Happy New Year!

Blessings and grace to all of you from Belgium! It is the first day of our "Study block," it snowed 2 inches last night, and I am procrastinating yet again to give you a small update on happenings "across the pond." I was graced to spend Christmas vacation in Rome with both brothers from Leuven, as well as former brothers from Steubenville and my diocesan brothers studying in Rome. Our itinerary was packed and included day trips to Florence and Asissi, mass at the 4 major basilicas in Rome, A scavi tour under St. Peter's, midnight mass and New Years mass with the Holy Father, and trips to several world class museums. O yeah, and a whole lot of great Italian food and beverages (including copious amounts of limoncello).

Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures from Rome, but several of the other guys took a lot. When I get them compiled, I'll share a few with you. Here's some of the midnight mass with Pope Benedict. A friend gave us a sweet hook-up, so we were able to sit behind the pope with the "people's choir"

The nativity set outside of St. Peter's was pretty spectacular as well...

I was also blessed on New Year's day to be able to pray with some of my brothers with some praise and worship and Eucharistic adoration. I really miss doing that here in Belgium, but hopefully this semester I'll be able to get something started. There are so many opportunities for grace.

I was also blessed to return to Asissi. Everytime I've been there it is just wonderful. If you haven't been there before, you really should go there for retreat sometime...absolutely breathtaking and peaceful. Here's a picture of the basilica of St. Francis and the nativity set they have outside (Francis was, of course, the first person to display nativity sets on Christmas)

My icon is coming along well, and I am almost done with all the solid colors. I will have a separate post about that in the coming days. Please continue to pray for me that I perservere and avoid laziness during the exam block. May we all, like the wise men, seek the Lord-bearing the best gifts that we have for Him.