Pictures from Our Notre Dame Trip

Under Notre Dame's Golden Dome I've posted some pictures of my trip to Notre Dame at Flickr.

A Former Student Gives a Homily

We're back! Our week at Notre Dame was fantastic, but there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed. We had an uneventful trip home, praise God. On Sunday we drove through Helena, Montana to celebrate Mass at the cathedral there. I had never been there, and I was awestruck by the amount of marble and stained glass. Helena is not exactly on the way to anywhere, but if you ever get the chance, stop in and take a tour of the cathedral. I'm currently uploading all of my pictures to Flickr, and I'll link to them when I'm finished (What?--You didn't think you'd get out of seeing my vacation pictures did you? At least you don't have to think of a flimsy excuse to avoid coming over to my house to watch the slide show). When I got back Sunday night I was disappointed to learn that I missed Deacon Matt Nicks' first homily at my home parish of St. Peter's. I wrote about Matt's ordination a while back and was looking forward to hearing him. Fortunately, thanks to technology, I still got to hear it, even though I couldn't be there. Our music director records all of the parish homilies and sends them to me as mp3 files so I can upload them to our Keys to the Kingdom podcast. If you'd like to listen to Deacon Matthew's homily from last week, click here to download the mp3 file. If you like you can also subscribe to the entire podcast.

Our Last Days at Notre Dame

It's Thursday night in South Bend and our week at ND Vision is almost over. My son and the other teens that came with us have had a fantastic time...and so have we adults. Here are some more highlights of the past few days: Sitting awestruck as 225 teens spent an hour together in Eucharistic adoration Praying/chanting morning prayer and Vespers in the lady chapel at the Notre Dame basilica Gazing open-mouthed at all the beautiful works of art that decorate the campus and its buildings Praying the rosary with over 225 teenagers at the Notre Dame grotto Enjoying the presence so many young, enthusiastic, spirit-filled Holy Cross priests Eating some of the best food in the world each and every meal Talking over lunch with Kevin, a young seminarian who has just finished his freshman year and has given up a month of his summer to mentor the young ND Vision participants Visiting the Notre Dame bookstore six or seven times, wishing I could just bring a tent and camp out there for a few days Trying unsuccessfully to find and shake hands with Ralph McInerney, Notre Dame professor and author of the Fr. Dowling mysteries Visiting the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend And most important, getting to spend some quality time with people who have an intense love of working with Catholic teens A couple of more quotes I will take with me as I leave this conference: Catholic teens are not "the Church of tomorrow;" they are "the young Church of today." "Joy is suffering that's been worked through." To anyone with high school students, and to all youth ministers, I highly recommend this week at Notre Dame. I've met people from New York, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Illinois, and various other places, and all of us have been impressed by the quality of the program and of the college students leading it. We'll be back. The conference officially ends tomorrow at noon, after which we will load up our vehicles and try to drive 600 miles to St. Cloud, Minnesota. Please pray that we have a safe three days on the road as we return to Spokane. When I get back I'll post some of the pictures I've taken and then get back to writing about books and reading. I've picked up a couple of volumes from the Notre Dame bookstore that I'm anxious to write about. Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Notre Dame Trip Days 3 and 4

