What do you mean when you say “I’ve grown spiritually”?

Two Fridays ago with 5 minutes left in a two-hour one-on-one Italian conversation class, my teacher in Assisi asked me what I meant by the statement “I’ve grown spiritually over the past year.” I thought for a few seconds and knew I didn’t have the time to give an adequate answer in English, let alone Italian so I promised to compose my thoughts over the weekend (in Italian) to talk about it the following Monday.

To begin I wrote that it’s interesting that the word “seminary” is derived from the Latin/Italian verb “seminare” meaning “to sow” and hence a seminary is a place “to sow” future priests. Therefore the common link made to the Gospel account, which explains that only seeds which die can bring new life---only those who die to themselves will bear fruit in abundance.

Someone once asked a saint what he did in his years of seminary formation and he responded “There were two of us, and I threw the other one out the window.” For me and the other guys of the diocese, this is what transpires. It’s a very painful process as we purify our hearts and intentions breaking from the world that we were attached to in varying degrees, and then we seek to one day re-enter it charged with the life and fire of the Spirit as ordained priests.

A deacon at my previous seminary once half-joked in a class that he should see guys hanging out the window screaming in pain because they are dying to themselves day in and day out. Sadly many stop short of throwing “the other guy” out the window because he’s bound tight with the shackles of past sins he doesn’t want to touch because he has rubbed the skin off his bones due to repeated failure, but others persevere each day and month trying to live selflessly for those we will be serving because you in our diocese deserve it.

This spiritual intensification over the past year here in Rome, happened in great part by somethings I find hard to admit. One thing was struggling to learning theology in a foreign language (Italian) The other was doing this 6 time zones away in a foreign city (Vatican City-Rome) far from friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, it has had huge benefits of traveling the world (Lourdes, Sydney, Medugorje, and Assisi- this summer alone), but really struggling with studies for once in my life (because of the language barrier) and being away from the USA (14+ months now) really is dying to oneself and is made manifest in a regular praying via prostration, where you don’t just prayer with your soul, but your body as well lying on your face with your hands extended on the cold floor, just as one plants bulbs in the cold winter grounds so that they die, freeze, and become flowers in the spring. This is a prayer of desperation, in which you declare dependency on God--that you can’t survive another class taught in Italian by a Spaniard speaking “pazzo” (crazy) fast with a Spanish accent or that you can’t come to grips that you’re serving Christmas Mass in a chapel with seminarians in the pews that you imagined your family and parish could have been.

This spiritual development is like the development of a friendship between two friends or spouses in which by communicating intimately they learn more of the other and grow in knowledge of love of the other. This happens most beautifully when both persons everyday share their own life with one another. Particular things must happen, if a true and real friendship clearly exists. I believe these things are equivalent to the classical types of prayer that my parents taught me by my bedside when I was younger: ACTS (Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication). This ways of communicating must have an equilibrium to be healthy for no real friends just ask for things, but adore, praise, and render thanks to the loved.

In the world of today we tend to be impatient receivers. We want to know things right away. We want to speak Italian right away. We want to make friends right away. We want God to answer our prayers right away. And after not having been instantly gratified, we are tempted to immediately disown these things or persons, as silly and non-existent. Yes, we want something, but often we’re not willing to give, to let others in our lives for fear that they might see some flaw, as if they aren’t present to others already. But the price of friendship demands vulnerability and requires no secrets, limits, or barriers.

Our God craves to be with us every day, but he will not accept the masks that we try to hide behind. If we want to have this intimate and eternal relationship with God (which Benedict XVI calls heaven) we must stop lying to him, we must stop being afraid to talk about him in public, we must become proud to say our graces before meals instead of a hurried sign of the cross slouched deep in the booth at a restaurant, and furthermore we must practice our faith more than that “one-hour Sunday clause” that was in our “Fire Insurance Policy”. It must be every day, every second, every breath...

