator + radical individualism
[here are some weak notes from last week’s Metaphysics class:]
Procrastination is, therefore, the art of trying not to be human, hanging on to and not moving … repeating the same thing to the point of distracting us from thinking, avoiding “intensionality.”
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Man is essentially a social animal, as Aristotle said. Modernity, however, does something unique. Through Radical Individualism, the slate is wiped clean making man the only being of importance. This was best expressed by Locke … Man is essentially an individual. It is later on that he organizes itself as a society. This is portrayed in our society with icons like the “Marlboro Man” who’s a cowboy living independent very self-confident without the need of others. This idealized character, however, is not real and used to sell cigarettes.
This Radical Individualism cannot be true. We are born into a family that necessitates society to “raise” a human being, at minimum, a man and woman to conceive a human being. One of the first acts of God, as seen in Genesis, is to create a society: “It is not good for Adam to be alone.” Locke is wrong. Aristotle is right. We ARE social animals.
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With Naïve Realism, we have “Simplicators” that see things as “it is the way it is.” We must abandon the “Simplicitor.” We strive for Hermeneutical Realism, in which what man encounters is real … not imagined or invented.
Animals, just as man, has sensation that allows them to experience hot, cold, wet, blue, hungry, etc. Animals respond to their environment, but only as stimuli to their sensation. It is a “pseudo-perception.” Human beings, however, have true perception, whereby they can make discoveries and rationalize their sensations to, ultimately, make references using language. When we describe the world, we relate our presuppositions (“Backdrops”). All human experiences are mediated by language. Language is the beginning. We take it for granted. Man is the only being that is intrinsically dynamic, that has awareness that he “IS” (“Who I am?”). No other being is aware of it’s being.
renewing my blogging vows
I haven’t been blogging very much for the first 3 weeks of the new seminary year (and barely any over the summer). I have a stack of outlines and notes of things I meant to blog and journal about, but I just keep putting it off (I guess until I get some “free” time … in seminary? … I must be dumber than I look). It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, but I let myself get distracted by “busy” stuff.
There are so many options to do here at seminary. I could go to the community rooms and watch a movie, follow yet another TV series, play games, lounge around with my brother seminarians, play sports, work out in the gym, take a walk (I’m not a jogger), eat the great food and desserts, do some class readings, homework, start writing one of several papers this semester, plan a lesson for Monday Religious Education apostalic work, listen to music, study Scripture, spend time with our Lord in an Adoration Chapel, take a nap, go for a drive, and more and more and more.
Somewhere along the way, I started on the wrong foot and now find myself slowly rising from the floor assessing what happened. Maybe this is a growing pain of seminary “formation” … or maybe my priorities got renumbered and I procrastinated my universe’s perfection. This is a long way of saying I’m lazy!
When I started blogging last May 2007, I wanted to (1) track my discernment journey by forcing myself to acknowledge my life’s details in words that I could look back on to see its growth. I also (2) wanted to keep my closest family and friends to better understand this “mysterious” journey to the priesthood as I’m doing myself. As a extra, (3) I wanted my home parish family of St Bernadette Catholic Church in Hollywood, FL to better understand the journey they’re so supportive of. And finally, in the process of blogging, (4) maybe it could inspire others (strangers) to better understand vocations, discernment, the Catholic Church, etc. That was my perfect plan.
Where am I at now? … My 4 month blogging hiatus has made friends and family ask if I’m still a seminarian. I assured them I still was, but needed a break from something I forgot the “WHY?” for. Even without regular daily posts for past few month, my blog gets an average of 300 visitors a day. Most of that traffic comes from search engines for pictures I include in posts (especially cultural food night pictures) as well as a variety of keywords I identify for each post. Most of that traffic, from what I can tell, is not intended with vocational discernment curiousity. The minority that are have been very encouraging and well responsive on the blog and in personal emails. I appreciate you ALL more than I can express in words.
