Farewell to Roman

Thanks Roman for your final post and I pray for you in your new life as a seminarian.

Being involved in this blog has demonstrated to me the power of the internet. Meeting Roman has enabled me to get involved with a wider spectrum of the church and I think that it has opened up a wider spectrum of the church for him. We have assisted together in a number of Masses ranging from solemn Masses in the extraordinary form, Reform-of-the-reform Masses in the ordinary form, Solemn Pontifical Masses (the most significant being the Pontifical Mass celebrated by H.E. Cardinal Levada Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in the Cathedral) and the more left-wing weirdo Masses such as the annual "multicultural" Mass in the Archdiocese.

Cardinal Levada is received at St Stephens Cathedral, Brisbane 6th Sunday after Easter 2008

Most importantly we learned from each other, and that is how liturgy goes through its organic growth through the ages. People corresponding with each other, experimenting with what works and what doesnt work, comparing notes and passing learnings on.

I remember that Benedict XVI, in his book A New Song for the Lord recounts how he laid the cornerstone of the new seminary in Munich in 1981 and chose the following verse:

Like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1Pet. 2:5).

He goes on to describe how seminarians let themselves to be moulded like stones by the stonecutter, to enable that spiritual house to be built. The seminary life is that carving. I pray that he will be a holy priest who ministers not as some social worker in fancy dress (or in normal clothes like a lot of them are) but as a priest through who his parishioners see God, and through whom they humbly receive the sacraments.