Perfect Love

Hey all, hope you're enjoying your January as much as I am! Some more first-time experiences that I've had include the following (and yes, I'm starting with the weather, because it affects me every day and people always ask me about it):

1) It has snowed 12 times in the 20 days that I've lived here. Yes, 12. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! CRAZY! I kinda love it, though cuz it's been fun for the most part, and as a friend of mine recently told me why he's loves Minnesota: "The weather builds character." Ha, yeah...
2) The average temperature has been 10 degrees…don't believe me on those first 2? Check here, Doubting Thomas's:

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSTP/2014/1/26/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar

3) I wrote a paper BEFORE the night before it was due…I was a terrible procrastinator in college…and in high school :-(
4) I saw the Mississippi River a lot thinner than I'm used to seeing in Missouri, and I took some pictures of it frozen over…scroll to the bottom to see them, then click on the photo that you want to enlarge.

On a more spiritual note…I'd like to share a journal entry of mine that I think fits this blog well. I named it "I Will Love Fearlessly" so I would have a constant reminder that no matter what, God is calling me to love…to love Him, to love myself, and to love each and every one of His children. IN EVERY MOMENT! I do this poorly, so please pray for me that I may grow in holiness and in love with our God more and more each day.

Based off mediating on 1 John 4:11-18:
This reading is incredible. It really is the basis for my word of the year, "Love." Verse 18--"There is NO FEAR in love, but PERFECT LOVE drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love" (emphasis added). WOW!! Reminds me that I MUST SURRENDER my entire heart to Jesus. Most of my struggles lately have been because of anger, impatience, negative thoughts of other people, judging others and their intentions, etc…I have failed to have charity in my heart; rather, my "hardness of heart" (Mark 3) obstructs me from allowing God to work in my life and the lives of others because they can't see God in me when my heart is so hardened.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the Gentiles (or non-Jews) knew who the Christians were by their love: how they genuinely loved each other, served and cared for each other, even fraternally corrected each other. They were allowing God to infiltrate their hearts and clean out every dirty room in that house. Getting the bedrooms, the spare rooms, under the beds, the bathrooms, the closets, everything! And their response was to love the Lord through deep, personal prayer (communal prayer, too), the holy Mass, and their love & service for the people God placed before them…

[Pray with me here, if you wish:]

O my Jesus, help me to love as you love. Help me to serve as you serve. Help me to die on the cross with you this day, and every day, that when my time on Earth is finished, I may live with you forever in Heaven. Help me to truly live as St. Catherine of Siena put it: "All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, 'I am the Way.'" Help me to be the man you MADE ME to be. Help me to love you fearlessly, radically different and better and purer than I ever have before. And help me to love others by putting their good as more important than my own. I ask this in your most precious name, through the intercession of Mary most holy, who I ask to make my prayer pure and perfect. Amen.


Cheers, and thank you all so very much for your prayers.
Heart, Ryan

My First Week in Seminary

A quick note to begin--I'm doing very well. I really like being here, and the first week+ has been a great adventure, the Lord is oh-so-good, and I'm settling in nicely!

This first week has gone by quickly and been a really interesting one. As with any move, or change in life, a person must adapt. Adapting is challenging, no doubt, but I find it rather entertaining and fun. There have been a lot of things very familiar to me--going to class and Mass, praying, eating, sleeping, etc. But there have also been many things that have been new to me: some expected, some not. I've been calling this week 'Ryan's Week of Firsts,' and I'd like to share some of those first-time experiences with you now:

1. Starting on Monday the 6th, I could be called an official resident of St. Paul, Minnesota. I've never lived this far north.
2. It goes without saying, but I must say it anyway, in order to be exceedingly redundant: I've never lived in a seminary before. Sure, I've visited a few places for a few days, but this is rather different, wouldn't ya say?
3. First time reading a book for a philosophy class. Or 2, as we did last week. Now we are on to St. Augustine's "Confessions" in my Christian Theological Tradition class. We finish with it next week, as my class (Pre-Theology I) finishes up this January-Term class. It is an excellent read so far, and I highly recommend it.
4. Hitting my head on a ceiling that is 9 feet high (dang lofted beds…)
5. Being 30 minutes late for Mass and still being there on time…Mass got delayed about 40 minutes because interestingly, a pipe burst in the seminary about 10 minutes before Mass started last Wednesday, and the fire department came. It was a bit of a mess, but no one was hurt and very little was damaged because most of the water went down the staircase--probably the best place, because the stairs are made of concrete, too. Whew ;-)
6. I've gone to bed before 11 pm…3 times. This is world-record pace.
7. When I moved up here last Monday, it was literally the coldest day of my life. It hit -20 degrees at one point, and I think the wind chill was somewhere around -50. OUCH! So clearly, that was a first.
8. This past weekend, I remember thinking for the first time ever, "Wow 20 degrees is a heat wave!" And on Sunday when it hit 40, YES, FORTY, "Dang, it's hot."
9. I went to a local Catholic bookstore last week to pick up a book for class, and two things happened that made me chuckle: a) getting asked as I was checking out if I was a seminarian, a question I never been asked before, so after looking around to make sure the lady was talking to me, I said, "Why yes…yes, I am." b) She gave me a discount. AWESOME haha.

