A preview of upcoming events

Its been a busy weekend at the seminary and this coming week will continue to be busy. Friday and Saturday evening we had our Seminary Variety Show, which was a big success. We were in our parishes this morning to assist as Masses. This evening we have solemn evening vespers that is open to public. Also, this week begins our midterms. Lastly, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday this week and we have a 40 hours devotion this coming weekend.

Despite the busy schedule, I plan on blogging three or four times this week. I want to return to our topic on Islam and Muslims one more time. The reason for this is that on Friday afternoon we had what the school called a Day of Theological Conversation. All the seminaries in the St. Louis area (ie. the Luthern seminary, the Methodist seminary, the Dominican seminary, etc.) were invited to this talk. We had three guest speakers that each spoke for about 20 minutes. The first was Jewish Rabbi Mark Shook. The second speaker was Dr. Ghazala Hayat, a Muslim and native of Pakistan. The last speaker was Fr. Andre Mhanna, a priest of the Marionite Rite and native of Lebanon. The theme of the talk was, "The Semitic Experience in America" and each had some very interesting comments on Arabs, the Middle East and the Muslim faith. I want to explore this some in my next blog.

I also want to return to my series on "Attacks on life" in order to discuss capital punishment and euthanaisa, which are two hot topics in our country today. Lastly, this Friday is the first Friday of Lent and, as I promised, each Friday during Lent I am going to introduce and explain one of the six promises that I and all deacons make at their ordination. I hope to both explain what the Church is asking of us when we make these promises and also to give you some insight as to what these promises mean to me and for me as I take this final step toward priesthood.

Anyway, that is a quick glimpse into what I'll be blogging on this week. As always, I welcome questions, comments, suggestions and such. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 20:55 | link | comments |
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