Feeling my age, and it's not so bad!

St. John Hall at St. John Seminary, where I studied to become a priest.
The main building houses student rooms, classrooms and refectory.
The lower building to the right is St. John Chapel.

I'm off today but there was a meeting in Brighton for parish personnel with Generations of Faith experience and I wanted to be part of it so I joined Pat Waggett, Sandra Mueller and Helen Cushman for this "lunch-and-meet." It was a good meeting, lots of good ideas shared and most importantly, the folks in the archdiocesan Office of Religious Education had a chance to hear from us in the field what are the blessings and troubles of such an approach to faith formation.

The meeting was over at 3:00 and I was joining friends for dinner in downtown Boston at 6:00 so rather than hike back to Concord, I ensconced myself with a grande and my laptop at the Brighton Starbucks. I got most of my letter for the bulletin written, caught up on email and then the pressure of the coffee in my system needed to be relieved. What to do with my laptop while I went to the restroom?

While pondering this dilemma, in walk a group of seminarians from St. John Seminary. (How did I know they were seminarians? Well, the Roman collars were my first clue!) I went over to them, introduced myself to them and asked if they'd keep an eye on my MacBook while I took a short break. On my return I chatted with them a bit about the beginning of their school year.

Back at my little table, I realized it's been 34 years since I returned to the seminary for a September start of classes. I left the seminary before most of these seminarians were born! That's where the "feeling my age" part comes in. But as I wrote in the head above, it wasn't so bad. It's been at least an interesting and challenging 34 years and I'm grateful for what this life has given me, hoping that I've given back in return.

I'm looking across Starbucks at these young hopefuls... Oh, my... they have no idea of what's ahead for them... (See - there's the kind of statement that tells me how old I really am!) I pray for them - and ask you to do the same. I'm not even sure I remember what my hopes and dreams were in my last years in the seminary. I do know that I learned very early on that for the most part, ministry as a priest was not what I expected it to be. It was different, deeper, wider and more mysterious than I could have imagined. I pray that these young men will find the same...