"And who'll hear the echoes of stories never told? Let them ring out loud till they unfold." (Nobuo Uematsu)
Name: John Brotemarkle
I am a seminarian studying for the Diocese of Wichita, KS. Currently, I am in my first year of theology studies at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO
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Following up my post from last Wednesday, here are my reflections on how my first week of pastoral ministry went. First off, the parish is about 40 minutes from the seminary, so my brother seminarian, Kevin, and I (since I don't have a car, it was necessary to be assigned with someone else) left the seminary at 5:45 to get there in time for the 7 am Mass. The pastor wasn't expecting us that early, and wasn't expecting us to serve Mass right away. So, Kevin and I basically greeted the parishoners after every Mass. Let me tell you, each Mass had a large number of the faithful attending. The smallest Mass was the 7 am one, and that had about 150 people there. Now, out of 4800 families (yes, that's right, families) that might be considered small, but that's still a large number from where I come from. The largest Mass filled the entire church, and there was only standing room. As a sidenote, this parish is the largest in the state of Missouri.
After all the Masses, we had a few hours to ourselves. So, we were able to get some homework done. Eventually, we had to get ready for our apostolic service, which is helping out with the youth group. We got to meet all the people who work with the youth, and then we met all the teens. It was actually quite fun. Despite my nervousness about being thrown into the middle of the lesson plans, it went quite well. Kevin and I got along with all the teens, and look forward to being there next week. We didn't get back to the seminary until 9 pm. Basically, my Sundays will run from about 6 am - 9 pm. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
Normally, everyone tends to clean their houses in the spring, when the weather is reliably nice and most professional sports are done. However, the weather was nice today, so the seminary community decided to do a little house cleaning. Well, it wasn't really the weather, it was more so that things were piling up in the storage areas from years past. I ended up helping out in the auditorium. One would think that the auditorium wouldn't have a whole lot in it. Not so, my friend. It was quite a job cleaning out in there; hauling out large objects to be taken to the dumpter. But, I think it wasn't so bad as cleaning some of the other areas. When I saw the other guys who had to clean those areas, did they look dusty, sweaty, and tired. I think it was a job well done, and we got rid of a lot of stuff that we don't really need any more. Also, it means a well deserved dinner tonight.
As part of our seminary formation, we are assigned to different parishes throughout the diocese of St. Louis. This is to help us to become familiar with a parish setting, and give us experience working in said setting. For the seminarians who are not from St. Louis, like me, none of the parishes are familiar. So, this is a new situation we're being put into, as we don't know the pastor or the people of the parish. That being said, I believe that I can learn quite a bit interacting with the pastor and the people of a parish.
Greetings! Thanks for coming to my blog. I'm pretty new to blogging, so just bear with me as I try to keep with all this new stuff. I'm afraid I'm not much of a writer, but I will try my best to let everyone know what's going on with my life. Thanks.
