Thanks for the Prayers!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all those who prayed for me. I found out yesterday that I passed my Italian proficiency test. I know that it was only possible through all of your prayers. My joys of learning Italian are far from over because I will have to continue to improve as I live here in Italy. I would ask that you continue to pray for God's blessings in this area of my life.

Long Story Made Short...

To say that the past few weeks have been interesting is an understatement. With the exception of this past week, every day started with four hours of Italian, and it ended with some type of Conference explaining what life at the NAC will be like. Most of these days also included a tour of somewhere in Rome. It all started with a trip to Castel Gandolfo to see the Pope at one of his Wednesday audiences. After the audience, we took a tour of the Popes private gardens. His gardens were beautiful. They had many amazing little spots for prayer. The Archbishop who guided us through the gardens told us many stories of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

We saw a lot in the first few weeks. We saw the excavated ruins below St. Peters (the Scavi) which hold the bones of St. Peter himself, and celebrated mass in front of his tomb. We visited the Swiss Guards barracks, and were able to learn more about the history of this storied group. During this time, I had to being wearing Clerics for the first time. It is amazing how everyone who sees you wearing clerics expects you to be able to speak every language, know where every church in Rome is, etc... It has been interesting to say the least. Every seminarian has stories of both amazing and odd experiences that happened to us while we were wearing clerics. I still do not know what most of the languages that I heard were, or how I managed to answer their questions. Today, I had my most interesting mass experience. I heard a strange noise while at mass in the city, and when I turned back I realized that the man behind me had a rather large parrot perched on his shoulder. I have to be honest, the parrot was much more well-behaved than most small children. I laughed when the man put the parrot behind his back while receiving communion. I can only imagine the reactions if the parrot had managed to get a host in its mouth. The funny thing is that all I could wonder about was how Francis of Assisi would have reacted to this.

Tomorrow, I go on a Silent Retreat for a week. I ask for your prayers for myself and all of my seminarian brothers while we are on this retreat. I also ask for your prayers for Father Joe Gitl. He is a preist of Galveston-Houston who had some heart troubles while visiting Rome. He is currently in the hospital awaiting tests and surgery before he can head back to Houston. Pray for a speedy recovery and for good doctors.

All of you continue to be in my prayers.

God Bless,
Luke

The End is in Sight...

I apologize for not updating this blog for so long. I have had many interesting things going on, but the last few weeks have been dominated by two things. Orientation and more Italian classes. Orientation is finished now, and the end is in sight for the Italian courses. I would ask all of you to pray for me on Monday when you get this update because I will be taking my Italian proficiency exam. A third of the test is an online test and the other two-thirds is an oral examination. I will have to introduce myself, describe a random photo, and read a selection of Italian literature out loud. I have three chances to pass this test so that I can take my classes in Italian, and I am hoping that I pass it the first time around. At this point it is in God's hands, so your prayers are very important.

I promise to tell you about all of the things that I have seen since leaving Assisi as soon as I finish this test!

In Christ's Love,
Luke