Yesterday was the big flight (it started Friday, technically) back to Rome to start out the new school year. I leave Wednesday for a month-long archeology class in Turkey, then the regular semester starts in October.
Saint Peter's was my first destination this morning as I walked the half hour across town to concelebrate the 10:30 Mass there--it's amazing how in a basilica that vast the incense can still fill the interior.
I've moved into a new room this year and I really like it--my last one was light and airy, but this one faces our courtyard instead of the street and so is a lot quieter. Unpacking city, here we come.
First gelatti of the new year today as well: a nice lampone limoncello combo. Current taste assessment confirms that quality is still up to par . . .
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Tornato a Roma
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2 comments:
1. "Sweetness and light"?
I don't get it.
2. Gelati?
Whatever. Bon appetito... [sadness. longing.]
3. I'm in Dr. H's Biblical Foundations class, and we keep reading about you.
First there was that Dei Verbum bit.
Then in Providentissimus Deus, Pope Leo XIII states: "it will be well, wherever this can be done, to select young men of good promise who have successfully accomplished their theological course, and to set them apart exclusively for Holy Scripture, affording them facilities for full and complete studies" (PD 12). The Holy Father goes on to encourage such studies, that they might "flourish in completeness and in happy success, under the direction of the Church..." (PD 24).
And then, in his encyclical letter Spiritus Paraclitus, Pope Benedict XV says: "It will be well, then, Venerable Brethren, that picked men, both of secular and regular clergy, should come to Rome for biblical study". (He specifically mentions the Biblical Institute.) Men who are already priests, the Holy Father writes, "will obtain here a wider knowledge of the Bible...they will gain, too, an acquaintance with the great commentators and with biblical history and geography.
[And by history and geography, I'm sure our Pontiff meant delightful Turkish archaeological expeditions as well.] Such knowledge will avail them much in their ministry; they will be 'equipped for every good work' (2 Tim. 3:17)".
You know all this, but hey, you're famous.
As for me, I'm doing my part: "Strive, then, Venerable Brethren, to bring home to your clerics and priests these teachings.... You have to remind them constantly [I'm good at that sort of thing] of the demands made by their divine vocation if they would be worthy of it: 'The lips of the priest are to keep knowledge, and instruction is to be sought from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts' (Mal. 2:7)." So there you go. Thanks for bringing Jesus to us!
Keep up the good work. May God bless you as you grow in wisdom of His Word. And don't fall in those trenches.
You should know that we all really came back to Steubenville as an act of encouragement to you in your studies. But have some gelati for us anyway.
p.s. Let's have a caption contest for your photo.
"Now listen, little lion dude, you can't keep blowing fire at your brothers and sisters. It just isn't nice."
"Okay, Father..."
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