Because 12 Ain't Enough

We're getting another deacon. On Friday seminarian Matt Capadano will be ordained a transitional deacon and will join us in June, living with Fr. Vogel. In the fall he will return to Mount St. Mary Seminary in Maryland before, God willing, being ordained a priest next summer.

Matt says he is "excited" to spend the summer with us serving as clergy in a "hopefully forgiving parish." He doesn't know quite what Fr. Damian and Dcn. Lauber have planned for him or what to expect, but he is approaching the summer with an open heart and mind.

Before he even knew he was spending the summer with us, he asked Dcn John Norman to vest him at the ordination Mass. Then Dcn. Capadano will be the Deacon of the Altar at then Fr. Norman's First Mass on June 2nd. So we shall get a preview of him before he joins us for the summer.

This means that, for the summer, Deacon Graef won't be our most recently ordained deacon and Deacon Krueger won't be our youngest.

Please do welcome Deacon Capadano when he joins us this summer.

Deacon Norman helped us out today

In the sacristy before Mass
Fr. Steve: Do you know everything you're supposed to do?
Dcn. Norman: No.

Since Deacon John Norman was ordained, today was his first chance to celebrate Mass with us. (He arrived home from Rome last night.)

 

As he proclaimed the Gospel ...

 ... his parents made sure he got it all right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're delighted to have him around. Hopefully you'll get a chance to see him before he returns to Rome to continue seminary.

Vocations Day

On Friday the sixth grade students from St. Columbkille Catholic School and other Catholic schools in the Omaha area gathered at Skutt High School for Vocations Day.

It was exciting to see 1,200 students in one spot joyful and celebrating Mass together.

Students were split into groups. The girls got to hear from some women about their vocation.

Four seminarians were on hand who

 spoke to the boys about their vocation.

The classroom allowed a good environment

 for discussions about vocaations.

 Brother Damien, OSB, had students

 slip questions into his hood.

 Each person brought their own

perspective and their own call.

 Our own Fr. Vogel shared his story with students.

John Norman leaves for Rome

Before John Norman leaves for seminary, he stopped to say goodbye at all of the Masses last weekend. He will be ordained a deacon in October and a priest in June.

Visiting Pope Benedict and John Norman

By Canon Law, every five years a diocesan bishop is bound to make a report to the Supreme Pontiff on the state of the diocese entrusted to him. During the year in which he is bound to submit a report to the Supreme Pontiff, a diocesan bishop is to go to Rome to venerate the tombs of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and to present himself to the Roman Pontiff. These visits are often referred to as Ad Lumina visits. "Ad lumina" means "to the threshhold" as the Bishops gather and pledge their faith at the tomb of the apostles, typically by reciting the Apostle's Creed.

How the bishops interact with the pope and the vatican offices varies over time. Archbishop Lucus recently made his visit along with other bishops from Nebraska and Kansas including Archbishop Emeritus Eldon Curtis. As Archbishop Lucas recently told the Omaha World Herald, he gave Pope Benedict a presentation on the Catholic faith of young people.

While there, they were able to visit one of our seminarians, John Norman (second row far right) at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy. In the picture above they are on the roof of the college, which has a spectacular view of Rome.

A Seminarian Speaks

Since he's been studying in Rome, we haven't seen much of John Norman, one of our seminarians. This summer he stopped by during Religious Formation and spoke to the students there. He will speak at the end of all oru Masses this weekend and he will be visiting some of the school classes next week. Here is video of his visit this summer:

Pastor's Day

Fr. Damien Wee was recently to Immaculate Conception Seminary for Pastor's Day. Seminarian Dan Szalewski (peeking out from behind St. Joseph) is in his second year of studies at the seminary in Northwest Missouri.

Please keep Dan and all of our seminarians in your prayers.

Annual Report & Seminarians

Our Annual Report was mailed and Fr. Damian spoke about it at all of the Masses last weekend. Due to bulk mail rules, the arrival date can vary. If you haven't gotten yours yet, you should expect it by the weekend.

In preparing the Annual Report, Fr. Wee interviewed the five men from St. Columbkille who were in Seminary in 2009-10. While a few quotes from that discussion were included in the Annual Report, the full conversations can be read here.

Welcome Deacon Weeder

On May 28th James Weeder will be one of four men ordained deacons in preperation for the priesthood.

On June 7th Deacon Weeder will be assigned to St. Columbkille through July before he returns to seminary. Dcn. Weeder will live in the same house as Fr. Wee. He will be doing some baptisms and communion services this summer. He will be around to help during the Summer Religious Formation Session and Vacation Bible School. He hopes to work with the parish youth and sit in on some Marriage Prep sessions as well.

