21!

I have reached that great American milestone and marked it by attending Mass on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (and a Benedict's Bock beer at Granite City Brewery). I used to hate the fact that my birthday coincided with the memorial of Herod's slaughter of Jesus' generation but I've come to cherish it; they are the patron saints of choir boys and great intercessors for the current holocaust. Hopefully they will help me keep and cultivate a childlike innocence as I head further out into the world, to be in it but not of it.

I would also like to share what will be consuming future entries of this journal and increase readership I expect!

On 5 February 2010 I will be leaving to study abroad at the Angelicum in Rome, Italy through the Catholic Studies Rome Program at the University of Saint Thomas. While there, I will study bioethics, poetry, art and architecture, Latin, and conversational Italian as well as soak up all of Italian culture, living each day as a Roman, and absorbing all kinds of Catholicism in the Eternal City. Pray for me. I will pray for you throughout the various pilgrimage sites. Stay tuned for various updates and pictures coming from around Italy and Europe through June 2010.