Spiritual Life

Chaplain Profiles

At the heart of the life of Christendom College is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, offered twice daily, Monday through Friday, and at least once a day Saturday and Sunday at the Chapel of Christ the King. The main College weekday liturgy is at 11:30 a.m. At this hour there are no conflicting classes or other events scheduled; the priority is to allow students, staff, and faculty the opportunity to unite themselves with the Universal Church in prayer. A second Mass is offered at 7:30 a.m. weekdays. The College liturgies are noted for their solemn and dignified character, and the chaplains make themselves readily available for the sacrament of penance, personal conferences, and spiritual direction.

The Mass is offered according to the Extraordinary Form on Friday mornings at 7:15am. All other Masses are offered according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Catholic devotions and pious works flourish at Christendom in all their appropriate richnessand diversity. The College offers, in addition to daily rosary and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a variety of occasional devotions. Heeding the call of our Holy Father to a new evangelization, the College celebrates feast days with processions, solemn Masses, and banquets. Many students also engage in charitable works. Of particular note is the strong, student-organized, pro-life presence at the College, led by Shield of Roses, which sponsors weekly prayer vigils at abortion clinics in the Washington, DC, area. And every year the students charter several coaches so that as a body they can join the March for Life, which they proudly led on two different occasions.

All of this encourages a community life which is fruitful for individual students and for the institution as a whole. The intellectual work of the College is informed by prayer and humility. All who seek it here recognize that the Truth must be sought with a spirit of submission and with wonder, with careful study, in calm reflection. While there is plenty of bustle in the life of the College, there also is time for quiet, for pondering the eternal, and for gaining wisdom and strength in so doing.

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Christ the King Chapel Schedule -- Fall 2008

Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

Sunday 10am
Monday-Saturday 7:30am and 11:30am
(Latin Novus Ordo Wednesday and Friday at 11:30am, Mass of Blessed John XXIII -extraordinary form- Tuesday 7:30am)

Confessions:

Monday-Friady 11am-11:30am, 5:45pm-6:30pm
Saturday 10:30-11:30am

Adoration:

Monday-Friday 7:50am-11:25am

Eucharistic Holy Hour

Wednesday 6pm

Evening Prayer and Rosary

Monday-Friday 6pm

Solemn Vespers

Sunday 4pm

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Chaplain Profiles

The Chaplains are essential to the College community--without them, the College could not thrive or achieve its end of drawing students into a deeper life in Christ.

Currently there are three resident Chaplains. The Chaplains offer daily Mass and Confession, week-day exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, monthly First Friday observances which include all-night vigils before the Blessed Sacrament, student retreats, and other seasonal and occasional liturgical observances.

Fr. Dan Gee

Fr. William Fitzgerald, O.Praem

Fr. Seamus O'Kielty was born in County Mayo, Ireland, and is the eighth child of ten. He underwent seminary training in England, Belgium, Germany, and Scotland, and was ordained a Priest in 1954. Father spent the next eleven years as a bush missionary in Tanganyika/Burundi. In 1965, he came to America, where he was lent to the Paterson Diocese to teach high school. In 1966, he served in the Missions in Bolivia, where he became temporary chaplain with the Bolivian Army during the Che Guevara emergency. While there, he set up a catechetical program to better evangelize the Aymara Indians by training more than a hundred catechists, despite opposition from the government. Fr. O'Kielty later attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ, where he received his M.A. in education, and became certified by the state as an accredited teacher of German, French, and Spanish. Father is still fluent in Spanish and French, rusty in Italian, German, Kirundi, Irish and Swahili; reads Latin and Greek, but has almost forgotten all Aymara Bolivian, Japanese, Flemish and Kihaya. He received his M.A. in Linguistics at New York University, and became a Ph.D. candidate. In 1974, he returned to Burundi after hearing there was a critical priest shortage after the massacres, and became a Parish Pastor replacing the Hutu priests who were killed. In 1979, Father was inducted into the Navy as a Chaplain. He completed Arctic Survival and Skiing Training in the Arctic Circle in Norway. He later qualified as expert marksman with pistol and M16. He did Jungle Fighting Training and was awarded Sea Service Deployment medals, and the Navy Achievement Medal, the Navy Comendation Medal, and the Meritorious Service Medal. He later enrolled in the Ph.D. Philosophy Program at Fordham University and retired in 1995. Since then, Father was adjunct professor at Farleigh Dickinson University's School of Education. He later returned to the Paterson Diocese, and due to the acute shortage of priests in the areas, Father has been assisting the local parishes, until 2002, when he came to Christendom.

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