Crab Feast

Hello everyone! Peace be with you! So below and above this message are pictures from the Crab Feast. It is essentially the same picture, but one has Friar Santo in it and the other does not. Also one has Michael's eyes closed and the other does not and one has Rick's full head and the other not.

Anyway, the crab feast is the friars of the St. Anthony of Padua Province's Annual Fundraiser for the Education Fund. Friars, benefactors, family, and friends come from all over the east coast to support this effort. Essentially you pay $5o and get all you can eat crab with the fixins' and spend your money on various games, booths, and tables. I am in charge of the instant win lottery. This year I sold 2 and 3/4 boxes worth. It was a lot of fun, but busy.

A More Realistic Commitment...

Over the summer I made a wonderful commitment of offering to write a new post once a day for an entire year. Well that was great idea during the summer and with no summer classes. Here is a more Realistic Commitment = 1 Year - 365 Days - 52 Weeks - At least 1 Post a Week! I think I will be more faithful to this commitment then my previous one.

New Additions to the Room

Today I added some new wall art. I added a laminated poster of the San Damiano Crucifix which is the crucifix that spoke to Francis over 800 years ago. Right next to that image is a painting by Ms. Katherine Vadney (age 2) - Dianne and Greg Vadney's first child. From what Dianne told me Katherine wanted to paint Friar Nader a image, so when I received it I said I would hang it on my bedroom wall when I got back to San Antonio. Well I did! Here those two artworks below.
The third addition to my room is of a sign that I found in a whole in the wall shop when my family was in Ocean City, NJ for a beach getaway weekend. My parents were interested in me buying something and when I saw this quote I fell in love with it. The picture is below and here is the quote if you can't read it: Peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. Unknown (author).I decided to GoodSearch the quote to see if I could find more information about the quote. It turns out that the quote is taken from a longer story. Here is the background story of the quote from a site on peace entitled Meaning of Peace:

Once there was a king who offered a prize to the artist who could paint the best representation of peace. Many artists tried, and the king looked closely at all their pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace. The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.

But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest - in perfect peace. Which picture do you think won the prize? The king chose the second picture. Why?

“Because,” explained the king, “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be calm in midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.”

Mount Sacred Heart School

This year I will be ministering at Mount Sacred Heart School in San Antonio. It is a grade school located across the parking lot from where I go to school at Oblate. Today I meet with Sr. Mary Hope, the Director of Religious Education and Liturgies at the School, who will be supervisor this year. As part of all the seminarians and ministry supervisors meeting the seminarian introduced their supervisor to the whole group. I found out some very interesting facts about Sr. Mary Hope. She is a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and originally from France where she met the sisters. Two year after being professed she was a assigned to the US and has spent most o her life in the southwest. Sister did spend about six years at one of their mission in Papua New Guinea. It is to be noted that Sr. Mary Hope is a graduate from Oblate School of Theology and graduated when women were first allowed to go to school with seminarians. Also some of the professors that taught her are teaching me now. After meeting with Sr. Mary Hope I walked over to the School for a Safe Environment workshop with the other teachers. I learned a lot and it was nice to see and meet the teachers.

I will let you know more about what I will be doing at the School within the next week after I found out.

Peace and All Good Things!

A tiring day..

After a tiring I am actually going to go to bed early. Today's post is not much of a post - rather I am stating a fact and going to sleep with the Angels!

A Weekend of Special Instances...

This weekend has been one of some very special instances. First on Saturday I received a great package from my friends Ed and Pokey. They are two all around great men, Catholics, friends, and brothers who have been influential in who I am today both as a human being and as a friar. The theme of their package is "Hello Nader" which included a great montage of pictures with them spelling out H-E-L-L-O N-A-D-E-R. It was a wonderful surprise to receive and is not what I expected. Below are two picture one with Ed (First) and one with Pokey (Second) and eventually I well got a picture of Ed, Pokey, and I together.Another special instance for me this weekend was MCing for the first time at a liturgy. MCing is shorthand for being the Master of Ceremonies at Mass. I was honored, blessed, nervous, and excited to MC at the Convocation Liturgy for Oblate School of Theology. Everything went well and people took initiative to move and do things without me needing to direct them. Now I look forward to when I get to MC again at least I won't be as nervous as I was today.

The last special instance of the weekend (so far) was that Charley's car battery would not start this evening. To understand why this is special you have to know that over the past year 3 cars in our parking lot would not start because of battery problems. The first 2 times it happened both cars needed new batteries. The third time this occurred I got that car a new battery and we later find out that the car not starting had nothing to do with the battery, rather the problem is because of the faulty alarm system. Anyway Charley's car is brand new and he was trying to show it to a potential buyer and sure enough the car did not start and the battery needed to be to jumped. I believe that the parking lot at San Damiano Friary is possessed by a cement battery power soaking whatchamacallits. I am over-reacting and not serious, but that is a lot of non-starting car batteries to have.

I look forward to what tomorrow will bring!

R and R

Today some of the friars and postulants enjoyed a day of R and R. We went to a good friend of the friar's home - Carolyn and Charlie - to use their pool. It was a gorgeous day and the pool's temperature was great. We had a delicious lunch of chicken salad with the choice of Red Velvet cake or Carrot cake for dessert, I tried both of course. Upon returning back to the friary I took a nap, showered, and got ready for prayer. After Solemn Evening Prayer with benediction and meditation we went out to eat. I hope that you enjoy the pictures.Pool Fun: The Classic Chicken Fight

Not to brag but Reto and I won - Sorry Mario and Jonathan
Us in the Hot TubMe floating in a Raft

Ian - The PhotographerThe Students with Carolyn and Charlie (Minus Reto)The Gang after Dinner - Sorry for Blocking you Gary

Joe and the New Part of the Riverwalk

Today I was able to visit with a good friend of mine named Joe Ruiz. Above is a picture of him. After three months of a busy summer and many happenings we got to catch up while walking on the new part of the Riverwalk. Upon walking for an hour or so we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe for a drink and an appetizer. Joe drank 2 cups of Diet Coke while yours truly drank 5 cups of Dr. Pepper. Yes Five! Oh how I love an ice cold cup of Dr. Pepper. Below are pictures from the newly completed section of the Riverwalk. I hope that you enjoy them. After that is a picture of Joe and I, be sure to check out the fro - 5 inches!

Project Runway

Today my love for sewing and tailoring was quenched once again because of Project Runway. Last week was the premiere of Project Runway Season 6 and today is the second episode. If the friary here had an extra room that I could use as a sewing room I would set up shop but we do not have that type of space. Not to mention I do not have the time, but one day I would love to make a habit. I like Project Runway because it amazes me how people can be given little money, pressured timed, with crazy challenges, and yet some people pull off amazing outfits. If you like fashion and want to be engaged I saw check out Project Runway on Thursday at 10pm or 9pm depending on where you live.

PS: Jonathan wants you to know that this will be a great year because I am living with him.

Watermelon

For those of you who don't know watermelon is my favorite fruit! Today Miss Mary our cook in San Antonio was cutting open a watermelon and she was going to through away the rinds of the watermelon with about a quarter of an inch of the melon still on the rind. Any other friar or postulant who would have been helping her would have thrown all of those rinds in the trash. But I was the one helping her today and saved the rinds to eat. So at dinner time I placed the watermelon pieces and the watermelon rinds in two bowls next to each other and everybody enjoyed the watermelon. The catch is that no one ate the watermelon from the rinds, I was the only one! I do not know if any of you would have eaten the watermelon directly off the rinds, but if so you will have a partner to eat the with.

I know this was not a super exciting post, yet I wanted to defend my stance on watermelon. Until tomorrow...