ROME: Deaconate Ordination

Thursday, October 6 (Feast of St. Bruno) was the Deaconate Ordination. This was very special because it was the main reason why we were all there!

Tyler was put in charge of his dad's video camera. He had a lot of fun standing in line with it...

Listen to how special this was: we were in St. Peter’s Basilica, sitting by the main altar (where Peter is buried underneath) and celebrated Mass there with at least 100 bishops, priests and deacons. It lasted for 2 hours and 45 minutes and was beautiful: incense, organ, trumpets, men's choir.


Here's a picture of where we were sitting. We were in the very back (the next picture shows where the front of the Mass was) but we loved sitting where we did and taking the whole Mass in. It was very special to be there, and neither Tyler nor I had ever been to any ordination before. 

Here are Deacon Victor and Deacon Pat as they were processing out.

This is one of my favorite pictures. Notice the Holy Spirit Dove above the altar.

Then we walked up the hill to the North American Seminary. All the seminarians were there to greet us, serve us wine, and they were very friendly. It is a lot larger than I had pictured, and there was a beautiful courtyard where they had tables set up with little finger foods. Victor and Pat, now Deacon Victor and Deacon Pat, were very happy and it was special to be there with them and their families.

Tyler and I saw Father Boone from Loras College. There is a seminarian from the Archdiocese of Dubuque who was ordained a Deacon so Fr. Boone came and concelebrated Mass. It was really cool to know a priest who was in the Mass...actually I was surprised at how many people we saw that we knew. Tyler saw a lot of people who graduated from Ave Maria in Rome, probably for the ordination.

ROME: Wednesday

I am a little slow, but still continuing the posts about Rome! 

After the papal audience we went to the Vatican Museum. A few words to sum it up: very crowded. We learned that on Wednesdays the cruise ships come into town so there were thousands of people for that, as well as for the papal audience. It was the wrong day to go to really take your time and enjoy it, although we are thankful we were able to go at all. 

I had no idea what to expect and obviously pictured the various museums I have been in throughout my life. Well, this was very different. It was huge! The museum takes you through tons of rooms and goes in one direction so you have to go the way they tell you (we tried to bypass some rooms but it didn't work.)

The museum ends in the Sistine Chapel, and since we wanted to see that, we had to go through every other room first. The Sistine Chapel is called the “heart and soul of the Vatican” and it was beautiful (even though it was packed, noisy, and dark.)

After that we had time to grab a quick pick-me-up. I had chocolate gelato, Tyler had cappuccino, Jeff had a beer, and Barb had an espresso. 

It worked, because 20 minutes later we had enough energy to go on a 30 minute walk to another Church for a prayer service for the family and friends of the seminarians preparing for ordination. It was beautiful. There was adoration and confessions and it was a very blessed time. Here's the group outside the church.

Then we ate againJ We went to a fun restaurant and had pizza. They served a delicious appetizer of bruschetta and then everyone got a single pizza of their choice, the size of a large plate. It wasn’t as much food as we have had the other nights, but still plenty! 

Again we got gelato on the way back to the hotel! It was delicious. I had chocolate and a creamy berry sorbet. Tyler had chocolate and banana.

Semester Highlights

Hey y'all! Thanks so much for all your prayers for us at Loras College. God has really been working in us and the students and we wanted to share with you some of the exciting things that are happening!

• Three bible studies are beginning with members of four different varsity teams on campus
• I have developed friendships with student-athletes by being present at football and soccer practices, as well as spending time with them off the field throughout the week
• I was invited by Coach Schultz to give brief meditations before cross-country meets
• Three student-athletes will attend FOCUS Leadership Summit, Illuminate, in Baltimore during the weekend of January 20-23. They will also have the opportunity to attend the March for Life in Washington D.C. More information on the Summit can be found at http://www.focussummit.org
• Varsity Catholic is hosting a soccer mission trip in St. Lucia at the end of late May. Several student-athletes have already shown interest in the trip.
• Former Anaheim Angel and convert to Catholicism is coming to speak at Loras with the athletes the evening of Wednesday, March 7th about his journey to the faith and the importance of living one's life for Christ on and off the field.
• I have had the privilege of serving the men's and women's soccer teams by selling scarves at several home games and helping out with their fundraiser for the Louverture-Cleary school in Haiti.

ROME: Papal Audience

Our visit to Rome wouldn't have been complete without seeing our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI! And wow did we get to see him. We had amazing seats and got to see him several times as he rode around in the Popemobile. Thanks to Tyler's dad who was up close and personal, we have amazing pictures.

Here's a picture of what St. Peter's Square looked like from the picture on the big screen. Our seats were on the left hand side (if you see the shadow that looks like a triangle, we were seated close to the point of the triangle, if that makes sense.)

Here we are waiting to see the Pope.



When he came out there was music playing and everyone started clapping. He drove around for at least five minutes before going to the front. Here are pictures that Tyler's dad took.

When we went up to the front he read something in Italian and then Cardinals came and read a shortened version in the different languages. They also announced various groups that were there to see the Holy Father and the groups stood up and cheered or sang a little song. Pope Benedict XVI ended it by leading us all in the Our Father and then gave us a papal blessing (that extended to all our family members, how cool is that?!)  It was such a blessing to be there and was definitely an unforgettable experience!

ROME: St. Peter's Basilica

Here are some tidbits from our tour of St. Peter’s Basilica.

One of Victor’s friends who has been ordained a Priest for a year gave us a tour (he is on the left, Victor is on the right.) It was about 2 hours long, and we were there with about 2,000 of our closest friends...haha.

Here's the famous door that is the original from the first Basilica built by Constantine.

Here's our first glimpse into the Basilica.

The dome at the very top.

Just to give you an idea about the size of the Basilica, look at this.

