This past week, the church celebrated Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and coming to a close on Easter Sunday. As we journeyed with the church, we experienced Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey, the celebration of His Last Supper, the pain and suffering of His Passion and death, and the greatest triumph of all, His Resurrection. As we journey through this week and the rest of the Easter season, let us not lose sight of all the things our Lord, Jesus Christ did for us by dying for us upon the cross.

Over the past few days, I have been reflecting on this year, my first year of seminary formation. A few weeks ago, I mentioned how a year had passed since I had begun the process of becoming a seminarian fro the Diocese of Orlando. On that Monday of Holy Week last year, I had no idea of the things the Lord had in store for me for the upcoming year. It has been a year of extreme challenges and triumphs.

The challenges came from being away from family and friends for the first time, being in a completely different environment. I pretty much grew up at my parish. In fact, just the other day, when I was home for Holy Week Recess, I was talking to my mother about how the parish raised me. I have been associated with St. Charles Church ever since I was 3 DAYS old. So, you can imagine, leaving that environment was tremendously difficult. However, when I got to the seminary in August, I quickly found a new home and I grew to love my brother seminarians as if they were my biological brothers. The Lord truly does work in marvelous ways. Throughout the next year, I am sure the struggles will be even more difficult to deal with; but, I know that if I believe the Lord is there with me, I can conquer anything that challenges me along the way!

Here are some pictures from Holy Week 2009 at St. Charles!!

Hello all!! I wanted to keep everyone posted on my progress. I was told that I will receive a letter of acceptance from St. John Vianney College Seminary in the next couple of weeks. This is cutting it a little close but it is out of my control. I have been asked to report down to Miami on August 7th. So I have a little less than four weeks left with all of you here in Orlando.

Bye for now….

Hello again! Well, this morning’s meeting with Bishop Wenski went very well. Afterwards, Fr. Miguel invited me to his office to inform me that the decision will not be made for a couple of weeks yet. There is another candidate who is just starting the process and they want to have all their interviews done before they make a decision. So, I will keep everyone posted! Thanks!!

Hello everyone! My meeting with Bishop Wenski is coming up this Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. I hope and pray that everything goes smoothly. I also found out today that the meeting between the members of the seminary committee will take place Wednesday morning. After that I should have some word on whether or not my application has been accepted or not. I will keep everyone posted! Thanks for your prayers and support!

In April, I started my application with the Diocese of Orlando Vocations Office to be accepted as a collegiate seminarian. The process has been very lengthy! The first thing I had to do is fill out a 10 page application and write an autobiography, detailing the major spiritual and personal events of my twenty year history. I also had to get a physical- most of you know that I HATE going to the doctor’s office for anything. After I got the results of everything back and discovered that I was physically healthy, I had to sign up for a psychological evaluation. The questions were not too difficult but it took a few hours to complete. (This reminds me…I should call to setup an appointment to get the results of this.) For the final part of the application, I had to schedule meetings with members of the Diocesan Seminary Committee.

A few weeks ago, I completed my interviews with all of the members of the committee and, in my opinion, everything went very smoothly. The last interview I have is with Bishop Wenski on May 27th. I am very optimistic that the meeting will go well because I have had the opportunity to serve with the Bishop on several occasions. After this, I should know a little more.

That is all for right now, but I encourage all of you to keep checking on my progress. Everything will be posted here on my new blog, so check back often!! Thank you for the prayers and support. This process would be so overwhelming if I did not have such a large support system. God Bless!!!!

Bye for now……..