Last night Allison and I went to Easter Vigil at the Saint Anselm College Abbey Church. I don’t think I had been to mass there since I graduated. What a beautiful church. This was Allison’s first time at mass there and she was very impressed with everything. It is an impressive building and the community of monks there is also something to see. I saw many familiar faces in the community of monks that were present. Some of them were not there however, which means that most likely they are out studying at colleges across the world. The Benedictine monks who run Saint Anselm are a very scholarly bunch. They value education very highly and are constantly furthering their own studies and challenging those of their students. I really liked going to school there. And for a few years I enjoyed working there.

I also ran into some of my former Resident Assistants. These guys worked for me when I was an Assistant Resident Hall Director. It was very nice to run into Brian and Willie (Bill). They were up for the annual Easter retreat that alumni and students can participate in at the Abbey Church.

The Easter Vigil ceremony was excellent. I had never been because I was always home during Easter. It was very nice to be up here for the celebration. I had forgotten about “The Saint Anselm Pause”. When the congregation responds at a Saint Anselm mass there is a long pause between the end of the reading and the actual response. It really throws some people off who are used to responding to the readings right away. You can always catch someone who hasn’t been to a mass at Saint A’s because they respond right away and about 30 seconds later the rest of the church says the response. After mass we said hello to Abbot Matthew and Fr. Peter. Fr. Mathias was not there and neither was Fr. Jerome.

Happy Easter everyone!