We learned that the architects and artists created the statues and art in the Basilica to look smaller than they really are. Our guide called this the "deception of the senses."

All of the pictures in the Basilica are mosaics. I still can't comprehend this. Think about how many millions of tiny tiles there are! They did this because they knew they wouldn't be able to restrict people from taking photographs and mosaics will last forever compared to paintings.

There are too many side chapels to count, and throughout the Basilica there are mosaics that tell a story, and often a saint buried below the mosaic.

Here's the main altar where the Pope celebrates Mass. If you remember a few posts ago about the Scavi tour, St. Peter's Tomb is directly under this altar.



Around the main altar there are four huge pillars. This was one of my favorite parts about the Basilica. Each pillar has a statue of a saint and then above the statue in a little loft there is a relic from that saint.

St. Andrew was the brother of St. Peter and was the first disciple called by Jesus. It is said that he went to Greece to preach the gospel and was martyred there and crucified on a cross that was the shape of an "x." The head of St. Andrew used to be in the reliquary above the statue, but was given to the Greek Orthodox Church as a sign of friendship by Paul VI.

St. Helena was the mother of Constantine and is credited with using her wealth and power to save and bring to Rome hundreds of the relics from the Holy Land. One of these relics is said to be a piece of the true cross on which Jesus was crucified. Above her statue is a piece of the true cross.

St. Longinus was the solider who pierced the side of Jesus after he was crucified. He later became a Christian. Above his statue is a piece of the spear that pierced the side of Jesus.

And my favorite...St. Veronica. One of my favorite prayers is the Stations of the Cross, and I always love to mediate on St. Veronica wiping the face of Jesus as he goes to be crucified. Above her statue is a piece of her veil that touched Jesus' face and every Good Friday there is a special time when the veil is taken out and people can receive a blessing.

At the very back of St. Peter's is the Chair of St. Peter where four Saints of the Church are holding onto a piece of the chair, which inside of the statue of the chair are relics from the chair that St. Peter sat in.

This is where the Ordination took place a few days later.

The last two things we saw on our tour was the tomb of Blessed Pope John Paul II and the Pieta.

Frances Rosser

We got a dog! We've been wanting one for a long time, and have been doing lots of research about the types of dogs and what is available around here...but two Sundays ago when we visited the Dubuque Humane Society, we fell in love with this one! So we came back for her that day and took her home with us.
She is two years old and is a mix between a border collie and a Labrador retriever.

She is used to being in a house with children, so is house trained and is very chill and quiet (although she's a bundle of energy outside!) It's taken all of us a few days to get used to each other (okay, maybe me most of all!) but we're all into the swing of things now and are very happy to have her with us.

This past Saturday we took her to the field on campus and ran around. She loves to run and jump but doesn't know fetch yet, so we're working on that.



We take turns taking her for walks and feeding her, but Tyler gets the privilege of giving her a bath every Saturday. He actually enjoys it, and Frannie doesn't seem to mind it either. She smells a lot better afterwards!

She is a snuggler and likes to cuddle. She's not allowed on our bed (and we're trying to train her to have her spot on the futon) but whenever Tyler sits down on the couch she jumps up on his lap. It's quite adorable.


She is named after St. Francis (patron saint of animals) and we call her Frannie for short.

Food, Fellowship, and Failure

This past Saturday we had the whole day planned. Mass, brunch, take Frannie for a walk, give her a bath, have wings while watching football, go to the Dessert Pops (musical show at Loras) and THEN, what we were waiting for the WHOLE DAY...watch the Alabama vs. LSU game (which we would DVR) while having people over.

Side note: Here are the wings we had. Tyler made them from scratch and tried two different sauces. They were amazing!

Well..let's just say the day went like planned up until we got back from the Dessert Pops. When we got back I made popcorn, Tyler got chairs set up, and people started coming over. It was about 10pm (the night of daylight savings, which worked out well because we could stay up late and sleep in) and Tyler turned on the TV to get the game going.

Let me back up. We love our apartment, but the downside is we have to have Medicacom for our cable provider, and we have literally called them eight times with problems, and they have come at least three times to replace the box. The latest problem we have been having is when we DVR a show, it freezes when we try to watch it later. Well, we forgot about this problem when we taped the game.

So, Tyler turned the game on and of course...it froze. Thus began the night of restarting the game, shutting off the box, fast forwarding, etc. For three hours Tyler (very patiently, I must say) tried to get it to work. Luckily, our company entertained themselves with Frannie. We had moments when the game worked, so all in all we got to watch the first three quarters (when it got to midnight and it froze again at the start of the fourth, Tyler had had enough.)

The worst thing about it was Alabama lost. Tyler was calling this game the National Championship (because everyone knows that LSU was ranked number 1 and Alabama was ranked number 2) and he had been looking forward to watching it uninterrupted for a long time.

Anyway, life is good because the BSC rankings came out the other day and Alabama only fell to number 3 (behind Oklahoma State, and as everyone knows, Oklahoma State plays Texas Tech this weekend, so if Texas Tech wins, Alabama could jump up to number 2 again.)

Ah...the life of a sports wife!

Here's our teammate Kourtney making cookies. She is quite the baker and she tried a new recipe, chocolate fudge pomegranate cookies. They were delicious!

Everyone loved Frannie. She was a good girl, letting people sit in her spot on the futon (so she snuggled in between them.) She's quite the cuddler!
The guy on the couch in the blue shirt (Tim) and his girlfriend Courtney love Frannie. They sometimes visit the Dubuque Humane Society so they knew Frannie from there, and Tim was so excited we got her that he brought her treats and a penguin toy. Frannie isn't wild about her toys yet, but we're working on that!
Teresa and Frannie enjoyed watching the game together.
See, lots of smile even though it was quite the night.