Another amazing day in Indiana

Another amazing day in Indiana!

Every morning at SHAS, Fr. Alejandro, gives a morning reflection to the apostolic students at 6:30 in the morning. For the second day in a row, a small group of our boys have attended these reflections, even though it is not part of our trip schedule.  How beautiful it is to see these boys sacrifice at least 30 minutes of their sleep to attend the morning reflections!

After morning reflection there is mass. All the boys wake up 15 minutes before mass, wash their face, brush their teeth, comb their hair, put on their mass clothes and off they go. Each of the boys are encouraged to situate themselves next to an apostolic student. It's inspiring to see how the apostolic students invite our boys to engage in the mass by sharing their hymmnal and prayer books so that they can sing and pray together during mass.

During breakfast, our boys are also encouraged to sit with the apostolics. There is a lot of conversations going on regarding the "life" of an apostolic student and also many trivial conversations like "what is your favorite sport, food, etc?"

After breakfast, Fr. Mathew had a gospel reflection for our boys in the crypt, which is a small chapel in the basement directly underneath the main chapel. Fr. Mathew also shared with our boys how he was also an apostolic student before becoming an LC priest. 

Next on the agenda was a trip to the University of Notre Dame in South bend, Indiana.

Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, Dean of the Office of engineering at N.D. and also a Regnum Christi member gave us an inspiring tour of N.D. starting with the basilica. Being the tallest building in N.D., the basilica was amazingly beautiful with all of its stained glass windows, paintings, statues, relics, and a magnificent tabernacle, needless to say, there were many selfies and father/son pics.

Another beautiful and holy place at N.D. is the Our Lady of Lourdes grotto. The grotto is a smaller scale replica of the grotto in Lourdes, France. Within the grotto, there are many prayer candles in which the public can light up. Many of the boys lit up candles for their families back home. In front of the grotto is a kneeling area where we all knelt and prayed a decade of the rosary, asking Mary to continue watching over us on our trip.  

Dr. Kilpatrick had arranged lunch for us in one of the Notre Dame conference rooms. What generosity!

The boys were so grateful for the tour and lunch that they left the conference room spotless picking up their trash after eating.

After our tour we headed over to the Icebox skating rink...hockey time!!!
SHAS provided the boys with hockey sticks, helmets, and ice skates! Mostly all the boys geared up and hit the ice immediately! The younger boys and first time skaters were assisted by the LC priests, brothers and dads.  After a 30 minute warm up, Fr. Darren divided the group into 4 teams and the hockey round robin tournament began. Talk about intense! Some of the boys that already knew how to play, were seriously competing against the LC priests and brothers! The games got even more intense because some of the priests, brothers, and apostolics from SHAS, joined us and played as well!
After the hockey games, we drove back to SHAS and had an outdoor soccer game with our  boys, apostolics, and brothers. Boy, was I tired after that!
We then showered up and get ready to pray a rosary in the chapel before dinner.
SHAS provided us with so much delicious food! We were so thankful, especially because we were hungry, lol!!
After dinner, the dads had a Q/A session with Fr. Timothy, SHAS rector to address any questions and/or concerns we had about SHAS.
The boys also had a Q/A session, however, it was with the apostolic students to address any questions about SHAS and what it's like to be an apostolic at SHAS.
After the sessions it was time for bed.
I am sure that everyone slept like a baby last night.