As summer peeks around the corner into August, you can can hear the quickening pace as we prepare to welcome the new men in just seventeen days!
Most of the “in house” renovations are reaching completion, while we prepare to focus on the scheduled “ribbon cutting” for the completion of the first phase of Our Lady of the Presentation Lecture Hall in Library on September 16th. This morning the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals changed the zoning on the property from Church to Religious Educational Institution. This helps to relieve a considerable tax burden and paves the way to a whole series of great presentations scheduled for this new SJS Campus in the coming months.
In two weeks I head to Chicago for a meeting of the Executive Committee of the NCEA Seminary division, to which I was recently elected. It is held as a part of the Vocations Seminar sponsored each year through the generosity of JS Paluch.
In the meantime, we’re sending out acceptance letters to new men, refining faculty assignments and conducting Trustee business by frequent e-mails. We’re also putting the finishing touches on the Academic Catalog, the Student Handbook and the Calendar. I hope to fit in a couple days away at the end of this week and the next as well.
It was a joy to welcome one of our new faculty members yesterday, Paul Metilly, who will be teaching philosophy and serving as interim Academic Dean. Fr. Joseph Briody flies in from Ireland sometime late next week or soon thereafter.
I met with Cardinal O’Malley a couple days ago. He was very helpful, as always. His wise advice and constant support are a great consolation to me and an enormous benefit to Saint John’s Seminary!
Enjoy the waning days of summer!