This is what intensified spiritually this past year and become more real and true. When one prayers more he more easily resists sin, not because he gets better at following rules and laws (even if they may seem absurd or backwards), but because he has fallen more deeply in love and has experienced the infinite love of God and therefore is not bound by laws, but seeks the good of the other. By daily acts of mortification: fasting from food or the internet, watching less TV or giving up pop music, taking a lukewarm shower to remind you not to be lukewarm in your faith, not feeling sorry and hopeless for yourself in the tasks that you never got done, doing things you don’t like because they must be done, making more time for others instead of trying to avoid them---these things help us die to ourselves and become living sacrifices for a real and living person (Jesus Christ), and they are signs of an authentic relationship.

"The Laws of God's Providence"

There's that showbiz slogan "It's not what you know, but who you know." In my Roman experiences that phrase has held true many times, except sometimes it need not even be "who you actually know" but just "who other people think you know." During Lent of 2003 on our Roman Spring Break, I and my two friends managed to get progressively closer to John Paul II as the week progressed. We first saw him at his weekly Angelus Address from the window of his room in the Vatican as he traditionally had done over the years. Benedict XVI does the same Angelus Address which consists of a brief homily and greeting of peoples (from the window) followed by the Angelus and a blessing of the people there and any holy objects they might have.

On Ash Wednesday, through the connections of my sister's religious order, we got aisle seats for the Mass traditionally held at Santa Sabina. We were estatic to be less that 3 feet from JPII when he proceeded down the aisle.

Mass with John Paul the Great
As if it couldn't get any better, we returned home and the next night received a call from my sister's religious community telling us that we would be able to attend Mass with the pope the following morning in his private chapel. Upon arriving in the Vatican Palace we were directed by the Swiss Guard to the chapel with 35 others. After the Mass was over the Pope received each of us individually, where we were allowed to greet him, kiss his ring, and have our picture taken. Although we didn't say anything else then a simple greeting (I said, "Thank you ,Wojek."- which means "uncle" in Polish and was his nickname for years in Poland with the youth he took out into the wilderness), are gaze was locked and I know he saw right into my soul. Such was his gift as a living saint.

After this momentous occasion, not only did I know I was living a lie by not being in the seminary, but that I needed to get there soon--I had felt a deep calling to the priesthood since the 5th grade, but had as the saying goes "I had given God a laugh because I had told him I had other plans." It wasn't until the day of his burial my senior year of college in 2005 that I bolstered the courage to make that decision to stop fighting his will and to surrender to God doing so in honor of JPII and asking him for his protection and prayers.

Christmas of the same year (2003), I took my brothers to Rome and although we didn't meet John Paul II again privately, we did with the help of my sister's religious community get to walk through his palace hallways and talk to the only black Swiss guard ever since there inception in 1506. His North African mother gave birth to him in Switzerland and hence he is 100% Swiss therefore passing the nationality requirement. My brother was able to get an aisle seat for Midnight Christmas Mass, but something changed then and has stuck to the present.

After having attended so many papal events, I can say that I have not stopped wanting to see the pope, but the hype is over. I felt I'd had my turn and that was enough, at least until a new pope was elected....

Public Papal Liturgies
Being in Rome has its perks of being able to go to many of the papal events, but when one's objective is no longer to see the pope close up, one's motive is often purified and one goes to be with the pope in prayer. This is quite difficult though, when the majority are pilgrims many of which seeing the pope for the first time are jumping up and down, standing on chairs, talking and clapping excitedly, and flashing cameras as "The Bishop of Rome" proceeds by and the Mass insues.

Benedict XVI has done something very interesting to cut down on this hype, this Hollywood-like spectacle, because he wants us to remember the liturgy is about something much greater than him. In his liturgies and appearances you don’t see a pope playing to the crowds, but a pope creating an atmosphere which draws the people to prayer with long pauses between readings from Sacred Scripture and prayers. He also will at times begin a liturgy with a Litany of Saints or whole songs before he arrives, so that when he comes into the Church the people instinctively clap less and if they do clap, they do so more solemnly because they are in communication with God--they are already praying.

