Enjoying a short summer break in classes before things pick up again in late August. There'll be a retreat that ends with our candidacy Mass, then we're back in the thick of it the weekend after. The shift from aspirant to candidate signals an end to the period of discernment even as we begin more intense study and practicums.

Accordingly, the booklists have landed, and here's what's on tap. First up is Early Church History, which I'll be doing online through most of the Fall:

• The Confessions, St. Augustine
• Early Christian Writings
• The Early Church, Chadwick
• On The Incarnation, St. Athanasius
• The Life of Antony and Letter to Marcellinus, St. Athanasius
• Origen's basic writings
  

The in-person semester starts with Ministry of Deacon:

• The Deacon at Mass, Ditewig
• Theology of the Diaconate, Cummings, et al
• The Deacon Reader, Keating
  

Neither of these lists includes the raft of articles and PDFs that have also been posted. For myself, I'm forcing myself into some downtime: catching up on some magazines, occasional video games (these days that means Vampire Survivors and Factorio), and I may even dust off the radio kit. 

Mystagogy has wrapped up, so I'm going to pivot our neophytes into an 8-week bible study, portions of which we used when I was in class a couple of weeks ago. We tried to launch some small groups a few years ago, but Covid put an end to them about 2 weeks in. We've been trying to emphasize intentional discipleship these last few months. My prayer is that this group lectio will help us all to draw closer to Jesus, which is the essential prerequisite for...well, for basically everything else we do.