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Not even a year ago on Sunday, Aug. 18, I arrived at my new home, St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington. A million things were going through my head: excitement and fear, joy and anxiety, certainty, and uncertainty. It almost did not seem real that I, a teenager who’d spent my whole life being home-schooled in rural Front Royal, was going to study at a seminary and university in the country’s capital. I had no idea what to expect.
As I enter my fifth year of seminary, I also returned this summer to the diocesan WorkCamp for the fifth time. Over the years, I have been a contractor, adult leader and seminarian visitor to WorkCamp, which generally hosts more than 800 students for a week of construction on homes of the needy, deep spiritual growth, and all sorts of team building and parish-vs.-parish challenges. This year I was more skeptical as COVID-19 pushed WorkCamp Re-Boot to the local parish setting with livestreamed evening programs, just a couple hours of work each day and face masks galore.
Approaching the main entrance to Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Winchester, one of the first things you’ll notice is a 1,640-pound bell, consecrated in 1880, enshrined on a pedestal between the church and the rectory. The bell is a prominent reminder of the history of the parish, which this summer celebrates its 150th anniversary.
The diocese is holding two events in August to address racism: a prayer service Aug. 1 and a presentation and dialogue Aug. 25.
I spent a few hours in utter frustration several days ago. The goal planner that I’d so carefully tucked into a very specific drawer before the packers came was nowhere to be found. At the last minute, our movers canceled and new movers were hired. The first movers had advised us not to empty drawers; they’d move with contents intact. The newly hired movers took everything out of drawers and put them in boxes — so many boxes. And my place to sketch out goals and dreams and to journal my way through the year still has not been found.
The theater doors might be locked and the curtain drawn tight, but for Upper Room Theatre Ministry, the show must go on — or rather, go online.
WASHINGTON -- Schools and a Catholic parish in New Jersey expressed pain but also offered prayers following the killing of 20-year-old Daniel Anderl, son of a federal judge, who was a student at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A federal judge July 17 ordered the Trump administration to begin accepting new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Ron Umbeck, a former teacher at Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, died July 13 due to complications from a fall.
NANTES, France (CNS) -- French police have opened an arson investigation into a fire at a Gothic cathedral in Nantes.
