Today was an exciting day for all of us here at SATMI. Well at least exciting for one person, me! After all the years in formation, aspirancy, postulancy and novitiate, I finally get to be enrolled as a student here at SATMI. I almost felt like a leprechaun who had finally found his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Well almost. However this could also be attributed to a certain feeling of Irishness in the air in these parts of the redemptorist world.
Well after breakfast, all the students gathered excitedly in the AV room for the morning's activity of form filling facilitated very professionally by Ms Ella and Sr Miriam who were both quite the experts in getting a room full of vowed celibate men to do exactly what they wanted. Talk about girl power!
After about an hour or so, most of the students had finished filling up their respective forms except for a few including myself who seemed to take forever to enroll for the huge, tremendous number of classes this semester……5! Ha Ha.
Okay jokes aside, I really felt that this was a milestone day for me. It was the day when I officially began theological studies in the congregation. It was like a coming of age day…. When the boy becomes a man. This analogy admittedly is not original, it is inspired by my novice director. (Still trying to earn brownie points!)
Later that day in the evening, we all gathered for the opening Mass of the academic year. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance including flag bearers, I thought it was like a united nations day! All the students, both internal and external, the faculty and staff processed from the new SATMI building to the day chapel outside. Just in front of the faculty were the student reps from each country proudly carrying the flags of their respective countries. For that evening, I had the privilege of having duel citizenship of both Singapore and Malaysia, as I am the only member of my Vice Province which comprises of both those countries who is in Davao this year and thus carried the flags of both Singapore and Malaysia.
After a very beautiful and inspiring Mass which might have made everyone think twice if not trice or four times before even contemplating to open facebook or even worse, the dreaded farmville instead of the Summa Theologica, we all gathered in the courtyard to have a very very simple, great emphasis on the simple, fellowship under the beautiful night sky.
A simple day but then again, isn’t God found in the simple things in our everyday lives? Till next time. This is Mark signing off.
Well after breakfast, all the students gathered excitedly in the AV room for the morning's activity of form filling facilitated very professionally by Ms Ella and Sr Miriam who were both quite the experts in getting a room full of vowed celibate men to do exactly what they wanted. Talk about girl power!
After about an hour or so, most of the students had finished filling up their respective forms except for a few including myself who seemed to take forever to enroll for the huge, tremendous number of classes this semester……5! Ha Ha.
Okay jokes aside, I really felt that this was a milestone day for me. It was the day when I officially began theological studies in the congregation. It was like a coming of age day…. When the boy becomes a man. This analogy admittedly is not original, it is inspired by my novice director. (Still trying to earn brownie points!)
Later that day in the evening, we all gathered for the opening Mass of the academic year. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance including flag bearers, I thought it was like a united nations day! All the students, both internal and external, the faculty and staff processed from the new SATMI building to the day chapel outside. Just in front of the faculty were the student reps from each country proudly carrying the flags of their respective countries. For that evening, I had the privilege of having duel citizenship of both Singapore and Malaysia, as I am the only member of my Vice Province which comprises of both those countries who is in Davao this year and thus carried the flags of both Singapore and Malaysia.
After a very beautiful and inspiring Mass which might have made everyone think twice if not trice or four times before even contemplating to open facebook or even worse, the dreaded farmville instead of the Summa Theologica, we all gathered in the courtyard to have a very very simple, great emphasis on the simple, fellowship under the beautiful night sky.
A simple day but then again, isn’t God found in the simple things in our everyday lives? Till next time. This is Mark signing off.
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