The first several weeks of a school year are always pretty busy times for us. In addition to welcoming new seminarians in August and offering them a somewhat daunting orientation program there are a number of “first things” which make the first half of the semester really fly.

Right after orientation, on the first day of classes the entire seminary and monastic communities celebrate a Mass of the Holy Spirit. This gives us an important focus. “Unless the Lord builds the house, in vain do its builders labor (Psalm 127:1).” That’s also picture day in the seminary. All the seminarians have individual and group pictures taken. These pictures are posted in a public place, right outside the Basilica along with pictures of the monks and bishops of sending dioceses. Amy Schieber, our director of administration, quickly puts together a little booklet of the seminarians’ pictures. The faculty and staff race to get their copy so that they can figure out who the new men are. Since 41 of our 108 students are new, it takes a while to figure out who they are!

On Labor Day we always schedule our first monthly day of recollection. This year the day was led by our own Bishop Robert Finn. We ended the day with a cookout for all the monks and seminarians. Happily, Bishop Finn was able to remain on-campus for the event. The next first was the beginning of apostolic work for all the men. All have mostly off-campus assignments which they visit several times each semester. The placements are quite varied, from visiting nursing homes to teaching CCD to building homes through Habitat for Humanity to mentoring teen-agers barely younger than themselves.

We hosted our second annual inter-seminary soccer/volleyball tournament at CSC the weekend of 12 September. Six Midwestern seminaries were represented. Click here for more information on the event. I was proud of how well our men played and was even prouder that they were such gracious and welcoming hosts. The Monday after that sporting marathon many of us traveled to Kansas City for the 17th Annual Priests and Seminarians Appreciation Golf Classic sponsored by the Kansas City Serrans and CSC. The day was a great success, and even fun for non-golfers like me. The following weekend was “off-campus”, one of the three or so each semester when the men can go home or are invited to the homes of others if they’re from far away. Some always remain to catch up on studies and to enjoy the more relaxed pace of these “free” weekends.

The priests of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas were with us for their annual continuing education days. While this is hosted by the Abbey Center, their sessions are in St. Maur Hall and there is plenty opportunity to visit. Our annual Alumni Reunion was held on Friday, 26 September. The seminarians serve the banquet and get to know a number of alumni who regale them with tales of the escapades from “back in the day.” Hopefully they don’t give our young men too many ideas! We’re always happy to welcome our alumni and really do maintain an interest in their activities and welfare. This past weekend, 4-5 October, we welcomed 203 of the seminarians’ family members to our annual Family Weekend. The weather was perfect and spirits were high. The senior class hosts this event. It’s a smaller class so they had to work doubly hard. Those who didn’t have family visiting pitched in to help serve the banquet—and to clean up afterwards!

While the summer months afforded us a welcome change of pace, members of our faculty and staff kept pretty busy.  Here is a sampling of what some of us were up to...

• Abbot Gregory Polan preached two retreats In Rogersville, New Brunswick (Canada) and Ogden, Utah, and made a presentation in Orlando, Florida to the Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship in which they chose to present to the full Conference of Bishops the Revised Grail Psalms as the liturgical Psalter for the United States, which is a product of Conception Abbey.  Hopefully, it will make the Agenda of the Biannual Meeting of the Bishops' Conference in November.


• Bro. Justin Hernandez submitted an abstract of a paper to be read, if accepted, at the Wesleyan Philosophical Society's conference on the Problem of Evil at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, in March, 2009.  The paper’s title is "Evil as Metaphor."


• Dr. Chris Anadale served on the faculty of the second annual summer school at Lindenwood University, in St. Charles, Missouri.  Chris led two seminars on the philosophical dimensions of the early American republic.  One focused on the Declaration of Independence, and the other on the Webster-Calhoun debate of 1833.  He hopes to publish revised versions of both of them in the near future.


• Fr. Duane Reinert worked on a couple of research/writing projects with Dr. Carla Edwards, the chair of the Department of Psychology, Sociology, & Counseling at NWMSU. During this school year, an article written by Fr. Duane and Drs. Edwards and Rebecca Hendrix of NWMSU, will be published in the January 2009 issue of Counseling & Values.  (Title: "Attachment Theory and Religiosity: A Summary of Empirical Research with Implications for Counseling.")  He was also appointed administrator of the Catholic campus ministry at Haskell Indian Nations University as of 1 July.


• Ms. Lee Coats will be in a local show in Maryville at the Nodaway Museum starting September 15th. They will be featuring artists of Nodaway County. She will be showing a painting which is in the collection of CSC English professor Dr. and Mrs. Paul Johnson.


• Fr. Thomas Bailey submitted his first article for publication in the American Benedictine Review, entitled, “A Search for Equality: A View Through the Life of Brother James Blanford, OSB.”  It is a look at the life of lay brothers immediately before and after the Second Vatican Council, particularly focusing on the legal aspects of their separation and exclusion from Chapter.


• Fr. Samuel Russell and Fr. Dan Merz drove 8100 miles in 24 days, visiting nineteen (arch)dioceses and one religious community that use CSC and one potential client diocese (Amarillo), attending six alumni ordinations and participating in the annual meeting of the National Association of College Seminaries in Winona, MN.  Fr. Samuel spent a little over two weeks in Lithuania, mostly with the two communities of Benedictine Sisters of Vilnius and Kaunas.  His family there also held a reunion, beginning with Mass in his grandmother’s childhood parish church.  Fr. Dan remained on campus and reports that he made good progress on his doctoral dissertation and gave a retreat to the Charismatic Renewal Team for his home Diocese of Jefferson City.

We also initiated a very successful Language, Culture and Church for International Priests Program (LCCIP) 6-26 July with 16 priests from India, Nigeria and the Philippines.  Many staff contributed but special credit goes to Fr. Frowin, the program’s director.  (See LCCIP link for more info) We welcomed a few new faces to our faculty and staff as we began the new academic year: