Pints With Aquinas - Hiking The Via Alpina and Other Life Events! w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

Fr. Pine talks about hiking on a beautiful trail in The Alps and gives other updates on his Life. 🟣 Join Us on Locals (before we get banned on YT): https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 📖 Fr. Pine's Book: https://bit.ly/3lEsP8F ✝️ Show Sponsor: https://hallow.com/mattfradd 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd We get a small kick back from affiliate links.

Hello, my name is Fr. Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph and this is Pints of the Coinas. In past episodes I've mentioned the fact that I was assigned in Switzerland at the University of Freiburg where I was working on a doctorate. It was actually shortly after having been assigned to Switzerland that I started doing weekly, gosh what were they, live streams. Yeah, hour long live streams. Dude, that was such a rodeo, holy smokes. And then after about a year of those, we switched to weekly videos. And I

guess we've been doing that now for like a year and a half, maybe two years. Something like that, yeah. So, I no longer live in Switzerland. And I thought I would update you about that, give you some further announcements. And then maybe just talk a little bit about my last days in Switzerland because I took a sweet trip and there were some gems there You might enjoy hearing about here we go Okay Whoo, all right So the first announcement is I finished my dissertation or my thesis as they say in the French-speaking faculty of the University of Freiburg So I wrote about

Christological exemplarity I explained it a couple times on the podcast, but yeah, you can't explain it enough. Or I suppose you can explain it enough, but I haven't yet hit that point. The idea is basically that the mysteries of the life of Christ are like the shape of salvation. So when an artist paints a picture, for instance, or paints a tableau, what do you say, on a canvas,, a painting. Woo, I'm doing great over here. When he does that, he first conceives of what he intends to realize in the medium in his mind, and we would refer to that notion as the exemplar. So we can talk about exemplar formal causality, and then formal causality, simply so called, is like what makes the thing to be the thing. So exemplar formal causality is like the form which pre-exists its realization in the thing. So exemplar formal causalities like the form which pre-exists its realization in the medium. Okay, so I was talking about Christ's life as the exemplar of our salvation, which is pretty

sweet. The next question that people ask is how many pages? 491 is the answer. And am I done, therefore, have I had my degree conferred by the University of Freiburg? No. I have to go back sometime in October or November to defend my thesis. Go back, you say. Where does that mean you are at present? I'm in Washington, D.C. I am assigned back in the context of my province, living here at a Dominican Priory in Washington, D.C. I received my new assignment. My new assignment is to teach at the Dominican House of Studies. You may have heard it called the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, regardless of which, same place.

So I'm going to teach moral theology. So this fall I'm going to teach theological virtues, and in the spring I'm going to teach cardinal virtues, and also a seminar on the passions, which I am pumped about, about which I am pumped. No one talks like that. And then I'm also working for the Thomistic Institute as an assistant director. So the director of the Thomistic Institute is Father Dominic Legg and then there's an assistant director Father Ambrose Little and

then a couple of assistant directors for Campus Outreach. Yeah, the list goes on and then there's like a lay staff at this point of maybe like 12 to 15. So the TI is growing hustle and flow get pumped So the TI podcast still exists still churns along The Qantas 101 series still exists still turns along and the tamisic institute is now present on a lot of campuses I don't even know the number it's fewer than a hundred, but it's more than 75. So Percentage was percentage of error. Never error never mind keep going so there's that so for my job I'm going to be working on like a conference or two and helping with some retreats and maybe you know getting involved in other aspects of the Thomistic Institute's life so I'm pumped and then

as concerns like side hustle other things like these videos with pints or God's planning or Catholic classics or whatever else yeah still gonna do stuff and see how it goes and I think I'll keep on keeping on until such time as somebody tells me not to keep on keeping on that someone could be Jesus or Mary or my superiors or someone else Mackett say yeah you're done chief and that that's that's fine okay so yeah those are updates that That is me. That is my life. Yeah, it's going pretty well.

A little sleepy sometimes, but pretty well. All right, a couple of announcements for you, and then I want to tell some charming stories about a big hike that I took at the end of my time at Switzerland. So first, the Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage is scheduled for September 30th of this year in Washington, D.C. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and it's going to be sweet. And so it's put on by the province and there's going to be preaching. I'll be giving a couple talks and teaching. Those are kind of the same thing in this context. And then we're going to have mass and processions, recitation of the Rosary, you know, like other things besides indulgence is abound. The next thing is we just had our first

God's planning retreat of the summer, which was awesome. So we had like 95 people at Malvern retreat house outside of Philadelphia. And then our next one is coming up, which is a men's retreat for men, something between like 21 and 35. And that'll take place in Brevard, North Carolina. So just outside of Asheville, North Carolina,

and that's August 10th through 13th. So if you were at all interested in coming, you are most welcome and hope to see you there. And then the last thing is for announcements is that there are some job postings at the Catholic University of America in campus ministry. So campus ministry was recently handed over to the Dominican friars in my province. So Father Aquinas Gilbo, who lives at the house of studies, great man is the chaplain.

There are three other friars who work there in the context of the chaplaincy right across the street from the Dominican House of Studies. So if you get one of these jobs, we can high five in the middle of Michigan Ave, always in a crosswalk, right? Just kidding. But seriously, so there are four job postings at present and you can find out more information if you just Google it, or you can get in contact with Father Aquinas-Gilbo or with Miss Julia Chilanoano who is the one of the campus ministers. So I think

Father Aquinas is the chaplain, she's the campus minister if I have the technology terminology right. So there's a project coordinator for student formation, a project coordinator for service and justice, an office manager, and a part-time cardinal cupboard coordinator which is their food pantry. So those four jobs are now open for application. Check, check, check it out. Okay, So those four jobs are now open for application check check check it out. Okay, and You know in this here transition video as we go from Switzerland back to the United States I just want to tell you a little bit about a hike that I took So I hiked the Via Alpina or part of it. I was planning to hike the whole of it and I failed Many things in my life terminate in just such a way

But yes, so the thing about it is it's it's a hiking trail that goes from Liechtenstein way. But yes, so the thing about it is it's a hiking trail that goes from Liechtenstein, which is just to the east of Switzerland, to Montreux, which is in Switzerland, right on Lac-Lamont. So you go from like, you know, the furthest east in the country to almost the furthest west. So you hike across the country and it's like 380 or 390 kilometers long, which is sweet. And I plan to hike the entirety of it with my friend Zef, or at least Zef was going to join me for the first half, which he did did and then I was going to continue for the second half and maybe be joined by other friends besides. Didn't end up happening because we're a little too early in the season and there's still a lot of snow in some of the high passes referring to the place where like you go from one valley to another and you go over big mountains and you've all seen Lord of the Rings. Yeah so there's still a lot of snow and at one point it was just too deep and that the other we had

to circumnavigate it and the other point it was just too forbidding and treacherous and it was just gonna get worse because we're heading into a more yeah elevated altitudeness yeah adjectival form of altitude that region so but but we did a hike for six days and we covered 175 kilometers, so like almost half, and it was sweet. It was really sweet in fact, and we profited from just, yeah, super generous hospitality and kindness along the way. So just a couple of small stories. One, at one point we're headed up, this is our first like big ascent, crossing through our first pass, which was between the Canton of St. Gallen and the Canton of Glorius, and we were going through this pass like big ascent crossing through our first pass, which was between the

Canton of San Galen and the Canton of Glorius. And we were going through this pass called the full pass. And we were like way up pretty high and we were kind of passing our last outstation where we could get food. And we were expecting to find, yeah, something previously, but we hadn't. And so we ended up at this restaurant and it was like, ah, we have to get food. So unfortunately it might cost quite a bit because we're at a restaurant and, and that's just what we have to do because we're about to be up in the high,

the high mountains for the next however many hours. So we need to stock up. So I was just asking the ladies that work at this restaurant, if they could take care of us and like, oh yeah, we have cheese for sale. And I was like, cool. And so I, you know, grab some cheese and I was like, can I actually have all of your cheese? Cause they only had like these little things of cheese. And then I was like, do you have anything else in like not for sale for retail? And I was like can I actually have all of your cheese because they only had like these little things of cheese And then I was like do you have anything else in like not for sale for retail and I was like, uh They're like but like we could just kind of get you stuff out of our kitchen

So what they did is they just sold me some of the things that they had purchased out of their kitchen You know like when they went down the mountain to resupply at cost and then they just gave me bread and they were just super Sweet and super generous So instead of being like you're an, you ought to have prepared better and like use Google maps like a normal human being. They're like, yeah, let us just provide you with everything that you need. And so we got great cheese and great sausage and great bread. And yeah, we had a beer there and passed along and had everything that we needed for the

rest of our time going up and over that pass, which was awesome. Another thing is, so we, yeah, we in in passing through this one town called Sargantz, it was the day after Pentecost, so May 29th, there's like no one in the town. I think it's a town of 6,000 people, so pretty small, so not even a city in Swiss terms, which I think you have to have 10,000 people there for it to be considered a city. So we're talking like town, village almost. Yeah, there's still something going on there. So I shouldn't say village because village means village in Switzerland. So we're passing through the town of Saute Gans. And we

were seeing no one because I think it was a day off because the day after Pentecost is a day off in Catholic cantons, maybe also in Protestant cantons. I'm not sure. So it's kind of ghost townie. There just wasn't much going on. And right as we got to the end of the town, there was a guy that was directing traffic in one particular street, like telling certain cars to stop and waving other cars on. It wasn't clear why. And then, you know, we kind of defer to him because you don't want to be a bull in a Chinese shop. And as we did, we realized that up the street there was a Eucharistic procession kind of bearing down on us.

