Yesterday was an amazing day! My very dear friend Lindsay came and visited for a little bit and I helped her wrap presents. Then we had a big Polish dinner with all of us young novices sitting around the table eating fresh grilled salmon and all sorts of good stuff. Then we had our Talent Show in which I sang some, and others did things like juggling, there was a small jazz band, comedy acts (including some AMAZING impressions by one novice), and even a dramatic reading of Edmund Campion’s “Brag” and a letter from St. Joan of Arc to the Hussites of Bohemia. I had to leave the talent show a little early to get over to the church for choir rehearsal before their 10pm service. It was so great to sing in a choir again, and it was especially awesome singing right by the organ; I really got to belt it out! Phew! Singing like that is exhausting but man is it a great feeling! After that Mass, a couple other novices invited me to go with them to St. Louis, King of France church for their Midnight Mass. I went… and it was the most beautiful Mass I’ve ever been to in my life (the picture above is of their organ). It is a fairly small church, but it was packed to bursting and their little choir was angelic, purely heavenly! Oh when the women voices soared up into the clouds I just wanted to weep! At the end of the Mass we three novices were just giddy and all misty-eyed and I was even shaking! Oh it was pure beauty; I can’t even describe it. It made me fall even more in love with the Catholic Church, and it also makes me look forward with great excitement at the prospect of being a priest one day!

        So I didn’t get to sleep until around 2am….. so I woke up at 11:15 today, showered, read the newspaper, and now I am here waiting for our one o’clock brunch. I am so hungry!!! After that we’ll have a small gift exchange and probably watch the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and who knows what else. Then tomorrow morning I head home for a couple of days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        I hope all of you have a very blessed and merry Christmas today!

Oops… I guess it was only for one night! Oh well! It was lovely regardless, having Evening Prayer by candlelight, playing chess with a fire going in the same room while chatting with all my brothers here, WINNING hehe. It was a great night. Our Christmas tree is decorated with BEAUTIFUL white lights and many of those colorful ball-shaped ornaments. Oh, and Han Solo and Princess Leia courtesy of ME HAHA!!! I couldn’t POSSIBLY resist.

OK so JUST when we finish with a three-day silent retreat… we enter Holy Darkness! Basically, I think, we go on an electricity fast until Christmas, using only candles as light sources. That also means no TV or computers… so as a very brief update, I’m doing spectacularly! I am super excited for Christmas and I can’t WAIT to go home for a few days! How is everyone else out there? Anyone hoping for anything especially special for Christmas? Well, I guess I’ll xanga you all sometime in the future!

Thank you all for your responses! They were very helpful in my presentation, which went very well and people found to be very interesting and relevant. For those of you interested, here is what I feel a good, general definition of a Jesuit is, without going TOO in depth (there is much more). It is from our 32nd General Congregation (a big meeting that takes places every ten years or so):

[To be a Jesuit] is to know that one is a sinner,
yet called to be a companion of Jesus,
as Ignatius was, who begged the Blessed
Virgin to place him with her Son,
and who then saw the Father Himself
ask Jesus, carrying His cross,
to take this pilgrim into his company…”
“It is to engage, under the standard of the cross,
in the crucial struggle of our time
the struggle for faith
and that struggle for justice
which it includes.

Hey, I am doing a presentation on Monday about Jesuits as they are viewed in pop culture and society. I would be very grateful if all my subscribers who see this update would provide their honest opinion about the Jesuits, even if it is just to say, “I have no opinion” or “I know nothing about the Jesuits.” Don’t worry, I won’t provide names and I won’t be angry at anyone! Thanks for the help!