"Laws of Divine Providence"
Having said all this, I must confess that when I go to a papal event these days with another one of the seminarians from the NAC, we, like anyone, attempt to get as close as possible, but I don’t exactly always play by the ever so popular "Laws of Physics". While some might be scandalized by the pushing and shoving that goes on by even little habited nuns,--the truth is, it happens. Everyone wants to see "Il Papa". I've over the past year developed a method I would like to call the "Laws of Divine Providence", which avoids this unruly and uncivilized behavior that resulting in a game of tug-of-war ends in the suffocation of the weak.

The objective each time is to get as close as possible to the pope, but to do so by avoiding all the pushing and shoving that really only makes you feel anything but prayerful (down-right ticked and angry and hence feeling like you need to go to confession) by the time you are forced into a chair far from the pope after having being jabbed in the ribs by some Sr. Maria Goretti for 3 hours prior to the liturgy only for her to slip around you and take your aisle spot. This really will happen to you...

So the first "Law of Divine Providence" is be calm and patient and don't expect much; be happy with whatever chair you end up in. The second law is "to practice what you preach" or to master that showbiz add-it I described earlier, “It's not what you know, but who other people think you know." This really takes a perfecting of the first law. But having the two laws down we proceed to our rendition of Mission Impossible.

Stage I: Anyone in magenta wearing a zuchetto and/or a pectoral cross (that means a Bishop or Cardinal) needs no ticket to get into a papal event or the Vatican for that matter. Also this is where the fun begins because anyone that "looks official" and like they are with the bishop or might follow behind them with another seminarian doesn't necessary need a VIP-ticket either. Therefore you have two options, strike up a conversation with one and ask if you can accompany him or follow behind him with an accomplice. Next, those classical Jesuit-Jedi mind tricks come in handy and save the day when the guards ask you if you are "insieme?" or "together?" referring to the bishop. You respond in Italian, "Why of course! We are "together". (with a mental reservation that you are actually together with the other seminarian in this Covert "Get Past the Guards" Operation) Note: It's best to choose wisely the bishop or cardinal you decide to follow because as that line goes "it's who other people think you know". This is key since you only get one shot before being discovered or worse getting asked for your VIP ticket that you don't have. Hence being white and American, it's not probably a good idea for me to follow Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pham Mink Man of Ho Chi Minh City, since I don't know Vietmanese, let alone am 3 feet taller than his "Emminence".

Stage II: Having evaded the guards and just walked down the center aisle everyone begins to start looking at the seminarians headed down the center aisle in cassocks and automatically assumes they must be "official" or have some special duty, after all Italians provide top-notch security right (sarcasm)??? The best thing is to attempt to continue your conversation with your brother seminarian even if you are both in disbelief of having been able to slip by the first patrol. Again it's about keeping calm and not expecting much but trusting in the "laws of Divine Providence". We rapidly are approaching the main altar and wondering what we are going to do next, we're about to run into more guards, what will we claim, ignorance??? Again the mind is racing, but because of your gentile smile and commanding appearance you walk by the next wave of security in the midst of that conversation that you never really decided was about.

Stage III: You quickly have to decide what seat is available and can be taken. After all, the last thing you want to happen is to end up with the Con-Celebrants and accused of impersonating a priest or even worse having taken a bishop's seat. So you find the choir section (which happens to be closer that the Bishop and Priest's sections) and again choose a seat not to far back, but not to far forward. Attempting to keep up that conversation that died in the section you saw the first guard, you begin talking about how you slipped by and then you see the usher coming and you think you may wet the shorts you're wearing underneath your cassock, but you keep your composure until the Italian spills out of his mouth, "Do you sing in the choir?" Thinking quickly you call upon the "Jedi forces" and quip back in Italian, "We sing!" He's satisfied since you have cassocks on and he walks away. The peace and security begins to take over. You've succeeded.

Stage IV: The next question is, "Is this seat good enough and/or has 'God's Providence' run out or do you have some extra graces stored up in heaven to get you an even better chair, perhaps at the front of the choir next to all the Cardinals which just happens to be closer than the bishop you followed in?" Hmmm, you think for a moment and set a time frame for the next move. After all, there are all those chairs that no one is in. "Don't good Catholics always take the front pew? You begin to realize that others in the section you somehow managed to get into want those seats as well, so you all collectively decide to make a move together with 5 minutes to go before the liturgy begins. It works like a charm, the choir comes in (now you're flanked by the choir on one side and the Cardinals on the other) and the liturgy begins, the pope processes right in front of you, and although you keep your composure and don't make a scene, your heart is racing inside at how awesome this is. Only in your dreams could you have imagined something so ridiculous actually working.