That sounds menacing. There's a Eucharistic procession coming our way. And I was like, holy smokes. So I'd been in Switzerland. sorry, dropped my lens cap there, I was in Switzerland for the past, you know, three years and I hadn't seen a Eucharistic procession. Now mind you, I wasn't Eucharistic procession hunting, but still, there's some elements of Catholic culture that remain, but it's a pretty secularized culture. And so to see something like that for me was very arresting. And it was cool because, you know, on account of the fact that I eventually failed in my hike,

it was a helpful reminder for me at the outset of the point of any pilgrimage. It's not necessarily to have traversed a country, because when you make a Eucharistic pilgrimage, you just leave the church and then come back home, and you usually don't cover too terribly much ground. But the idea is that, you know, the Lord goes with you and the Lord affords you opportunities to grow in your relationship with Him and then to deepen your relationship with those whom He puts in your path. And certainly that happened. So like there were people I met along the way, there was this gal that we met going up to the Phopas who we ended up exchanging intel on subsequent passes and helped each

other out. And there's this guy, you know, who ran a hostel where we ended up having to stay because we weren't like far enough into the mountains where we could camp at a particular juncture. And he took care of us, super generous care of us and didn't charge us that much. And yeah, it's just like having those encounters for me was it became more substantive rather than thinking about my hike in terms of, yeah, I didn't get to the end.

And then the last thing was hospitality. So we were kind of just knocking on people's doors and asking them if we could sleep in their garden because we brought a tent, but there isn't much in the way of public tent sites in Switzerland. And so like the first day we stayed, you know, like in a backyard and the second day we stayed at a tent site. The third day we ended up at a hostel.

And then the fourth day we'd like just knocked on a guy's, you know, door and was like, hello, I'm Father Gregory and I'm from Freiburg and I'm going to walk this via Alpine as a pilgrim. So just like saying, hi, I'm from Freiburg and I'm going to walk this Via Alpina as a pilgrim. into my house and use my bathroom if you want to wash up and brush your teeth and things like that and he came outside and he checked on us and chatted with us for a while and it was just super wonderful. And then the next place where we went, it was it was raining all that afternoon like pretty hard for about three hours and we were soaked. So we stopped in this particular town, all the restaurants were closed so we fueled up at the the grocery store and then we cooked

ourselves food at the church just kind of like on the on the front steps of the church because churches are almost always open in Switzerland, which is awesome. So we had our holy hour, we had our mass, you know, prayed Vespers, had our dinner and stuff like that. And I saw the so the far house, you know, like where the pastor lives right next to the church, priest wasn't there. But there's a woman who came and she was doing gardening in it. And we asked her, you know, like if you if she thought it would be possible for us to sleep in the garden there of Yeah, where the priest lives the rectory and she was like, oh, let me call him and she called him She put us in touch and he was like, oh, you can just sleep in, you know, the rectory is no big

I have a couple beds and was like do that's awesome. That's super generous But in talking to the woman the woman was explaining that she got into drugs and alcohol. As a young woman, she came close to dying or close to losing a daughter, I think she said, whether being separated from her daughter, whether there's some health thing or some accident thing, I don't know, we didn't get into that. But then she was saying that like having received her life back, she decided to dedicate her life to God. And so she just finds simple ways in which to do so. And so she like is a florist, but also she works in hospice care. And just describing this to me and you know this woman's taking care of me and get me a place to

sleep and just being awesome and hilarious and tattooed up both one arm and down the other. But yes again just another affirmation or reaffirmation that God in his providence sees fit to bestow gifts on his beloved whether they sleep or slumber, whether they tend to their end or not. So the next day we cruise through Altdorf and then made our way up to the next pass which ought to have brought us in to Engelberg which is the next canton of Niedwald and so we went through Sangallen and then Glarus and then Uri and almost made it to Niedwald and then we just got turned back again and after that it would have been just just worse. So in a

certain sense disappointing but also in another sense. Yeah encouraging and beautiful just simply so so Yeah, that's what I wanted to share just some some life updates and then some announcements and then some some hiking stories So I'm glad to be back here in the United States Closer to too many of you who follow the channel, perhaps further from some of you who follow it from other continents. But here we are, on the way, together, auf dem Weg, auf den Zutzamen. So know my prayers for you, please pray for me. Oh, I forgot to do the outro things.

This is Pines with Aquinas. If you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel, push the bell and get emails when other cool things come out. And if you haven't yet, do check out God's Blending, which is a podcast of the Dominican Friars to which I contribute. So there are five of us and some sweet episodes recently, which you might benefit from. And yeah, further conversations to be had and that men's retreat, hopefully we'll be able to see you there. Okay, now I'm ready to end. Know of my prayers for you, please pray for me and I'll look forward to chatting with you next time on Pines with Aquinas.