Monday, October 26, 2009

The Academic Year

Lest readers of this blog think that my time is filled only with food and travel, let me write a bit about the academic year which began around October 12th. Whereas U.S. schools are already into their Fall break, the Roman school system begins later and also ends at the later date of June 24th roughly.Last year I was engaged in a propedeutic year, studying Latin and Greek while also taking a couple of small seminar courses. This academic year is an anno integrativo, or an integrated year which entails coursework that perhaps I have not had the opportunity to take in the past or would be helpful for my overall studies. The idea is that once these courses are complete I can begin full-time writing for the doctoral dissertation.

And so this semester I am taking:
Introduction to Liturgical Theology
Introduction to the Oriental Liturgies
Introduction to the Occidental non-Roman Liturgies
Bible and Liturgy
Criticism and Hermeneutics of Liturgical Texts
The Cult of the Saints
The Idea of "Sacrament" and "Minister" in the First Millennium

All of these are extremely interesting and after two weeks of course work I see that this will be a challenging but most likely also a rewarding time. Buon lavoro!

4 comments:

thejarvii said...

Hello Wurtzy! Are your classes in English or Italian?... Also, would you consider blogging your homilies? It would be fun to read, and perhaps for you to look back on at a later date. (You know, so you don't tell the SAME STORY over and over again... Ha!) I'm not sure if you are presiding over many Masses these days, and if you actually write them down. But I for one would love to read them.
Hope all is well! Study hard!

Fr. Michael Wurtz, CSC said...

Jenny, great to hear from you. The classes are all in Italian though the final exams are technically suppose to be offered in five major modern languages but a lot of that depends on the professor and his regulations.

I don't usually write out my homilies, though perhaps I should since it ensures a more articulate and careful word choice. Last year I preached once a month to the Missionaries of Charity here in Rome but am not doing so again this year - I'm trying to focus on this last year of course work.

Fr. Stephen Koeth, CSC '99 posts his weekly homilies on his blog "Gift & Mystery". I'm sure they are much better than mine!!!

Paul said...

That is indeed a fascinating set of courses. What are you reading for the "Criticism & Hermeneutics of Liturgical Texts" and "The Idea of 'Sacrament' and 'Minister'..."?

Fr. Michael Wurtz, CSC said...

Paul, great to hear from you. The hermeneutics course won't be using a textbook, but will be heavy with lectures. We will eventually take actual liturgical texts and apply the methodology we learn.

The Idea of Sacrament and Minister course is a seminar, so we students will be presenting on various first millennium writers and how they employed these words.