So what now? … I miss the blogging. It helped me, (forced me), to reflect on my day to see what God has for me. Last year, during a Holy Hour with Miami Auxiliary Bishop Estevez, he related some spiritual direction he received while he was a seminarian. He was told to reflect back on your day and identify points where you saw God’s grace in your life and connect them to “see” the Lord. That advice inspired me to include DOTS in some posts and I don’t usually explain publicly, but have significance to “paint” the day when I go back and read a past post. This weekend’s Day of Reflection Retreat echoed that idea in the first talk. That triggered my re-commitment [to myself FIRST] to quiet the busyness and put my spiritual contact lenses back in every day. Blogging help that and so I’ll get back Catholic Kermit. I’ll start my back-dating some significant posts I’ve been meaning to write as soon as possible to now deny the Lord’s work in my life (despite my own selfish plans). And it starts with this very post! God bless and be holy!
clean heart for the old man
We started a “Day of Recollection” silent retreat last night with one talk followed by a Holy Hour with Benediction, Adoration & Confession. The leader of the retreat is Fr Oscar Alonzo, a wise religious priest who teaches at Cardinal Gibbons High School (among many other things). Here are some notes I jotted down for reflection:
1. When plans change, take it as God’s providence.
2. “Through Him, with Him, and in Him …”
3. Behind every great man is a great woman.
4. Pray for a “clean heart” for the “old man.”
5. Heart is driven by (1) power of love or (2) love of power.
6. As we reflect on our vocational journey, identify WHO was an instrument of your vocation?
7. Use Scripture models: Abraham (Gen 12+), Moses (Ex 3), Isaiah (6), Jeremiah (1), and Mary (Luke 2)
Snow White is true?
[here’s a weak summary of last week’s Metaphysic class:]
We begin our discovering of truth as young children. We slowly “unveil” reality through the use of language (from our parents). We are imbedded in a world that is linguistic always a part of the mystery, filled with presuppositions.
Young Billy starts with purely expressive sounds reacting to the environment around him. They become discoveries (alitheia) that first identifies each object as a proper noun (ie. Mom, Dad, Spot, Skippy, Lassie, Pluto, etc.). Over time and experience, the use of metaphors makes common relations to universals (parents, dog, etc.).
The use of stories is also a means of discovering truths. As in the story of “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs,” the character, actions and reaction in the narrative give insights into universal truths. The Queen is obsessed with her beauty, is vain, and has much pride. Her true beauty is represented as a witch. On the other hand, Snow White is not concerned with pride or vanity, whereby her virtue causes others to love her, like the “humble” little people (dwarfs). The story reveals that evil cannot kill virtue. Love is more powerful that hate, while showing the roles of vice, virtue, love.
We hear stories, read them in books, and see them in movies. Thru stories, we are transported in understanding to something that cannot be seen with the physical eye. Understanding is a the combination of rationality and good will. (Augustine calls this understanding the “Inner Teacher.”)
Is the story true? An adult’s first reaction may be No, because it didn’t happen, at the surface level, with those particular characters in that particular place in that particular way. But, the story is true, as a narrative medium that has deeper meaning revealing “truth.” Children who haven’t been told stories when they’re little may have a difficult time reading the Bible. We learn to discover truth through stories.
All art, at the surface level, is false. But it allows you to look beyond the surface to discover a deeper truth. Rhetoric is the use of knowledge (with eloquency) for a moment of insight. All of these means of story telling, literature, rhetoric, art and music shows how language guides us into truth, through revealing insights, discovery of meanings and universals.
Silence is a moment of pause in language, used to reflect on and understand insight. We must allow silence to guide us to discover of meanings.
How do we know history? Through parents, teachers, books, stories, etc. The past no longer exists, but we reflect on memory and recollection to remember its truths. Our recollections bring presuppositions that we must learn to identify and remove in order for universal truths to be revealed. We have “thematic” presuppositions that are explicit and fully conscious of. We also have “non-thematic” presuppositions that are implicit and ingrained in us that we must learn to identify. In order to come to real “truth,” we must identify what our “natural standpoint” is, that becomes our reference point, pull of presuppositions, to discover the universals of truth for our lives.
my SJVCS bros Anthony U & Greg V
Our seminary website here at St John Vianney College Seminary has a new blog that features 2 of my brother seminarians posting “a day in the life” of a seminarian. Check them out! Anthony Ustick (2nd Year Junior) and Greg Visca (2nd Year Sophmore).
Greg is also the one in charge of the new blog, so let him know what you think.
Miami Priest Convocation
Today is the last day of the Miami Archdiocesen Priest Convocation (every 2 years) held at the Hyatt Regency in Weston, FL. The theme coincided with Pope Benedict’s emphasis on the Writing of St Paul this year.
I served morning Mass & prayer with 3 brother seminarians. It was a great experience to see so many priests together in fellowship. The most powerful moment was the prayer of concecration said by the whole room as we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. I wish I could have taken a picture. — I’m blessed to have been chosen to be present and serve.
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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