November 1st, 2014

Dear Family and Friends in Christ,

It’s great to back in Rome! These first six weeks in the Eternal City seem to have gone by so fast. It seems like just yesterday I was still back in Chicago.

My first time back to St. Peter's
Basilica after four years.

These last four years working in the Midwest was a great blessing. I got to know many amazing people who have helped me deepen in and love my religious vocation even more, and form some lifelong friendships. For this I am very grateful to God.

With a couple of my brothers
at the Beatification Mass.

It goes without saying that being back in Rome is awesome, even if it did take a little readjusting . The first week I was back I was able to go into the city a few times and visit a lot of the famous places again (of course, starting with St Peter’s Basilica). It took me a few weeks, though, before I was able to see the Pope. The wait was worth it – I saw Pope Francis for the first time at the beatification mass of Pope Paul VI.

After mass, Pope Francis went
around greeting everyone.

On the fifth day since I returned to Rome I began my annual Spiritual Exercises, a silent retreat based on the method of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The retreat lasted for 8 full days, giving the Holy Spirit ample time to speak to my heart and my mind. They were very beautiful and fruitful days for my life of prayer and recollection.

It will take me a while to get
used to sitting on this side of
the classroom again.

A couple days after the retreat, on October 7^th, Classes began. That is when reality hit, “o yeah, I am here to study…” It is hard to express the feeling I had that first day. These last four years I have still been going to school, just not as a student. I have even had some experience teaching. As I sat in my desk all morning and could barely pay attention by the end of the fourth period, my mind went back to all those days and all those times I had to deal with the very same problem from the front of the classroom.

This year I have begun my Theology studies. These are the last three years of seminary studies before ordination to the Deaconate. Please keep me in your prayers so that I may be a holy priest of Jesus Christ.

God Bless you all!

  

With the assurance of my prayers, I remain always yours truly in the Heart of Christ,

Br. Dustin George, LC

Coming up:

· Road trip to northern Italy (Nov. 7-16). I will be traveling through the region of Lombardy, in the foothills of the Alps. (Work...not play)

· Church-a-thon! (Dec. 6). I need sponsors for running in the Advent Church-a-thon. Please visit my link at  http://churchathon.org