Happy Thanksgiving 2014!

Happy Thanksgiving 2014 from the Pontifical North American College!

Thanksgiving, being a uniquely American holiday, is a special day for the North American College community and is marked by many long-standing traditions that begin on Thanksgiving Day and continue throughout the weekend.

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This year’s celebrations began at 6:00 AM with the 5th annual “Turkey Trot,” a 5K race and fun run around the walls of Vatican City. There were 138 participants in the race, including 24 runners from outside of the NAC community. Prizes were awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, best costume, and the most improved time. After the finish of the Turkey Trot, seminarians of the NAC community returned to their respective corridors for Thanksgiving breakfasts, cooked by the seminarians themselves. (right)

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At midday, the NAC community and a number of American guests who currently reside in Rome assembled in the Immaculate Conception Chapel for the celebration of Thanksgiving Mass, presided by His Excellency Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia, OP (left), Adjunct Secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Citing a number of presidential proclamations of Thanksgiving from the early history of the United States, Archbishop DiNoia encouraged the assembly to be grateful to God for the many gifts He has given — especially His mercy — and to show that gratitude by a continual conversion of heart toward a purer love of God. At the offertory, a special collection was taken up for the Missionaries of Charity, who serve the poor in Rome, and for emergency relief for those suffering in Africa from the Ebola outbreak.

Following the Mass, the community gathered in the College’s Refectory for a four-course Thanksgiving banquet. The banquet was preceded by the traditional reading of the present year’s presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving, read by the Honorable Kenneth Hackett (right), Ambassador to the Holy See for the United States of America. Faculty, students, and guests enjoyed a delicious meal featuring ravioli with pumpkin filling and roasted, stuffed turkey. The fifth-year student priests of the College, who waited the meal, also provided the entertainment and dessert, singing a Thanksgiving-styled parody of The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” while bringing out their own homemade pumpkin pie. The banquet concluded with a toast to the United States of America by Deacon Ryan Boyle (’15, Diocese of St. Petersburg, FL) and the singing of “God Bless America.”

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Fifth-year student priest Rev. Matthew Cowan (’14, Diocese of Gaylord, MI) carries in homemade pumpkin pies for dessert at the Thanksgiving Banquet.

For more pictures from Thanksgiving Day at the North American College, visit the PNAC Photo Service page.