You say a prayer of thanksgiving to Almighty God for the "Laws of His Providence" succeeded.

Having now spilled the beans on my "covert operations", I must say I still have yet to personally meet Benedict XVI or serve Mass for him, but I've enjoyed this just as much up til now. NACcers (seminarians at the North American College) get the opportunity to enter a lottery to serve Mass for the pope at one of the papal events, but I still have yet to get one of these once in a lifetime chances.

It's time to "Pranzare"

Rising for a seminary weekday at 5am before the sun has risen is a miracle in itself for anyone who has just graduated college after being your own boss and having not gone to bed til the sun had risen many a time. But as many times as I tell myself, "It'll get easier", it really doesn't. Morning prayer followed by Mass, celebrated together as a seminary community, begins at 6:15am regularly, giving me a little over an hour to become conscious by taking a shower, check the email and news, occasionally take a phone call (because it's only 11pm Eastern time at 5am in the morning), and say some prayers or devotions before we come together as a community.

Breakfast begins shortly after 7am, pending the homilist of the day (some give a short and sweet homilette, while others try to give you your 1st lecture of the day or revive those sleep-walking zombies that fell into the pew, wishing that the Church would ban masses before noon). Since it is not your IHOP special, many guys grab a bowl of cereal or slop some peanut butter and jelly on a Italian roll. Many tap the rolls with a knife to choose one that has the least chance of breaking their teeth or making the roof of their mouth bleed. Others scurry to the coffee pots hoping that the kitchen staff didn't do something drastic to the coffee, which is referred to as motor oil because it's so thick that it is rumored that Italians, if desperate enough will fill their car engines with it. Others fearful for their lives take to the streets of Rome to find their bar of choice for a coffee and cornetto (typically a croissant with sugar on top) before classes begin at 8:30am (8:45 for the guys that go to Santa Croce University--that's me). I should mention that "bar of choice" does not mean alcoholic beverages are consumed after mass at 7am at a local watering hole, but that "bar" is the Italian name for a coffee cafe.

Somehow you survive 4 hours of class and stumble back up to the NAC (North American College) Hill also referred to as the Gianicolo (In Latin Janiculum) Hill--It overlooks the 7 major hills in Rome and from our rooftop we boast the best view of Rome seeing miles in almost all directions. During the hot months of the year, many guys will take a shower after this half-hour hike across Rome that has left them drenched in sweat.

"Pranzo" served as 1:15PM daily has traditionally been the biggest meal of an Italian's day and thus is a multi-course dinner. It's so important it has received it's own verb in Italian "pranzare". The first course is typically a pasta, occasionally a zuppa (soup) or a risotto (rice dish). The favorite pasta by NACcers is spaghetti carbonara and some guys will empty the bowl quickly so that they can send their waiter (we all wait tables about once a month just for pranzo) back for any leftovers. The 2nd course is a meat and a vegetable (except for our meatless Fridays) . The salad of the day comes after this (mixed by a person at each table with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, etc.--sometimes other favorite spices), then finally a fruit, gelato, or more substantial dolce (desert) on Wednesday is served. Wednesday lunch is one of the two meals guests can be invited and hence some local Italian desert or cake is served. Unfortunately, most Italian deserts and cookies tend to be very dry and hence wouldn't go over well with the average American, who is set on eating the cookie dough before it's even baked. I think the idea of chocolate chip cookie dough gelato would make them quite puzzled.

For all you wine connoisseurs, I forgot to mention that we will have a table wine with pranzo that some will indulge in. However, that will typically lead to a "riposo", the Italian version of a siesta that results in most stores being closed in the afternoons. I rarely make time for one of these, but for some it's an everyday ritual and may last 15 minutes or longer...

What is This "Brother" Business?