Now that I've finally figured out how to connect to the wireless network here at Notre Dame I can give a quick update. First things first: yesterday. Two words: Chicago. Traffic. We left Jackson, Minnesota on time at 7:00 a.m., then around 2:00 p.m. got bogged down for two hours trying to get through Chicago. We were trying to avoid the Ryan Expressway because the official site said it was under construction, so we took what we thought could make better time on another road. Instead we became the incarnation of that old hobbit saying, "Short cuts make long delays." And if it wasn't the traffic it was the electrical storm. Sheets of water came pelting down on us as we rolled through Illinois, and we were surrounded by dozens of flashes of lightning. No one's car was hit by lightning on this leg of the trip, though, so we counted ourselves lucky. We rolled into Notre Dame at about 8:30 p.m., exhausted and two and a half hours late. We were afraid the youth group had missed important orientation information, but the ND Vision people were great and got the kids right into the keynote speech. ND Vision even ordered sub sandwiches for our teens (and for us!), since we hadn't had time to stop for dinner. The rest of us got settled in by about 11:00 p.m., and woke up fresh and ready to attend our conferences. My favorite line from the keynote speech last night: "Build a man a fire and he stays warm for the night; set a man on fire and he stays warm for the rest of his life." The campus here is absolutely beautiful. I've got room for over 1,000 pictures on my camera's memory card, and I may just take that many before we leave on Friday. And the campus bookstore is almost worth the drive in itself. I've never seen such an incredible section of religious books. I spent an hour in there today, and I imagine I'll go back a few more times before Friday. So far I've only bought a hat for myself, but that's only because I was too overwhelmed to get anything else. I'm going to have to bring this to a close. Sorry for the rambling nature of this post, but I need to run to dinner and don't have time to make it more coherent. Tonight I'm going to attend the rosary at the Grotto, then Vespers in the Basilica. And I hope to get to Morning Prayer tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. I'll let you know tomorrow what they were like.

Notre Dame Trip Day 2

Today we're in the small town of Jackson, Minnesota, after driving 660 miles yesterday. The weather was much nicer today--no one was struck by lightning. Highlights from yesterday's travel: Mount Rushmore: An awe-inspiring sight to those of us who had never seen it before. A brief glimpse of the badlands: we could see the edges of the badlands from the freeway. I'd like to come back some day to take a closer look. Sights we didn't get to see, but wanted to: the corn palace in Mitchell, SD, 1880 Town, the Reptile Gardens We leave for Notre Dame in about an hour. We crossed into the mountain time zone on Saturday, we went into central time yesterday, and by the end of our driving today we'll be in eastern time. Today's drive is shorter, 588 miles. More updates later.

Trip to Notre Dame, Day 1

I woke up this morning in Sheridan, Wyoming, after driving about 660 miles from Spokane, Washington yesterday with 13 teenagers, and 7 chaperones. Highlights of our first day of travel: Stopping at Lincoln, Montana's 10,000 Silver Dollar Bar Attending Mass in Billings, MT with my parents. The young priest at St. Pius X Parish went to school with the deacon I wrote about a couple of months ago. Chasing a huge electrical storm across southern Montana. I really enjoy watching Montana thunder storms, but not while driving through them. One of the minivans in our group was struck by lightning. Everyone was fine, but they were a bit shaken up. Today we head across South Dakota to Mount Rushmore and then on to Minnesota before arriving at Notre Dame tomorrow night. I'll keep updating as time and technology allow. Thanks for all your prayers.

Caravan to Notre Dame!

My son and I will be heading to Notre Dame next week for a 5-day conference called ND Vision. We're driving across the country in 4 rented minivans with 13 teenagers (yes, 13!). We leave Spokane, Washington at 5:00 in the morning and for the next three days I'll be trapped inside a moving snack zone. The cars that drive beside us will see the vans surrounded by a cloud of orange BHT fumes. I won't even begin to describe what it will smell like. What is ND Vision? Here's how the people of ND Vision describe themselves: ND Vision is committed to helping young people recognize God's call in their lives and respond to that call with courage and faith. Since 2002, thousands of high school students have come to Notre Dame's campus to take part in this unique experience. In 2007, participants from across the nation will join together at ND Vision to ask important questions about life, faith, their own gifts, and the ways in which we are each called to be the change we want to see in the world. I'm actually very excited to be going. Besides getting some quality time with my oldest son, I'm also going to be able to attend the special program for adults, ND Vision CYM. The drive is also going to be fun. We're stopping in Billings, Montana where my parents live, and we're also going to stop at Mount Rushmore, which I've never seen. I'm sharing this with you because I may not be able to write any posts next week. I'm trying to find out if I'll have Internet access while I'm there, because I'd love to write about our experiences, but if there's no access then I'll just have to wait until we get back to tell you all about it. I'll take pictures and keep a journal to remember everything, but I hope I'll be able to write from Notre Dame. Do you have any recommendations for places to see while we're on the Notre Dame campus? I know we'll see "Touchdown Jesus," but what else should we be sure to see?