Dcn Weeder's grandfather informed him that he and Fr. Damian are distant cousins. He stopped by last week to visit the parish and even got to attend the Preschool Graduation.

Welcome Dcn. Weeder when you see him this summer. You might even invite him over for a meal sometime.

The Papillion Times on Our Seminarians

The Papillion Times recently ran an article on the five seminarians from our parish.

Preparing for tonight

Lent officially ends tonight with the Holy Thursday Mass.

As one of the biggest celebrations of the liturgical year, we are fortunate to have three of our seminarians working to help coordinate the service.


This morning David Batter (our liturgist) gathered seminarians, servers, priests, and sacristans for a practice.

The idea of working through the details this morning ...

... is to make certain we have a prayerful Mass tonight.

Join us at 7:00 tonight.

Seminarians

We hold in our prayers the five seminarians from our parish who are discerning whether or not they are being called to the priesthood.

This weekend at all of the Masses we will hear from Pat Cooley (top right) about his experience.

Christmas Letter

We got a Christmas letter from one of our seminarians, John Norman, who is studying in Rome:

Dear Family and Friends,

My parents have passed on so many greetings, intentions, and prayers. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I am so grateful for everything that you have done for me. One of the most common questions I’ve received since beginning my studies here in Rome is ‘How’s it going?’ so I’d like to take a moment to share some of my experience.

Well, I’ve moved to a foreign country (Italy) with a foreign language (Italian) and it is hard. I’m learning another language, which I don’t speak very well. This makes it hard to make friends with the many international students, though I’ve made some very good friendships with the other English-speakers here. I’ve also found that I’m on the other side of the immigration counter, as I have to apply for residency while I live here. (The process is long and complicated and frustrating like it is in the States.) Even harder though, is the inability to walk into a store and ask for help finding something because I am just learning the vocabulary. I never knew that a language barrier could be such a hard, frustrating issue (and it’s not for lack of effort).

Now, when you think of studying in Rome, one of the graces is living up the hill from the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, and it is a great gift. This Sunday the children of Rome came to St. Peter’s for the noontime Angelus address, bringing the little baby Jesus from their family’s nativity set for the Holy Father to give his blessing. He seeks to teach us. He leads us. Most importantly, he is a father to us and he is a living example of holiness for us. ...

(Click here for the rest of the letter)

Seminarians get Quilts

From The Catholic Voice:

John Norman's Candidacy

On Saturday our parish hosted Seminarian Day. During the 5:00 p.m. Mass, John Norman had his candidacy. Candidacy is a solemn acceptance of a man by the Archbishop for priestly formation. With this admittance, the man is now privileged to wear the garb of a cleric.

The North American College (where John will be studying) requires a man to declare candidacy before his arrival to the college. Upon graduating from college seminary or completing philosophy, most seminaries will have the man declare candidacy before his first year of Theology or “Major Seminary.” The Declaration allows the man entering theology to rightfully wear the clerics. The candidate has a new canonical status through his admission through Candidacy. Wearing the clerics are not only permissible, but entirely appropriate for a candidate.

After Archbishop Lucas's homily, John was called from the assembly.

Archbishop Lucas accepted him, prayed over him, ...

blessed him, ...

and welcomes him as he continues in his formation.

Congratulations John & thank you!

Parishioners in Husker Catholic

When we got the Summer issue of Husker Catholic from the Newman Center at UNL, we were delighted to see pictures of two of our parishioners on page 3.

In the midst of an article about the tremdous influence FOCUS has had at UNL (over 500 students in 70 Bible studies), there was a picture of Chaz Zurcher who will be a seminarian this fall ...

... and Shannon Zurcher was in the middle of a picture of new FOCUS missionaries.

We're excited for both of you as you "Go and Make Disciples."
The website for the Newman Center is http://newmancenter.unl.edu/

Serving with the Archbishop

When Archbishop Lucas was installed Wednesday and when he celebrated Vespers the night before, seminarians were the servers.

From our parish, Patrick Cooley was a candlebearer at Vespers Tuesday and John Norman (below) was the thurifer at the Installation Mass Wednesday.

Former parishioner Rheo Ofalsa (below) held

the Sacramentary while the Archbishop prayed.

And our own Deacon Jerry Overkamp

was the Deacon of the Altar during the Mass.

Thank you to everyone who represented our parish.

(The first and last picture on this post were taken from the Archdiocesan website www.archomaha.org. They have a slideshow there with a number of very good pictures.)