That's all the first things that I can think of/are remotely worth noting at this point, but I'm sure there will be more soon. Maybe they'll be blog-worthy, maybe not. Please feel free to comment, email me, call or text me, or send me snail mail (those require something called stamps…I'm not sure what they are either, but I'll google it and get back to you). My mailing address is as follows:

2260 Summit Ave.

St. Paul, MN 55105-1094

I like care packages with chocolate chip cookies.

KIDDING! haha. Much peace, love, and prayers,

Ryan/Ryno/Ry-Bread/Ry-kitty/Ry-baby/Welchy/Bud/Little Bro/Skinny Little Twit/I have too many nicknames

PS--I'm attaching a couple of photos. Click on the photo to enlarge it.

The first two are panoramas of my room. Not a lot of space (it's about 8 feet wide at its widest, 5 at its narrowest and 15 feet long), but it's great. Except for that dang bed being too close to the ceiling….also, you might be thinking, "Gee Ryan, that looks an awful lot like Capri Sun in your window." And you'd be right, you astute observer, you! Who needs a mini fridge?!

Also--they really know how to clear snow here in MN. Check out this Bobcat on campus:

Short bio

        Here is the bio I wrote up for the Diocese of Des Moines' website. I'll be on there soon! ;-)

My name is Ryan Welch and I’ve lived in Des Moines since 2011. I first came to Des Moines as a missionary with FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) and was on Drake University’s campus, so St. Catherine of Siena was my parish, and now I call St. Augustin my home parish. I’ve been discerning the priesthood in some way, shape, or form since my last year in college, 2011. I grew up Catholic, but never had much of a prayer life, and didn’t live a Catholic Christian lifestyle for a few years in late high school/early college. However, as the last year of my collegiate career drew to a close and my prayer life was just starting to open, I realized that God might be calling me to do something rather radical.

Now FOCUS had been a huge part of my life for the last two years of college, and I grew immensely in my love for the Lord during that time. I wanted to have the impact on young men and women like the missionaries had done for me while I was in college. But the idea of the priesthood came up my senior year, too. I was definitely unprepared for this, as it had been the first time I had ever given it a thought. I spent more time thinking and praying about what I would do after graduation, finally praying the prayer that had haunted me for days. The prayer that, if I said it, I knew meant I could no longer live a double life. I could no longer give some of my heart to the Lord and most of it to me in my own selfishness. The prayer was simple, but I feared it: “Lord, I want your will to be my will, and my will to be your will.” So, after much deliberation, I decided I wanted God to be king of my life, I prayed the prayer, and continued to try to trust Jesus; to try and love Him. I felt great peace and joy over the coming weeks about joining FOCUS. And this was radical enough, right? Being on a college campus as a missionary to try and share the Gospel of Christ with students? And then teach them to become teachers themselves? I thought  so.

As a part of FOCUS, my two years in Des Moines as a missionary were very difficult, life-giving, sacrificial, and most enjoyable. These words are seemingly contradictory, but it seems to me that very few things in life are worth doing unless they are difficult in some way. In these 2 years as a missionary, I never gave up on the idea of the priesthood, and I continued to develop my prayer life. I desired to do the Lord’s will for my life, and thought that my vocation would probably be marriage. I had dated in high school and college, and again after FOCUS I dated, but nothing ever came to fruition. But I kept praying and going to Mass, always wanting the Lord’s will done for my life. Finally, in the fall of 2013, I made the connection that I could be a father to many, many people. Of course, I’ve known since childhood that a priest is indeed a father, but often the longest distance in the world is between my head and my heart. This was the tipping point for me, and I realized that for me to be happy (I mean, I was happy with my life, my job, friends, etc.), for me to be fulfilled, I would need to quit my current job and go to the seminary. Thankfully, I was accepted by Bishop Pates to enter the seminary in the spring of 2014.

       Life is an adventure, and in this adventure we all have a mission to carry out our universal call to know, love, and serve God. Please pray for me as I discern in what way God is calling me to do this privileged and fulfilling task.