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We have a new pope – pope Benedict XVI.  What an amazing selection – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.  The seminarians were going nuts up here at the election.  We just got out of mass and the bells announcing the new pope started – most of us were really surprised at the speed which they elected the new pope.  We ran down to the TV room and started watching the coverage – classes were immediately canceled.  It was amazing timing today, because we had just got out of mass where 20 new deacon candidates had just signed and announced their public candidacy oaths for deaconate ordination.  Anyway, a lot of guys were going crazy (in a good way) cheering and hooting when they announced it was Ratzinger – a German cardinal who had been in the office for Catholic doctrine.  I too was very moved and joyful at this selection.  While a complete analysis is too long – here’s my general take:

He’s an excellent  successor to John Paul II.  Ratzinger was John Paul’s right-hand-man for the last 20 some years and very holy.  Many of our instructors have met, studied, or worked with him.  Expect his papacy to be very similar to John Paul’s – but I don’t know if he’ll be quite the exuberant public face/world traveler as John Paul.  On a theological front, by picking the name Benedict and from having read a number of his articles, expect his papacy to be marked by strong support for the traditional Catholic stances on topics such as the priesthood, marriage, sexuality, the mass, etc; probably more so than John Paul’s papacy. Clarification and affirmation of Catholic doctrine will probably be the place he will be most active in – since this is what his job has been for so long now. Clearly, these are generalities, and the realities will obviously have yet to unfold.   Thanks to God for sending us such a soul to help shepherd His church. He’ll be needing our prayers, and I for one know mine will be with him.

An amazing project: Postsecret.

People write a secret on a postcard, a secret they have never told anyone, and mail it to this guy who puts them on his website.  They are amazing and extremely revealing about what people are carrying around with them.  Sometimes they are happy things, but often they are secrets and problems that are really are destroying them.

One of the most amazing things of being here at the seminary (but is true of the church universal) is that we are in a ‘hospital for souls’.  I can say that I have uncovered and pulled up all kinds of things from my own past that I’d never told anyone or realized were affecting my decisions.  The worst part about mistakes, tragedies, and pain from our past is that until they find healing, we become trapped under their weight and influence.  They secretly and subtly influence our decision making and loving others.

We are not really free in our life until we have found some peace and healing with them.  As I was examining my own freedom and how my own life is going, I got exposed to theosophic prayer – which is a way of bringing Christ into our pasts and help heal those things that we still blame ourselves for or have trouble letting go of.  It is interesting that Christ is present not only today, but through all time.  He can, and is, and was present for all the things that happened in our life.  He is willing to journey to those places with us now that we are ready to receive the healing from those events of our past.  It’s been an amazing experience of growth and healing that I’m still journeying through.

It’s just fascinating that in a modern world where we deny religion and God, people still have a craving for the very things that confession provides.

Here I sit at almost 9pm at night.  I have three essay questions to write and prepare, and at least 2 chapters of a book to read – all for a midterm tomorrow morning.  Next week is spring break.  If I can only…just…make…it…before…I…expire…. <gasp>