Today is the Solemnity of the Annunciation, when we recall the moment that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, saying "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. ... Mary said, Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. Then the angel departed from her" (Luke 1:31-38). Mary is a great example of answering God's call. I reflected on that in my Christmas letter, for those of you that received it. An interesting note about the dating of the Annunciation: it is celebrating the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb. Thus, it is remembered exactly 9 months before we recall his birth at Christmas.

Today, on this great feast, 13 of my classmates and I approached the altar, placed our hands on the Gospel in turn, and took oaths of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God, oaths of fidelity to the Catholic Church, and we made professions of faith. These are required of those to be ordained to Holy Orders in the Catholic Church.

It was an exciting day. And in just a couple of days I will be attending the ordination of my classmates from Saint Louis at the magnificent Cathedral Basilica. Then I will be flying home for Holy Week.

Pictured above are, in the front row from left to right: Anthony Gerber, Michael Grosch, Johnson Lopez, Brother Jerome Lies (A member of the Intercessors of the Lamb in Omaha), Brian Alford, Timothy Foy, and Marco Deloera. In the back row, left to right: Kevin Vogel, Jason Signalness, Henry "Bo" Purcell, Joseph Jaskierny, Andy Syring, John Fogliasso, and James Weeder.

It's official, I am to be ordained this summer. My bishop, Bishop Paul Zifpel, says in the letter pictured above, "I am now pleased to call Jason to the Diaconate and intend to ordain him at the Church of Christ the King in Mandan, North Dakota, on June 27, 2010."

-Jason

Tonight I made an interesting discovery while doing research for my thesis. In 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that St. Gabriel the Archangel, "who brought to the human race the long-desired news of man's Redemption," (see the image above where Gabriel tells Mary all about her role in God's plan) to be the patron saint "of those arts by which men can employ electrical forces to transcribe words at very great speed to others at a distance, can hold converse from places widely apart, send messages by wireless, and view pictures of objects and events brought before them as if they were immediate spectators, though they are, in fact, far away."

These quotations were from a later document by Pope Pius XII, entitled Miranda Prorsus. I found the Holy Father's description of electronic communications to be humorous. But I was happy to see I have a patron saint for my thesis project, which I have been working on for quite some time without a great deal of progress. The thesis is all about our use of "modern means of communication," of which, apparently, St. Gabriel is the patron.

So, St. Gabriel, help me out here!

-Jason

P.S.: The image above is a depiction of "The Annunciation" by Botticelli. It was painted in 1490 and is now housed at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy. The digital image was taken from Wikipedia and is public domain.

I've been following the development of this program. It's looking more and more amazing as time goes on. Fr Barron has been doing excellent work at Word On Fire. But this project tops anything he's done before. He exclaims "The Church is going through a dark period. The Church is under fire. ... The Catholic story is being told by the wrong people in the wrong way. We need to tell our own story. ... Catholicism is smart, Catholicism is beautiful, it's textured, it engages the mind and the heart and the body ... it has transformative power."

I could not agree more.

-Jason

Today while I was tinkering with my Microsoft Outlook calendar, I stumbled upon a few days in 2004 when I recorded everything I did during the day in my calendar. Normally, I didn't record everything and my calendar was usually empty aside from one or two meetings. But at that time Rob, my boss back then, asked us be more careful about documenting time for the purposes of billing. There is quite a contrast between my day in 2004 and 2009.

It also appears that 5 years ago this week, I actually had two dates lined up, one a lunch date and the other a Barnes & Noble coffee-shop date. My, how times have changed.

-Jason