Having hardly spent 5 minutes with pilgrims in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on a weekly tour or in any given conversation with a person outside the Pontifical North American College's (NAC for short) seminary walls of the Vatican always pops up the question, "What do we call you?" 

Father?

The first instinct of a person is usually to call me or other seminarians at my college "Father", because following the tradition of many US seminaries today we are required to wear clerics (black clothes with a white tab Roman collar) from morning prayer and Holy Mass starting at 6:15am until after pranzo (The Italian word for the main meal of the day--lunch) or our last class, whichever is later and hence when people encounter us they see what looks like really young priests. The question that follows then is why do our bishops and seminary formation insist on us--NACcers (seminarians at the NAC) wearing clerics. Unfortunately their is not just one sweet and simple reason, but multiple. The 1st is that some feel that since we have already in good faith taken major steps toward the vocation of the priesthood, we should begin preparing for it by wearing the common garb. Another reason is so that we stand out in Rome as beacons for lost pilgrims who need help and usually find priests or P-I-Ts (Priests in training) easy and friendly targets for directions. The other great reason flows from the "beacon concept" in that we are seen as youthful "Witnesses to Hope" in the 3rd Millennium, something our world never stops thirsting for and cannot survive without.

So after you get them straight on the fact that you are not a priest yet, but that you dress like one and have been told to and thus are not an impostor, some still insist on calling you "Father" or "Father-to-be" because you look like one. In a recent elementary school visit to Aussies in Sydney, a boy called me "Father" right after I explained I wasn't a priest yet. Who could blame him when that is what he has always equated clerical clothes with.

Well, then what do we call you?

Others though ask you again "that question", because no one is content with calling you "Seminarian". At 5 syllables it's too long to yell, let alone have a simple conversation under half an hour after exerting so much energy just in the greeting. In brief, it's just too much. However, for the sake of those who rightfully don't want to give your the title of "Father" yet want to be able to identify you with something more than just "David", you have to toss them something.

Your sister is a Sister?

Many readers probably know I don't exactly come from your average sized American family, but that I have 4 older sisters, 2 younger brothers and 9 nieces and nephews already (from 2 of those sisters alone). My 2nd oldest sister (#2 of 7) followed her heart to the "nunnery" of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma Michigan 10 years ago this summer and made her final vows 2 summers ago after she finished medical school at George Washington University (that's right she is now Sister Doctor Mary Rachel Nerbun M.D. R.S.M.). In my 4 years of Civil Engineering studies at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. I made many visits with other students to do yard work for their 40-acre convent just outside D.C. in Clinton, Maryland and in the process began being called "The Brother" because I was one of their sisters' brothers. As if 4 sisters were not a big enough gift from God, now I have over 80 additional sisters and mothers (original sisters of the community after there re-structuring in 1973), as I am a part of their family.

Why bother with "Brother"?

This title "The Brother" took on new meaning 3 years ago when I embarked upon serious discernment of a priestly vocation for the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina. Those who enter formation for men's religious communities are called "Brother so-and-so" either for their whole lives or until they become priests and hence in my studies to be a diocesan priest and adapting this "religious tradition", I have often been called "The Brother" or "Brother David", by those who want to address me by something more than "David". The title of "Brother" can be confusing, but it is much easier and shorter said than "Seminarian" and it reflects a similar ecclesiastical (Church) status.

Religious vs Diocesan

This poses for many a question about the differences between religious and diocesan priests. In short and in general religious priests take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the superior of their religious community, which has a particular charism or mission (for example preaching, teaching, defending the pope, the poor, evangelization, etc.) whereas a diocesan priest takes vows of chastity (celibacy) and obedience to a bishop of a diocese and typically will serve the rest of his life in parish ministry in the diocesan boundaries as a pastor of a church you would attend on Sundays. For my Diocese of Charleston that means I will be a parish priest somewhere in the state of South Carolina unless directed by my bishop elsewhere.

So in brief, choose your pick when it comes to how you address a seminarian, but as an uncle of mine once jokingly begged and I repeat "I don't care what you call me, just don't call me late for dinner".