New things for St. Matthew and for me

We had a nice town hall meeting at St. Matthew tonight. A report on religious ed, some q&a about the new translations of the Mass and it hopeful implementation in Advent of 2011 and...the fact that this will be my last year at St. Matthew. Yes it is true, this time no joke. The plan right now is that I will go back to school to get another masters degree this fall. It will be a ThM (Catholic Social Teaching concentration) from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. It is something I have been praying about for quite some time and Archbishop Gregory has been very supportive. I will tell you that this is not a done deal, as anything can change, but I am hopeful nothing will stand in my way. One great piece of news is that the school has awarded me a fellowship which will cover 50% of my tuition. I am really looking forward to focusing on academics for a year...and a chance to do a bit more work for CRS. If things go as I think they will, I will be at St. Matthew until the beginning of July and then begin school at the end of August. So there you have it. If you have any questions just let me know. Peace to you all and have a Happy Lent. Padre Vic

Catholic Day at the Capitol

M. Alexander Georgia Bulletin

Did I tell you that Jose and I went to Catholic Day at the Capitol? Oh right I forgot, because I forgot to bring my camera to catch photos etc... Many thanks to the staff at the Georgia Bulletin here is some news about it...and the participation of some of our St. Matthew youth from Our Lady of Mercy. They also have some great coverage of Fr. Dan Stack and his sabbatical and some news about the Cardinal Kasper visit. While I applaud the Georgia Bulletin for their excellent coverage of yours truly in the past few weeks they need to know that when you are 10 feet away from the action and there are two other people closer to the ball...no one is weaving around you!

Look at this!

Well Cardinal Walter Kasper was in town this week and gave a number of talks around town. Wednesday evening he had Mass for the students at Emory. They had a deacon set and ready to go for the Mass but he got sick so look who took his place. Deacon Gayle did a great job! Congratulations Deacon Gayle!

Permanent Deacons of 2010

Here are the photos from the Ordination this morning. Keep our 15 new Archdiocesan Deacons in your prayers.  Enjoy!

OLM Pastor Shoot-out, Part 2

More photos from the Pastor Shoot-out. Thanks again to all those who came out in support. Enjoy!

It is about who We are!

This is just great. Send it to your family and friends...especially those who are away from the Church. Peace to all and Merry Christmas!

Life at Seminary

Here is a brief video of what seminary life is like...kinda. The video is from Mt. St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg Maryland. You will notice our former seminarian Mark Starr in the video along with other seminarians, including some from Atlanta. Enjoy!

Sad News

I just got the news that Fr. Jim Miceli, my first assignment Pastor in the Archdiocese, died this morning. Please keep his family, the other priest of the Archdiocese and the people of St. Mary's in Rome Georgia in your prayers.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord!

Fun at the Falcon

Fun at the Falcon is done for another year and a great time was had by all! Thanks to all who contributed lots of money, time, resources and made this a great time and what should be a huge succcess. Here are the photos...I will have total money raised in the future. Peace

Bishop's Ordination Day!

A great day! I am tired so here are the photos! Enjoy

Vespers

I went to the Vespers for Bishop-Elect Luis Zarama tonight and it was beautiful and wonderful. At the end of Vespers Bishop-Elect Zarama shared a few words which were very touching. After Vespers we had a nice reception and I got a photo with the man of the hour! FWIW, he likes my new hairdo. More photos to come but in the interim if you need more info you can go here to check it out. If you want to watch the Ordination from home head over to AIB for more info. Keep Bishop-Elect Zarama and our Archdiocese in your prayers. Peace.

Death of Sherri Alexander Rudd, wife of Father Thad B. Rudd

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Sherri Alexander Rudd, wife of Fr. Thad B. Rudd. Sherri passed away today at 1:00 p.m. The funeral will take place Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at St. Paul the Apostle, 1397 Helen Highway, Cleveland, Georgia 30528.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.

May she rest in peace. Amen.

Ordination Photos

Here they are, no captions, not too much editing. Enjoy

Mardi Gras with Priest

...more later!

UPDATE: Dinner with the Marist Fathers is over and here are the photos...enjoy!

Hail and it's aftermath

So we were getting ready for 6PM Mass and the heavens opened up, the TV was telling us there was a tornado coming our way. We decided to wait on Mass until we knew that the storm had passed. So we had everyone leave the chapel and head to utility room. The rain started and the hail soon followed. As you can see from the photos it was an amazing amount of hail, and it sounded horrible. I was sure we were going to loose some windows, thank goodness we did not (well Deacon Gayle did). The storm passed and we went out to survey the damage. You can see how much hail we got from the photos. We went on with Mass about 15 mins late, with steam rising outside, it was kind of eerie. After Mass, folks were showing up for RCIA and told me that my street had tons of hail on it. As you can see when I got home about two hours later there was still plenty on the road, in my yard, all over the place. Oh! did I mention that the pine trees bore the brunt of the storm? You could smeel the fresh pine all over the place. Anyway, the house seemed to be fine...until I checked it this morning. As you can see the western side of the house will have to have some major work done on it. We are lucky no one was hurt in the storms, the things we can fix or replace...but even those are not too bad. One final note, there was a small rainbow at the back of the storm...God still there for us!

Busy day.

Here are the photos: raw, captioned, uncut and in no particular order.

UPDATE: Hello to all of you from around the net who are landing on my simple blog. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog. If you stay, great! (don't expect too much seriousness around here) If you just are here for this then, may God's peace be with you on your journey.

UPDATE II: One parishioner said to me on Saturday: "We are a better parish today, than we were yesterday because of our new Deacon!" I concur!

UPDATE III: Can you tell which one is our new Deacon? Man I took a bunch of photos of just King, sorry to the rest of you guys, you know I love you. Oh, and thanks to King for throwing me under the bus, when he was preaching...he mentioned how I treat you guys during class. For the Men of Ten and beyond...class time will be like Las Vegas, What happens in class, stays in class!

Advent Concert

We had a great Advent concert on Saturday night. Choirs from St. Matthew, Holy Trinity and St. Gabriel sang. It was wonderful and we had a nice crowd join us. I forgot my camera early on so not a ton of photos but here is what I got.

I also took a few videos, this is the only one that came out kinda okay-ish. Oh the out of sync clapping...ask Deacon Jim ;-)

Publish or die?

Well beyond this blog I have been published in the Georgia Bulletin. Here is my letter to the editor...does this count as being published?

WE WON!!!!

These photos were from a previous game, but we won out game today against St. Gabriel!!! The final score was 44-43...we almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, but we held them off for the win. I only scored 3 points but at least I scored. Also there was an article in the Georgia Bulletin this week and your humble blogger got a mention. Also our great fans were mentioned as well. Way to go team! Oh this was our first win of the season and only our second win (last year we won because of a forfit...still a win).

Monsignor Tom Kenny, requiescat in pace

I was just notified of the death of Monsignor Tom Kenny, Rector/Pastor of Christ the King in Atlanta. I will post more news as I get it. Please pray for the repose of his soul and for his family. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen

UPDATE: The CTK website has a page up with info and a place to leave condolences.