As I was leaving a mass a few days back in St. Peter’s, a couple came up and asked me to take their picture. Their questioning continued. They wanted to know about the celebrant, the basilica, myself, and the Legion. It turns out they are from Seattle but stopped to celebrate their Faith before heading off to work in Saudi Arabia.
Now, I needed to catch up to the community.
I began walking out, but the face of the usher looked too familiar to just pass him by. But he was dressed awfully strange in a suit and tie. Shaking his hand I inquired,
“So is this just a side job you took up?”
“No it’s a little more than that. This is what pays for next year.”
“So, then, I guess you have been doing it all summer.”
“More or less.”
The conversation continued talking about his classes and exams, which happen to be the same as mine. You see, he’s is a seminarian from India studying in Rome at Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum with us. The suit was so strange because I had only seen him in a collar before.
He lives at a house for diocesan seminarians we run called Mater Ecclesiae (Mother of the Church). We don’t charge much by North American or European standards (many seminaries in the states run more than double our cost) but it is still a big bill by Indian standards.
I think in the long run this will help him be a better priest; we value things more when we work for them. Please pray that he, I, and all the others studying here become holy priests.
