Monday, June 4, 2007
'15 Steps' to Becoming a Seminarian
You may like to read: SFX Academic Prospectus 2007-2008.
The information presented below reflects the admission process for St. Fancis Xavier Major Seminary, Diocese of Singapore.
DISCERNMENT
Months 1 to 6
- Step 1: Attend vocation retreats and recollections
- Step 2: Journeying with appointed Vocation Discernment Director
- Step 3: Introduction to Seminary Fathers
Months 7 to 9
- Step 4: First personal interview with Fathers of Admission Board
- Step 5: Invitation to stay in the Seminary (weekend or one week)
April
- Step 6: Aspirant indicates his desire to be admitted
- Step 7: Psychological test
May
- Step 8: Second personal interview with Fathers of Admission Board & Preliminary deliberation of the Admission Board
June
- Step 9: 8-day discernment retreat
APPLICATION
July
- Step 10: Formal application to join the Seminary
August
- Step 11: Request confidential reports from referees
September
- Step 12: Medical examination and report
October
- Step 13: Final Deliberation of the Admission Board
November
- Step 14: Official interview with Bishop
December
- Step 15: Tender resignation to employer (if the candidate is working)
Janaury
- CANDIDATE IS ADMITTED
Prayer for Seminarians
O Jesus, Eternal High Priest,I offer You through Your Immaculate Mother Mary, Your Own Precious Blood, in all the Masses throughout the world, as petition for graces for all seminarians, Your future priests.
Give them humility, meekness, prudence, and a burning zeal for souls.
Fill their hearts with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to know and love the Church, that they may always and everywhere speak, act, and think with her, the glorious spouse of Christ.
Teach them generosity and detachment from worldly goods; but above all, teach them to know You and to love the One and Only Eternal Priest.
Good Shepherd of Souls, hear this my prayer for saintly priests.v Amen.
(Taken from "Prayers for Today," published by Leaflet Missal Co.)
Labels: Prayer, Priesthood, Seminarian, Seminarians, Seminary, Vocation, Vocations
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
SFX Vocation Retreat: Testimonial & Thanksgiving
+ JMJ
It has been a while since I returned from the Major Seminary Vocation Retreat, here's a short testimonial and thanksgiving letter:
Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the beloved!
Father Rector, William Goh, mentioned in his first talk during the retreat that there must have been an impetus- divine or otherwise- that made all of us sign up for and attend the retreat. I think he is very right. Thorugh the illumination of the Holy Spirit, we have been blessed with the Lord's sanctifying grace; making us worthy spend an entire weekend basking in His presence.
Faithful readers of this blog, Deo Juvante, and Holy Vocations, would know my impetus for signing up for the retreat; so I shan't dwell on it here...
I've visited the Major Seminary, the Redemptorist Seminary, as well as the Carmelite Friar's Monestary on several occassions. Each time, it is a sense of peace and belonging. The fraternal warmth and charity displayed by both the brothers and formators have made my stays very pleasant. Time and time again as I vist the Seminary, I feel a sense of affirmation and belonging. How many people are likely to feel the same? I mean, being 'isolated' in the forests of Ponggol.
Before the retreat as I was discerning the chrisms, I didn't know if what appealed to me was due to my personal want(s) or desire(s), or if it was something that God wanted. It has been hard for me to discern between what God wants and what I am so attracted to personally. Therefore, it was by providence that Fr. William Goh shared some information that allayed some of my confusion(s) and mixed feelings.
After the retreat, I was affirmed that (those who read my post 'Fiat Volunta Tua' would have come across the following quote) "the priesthood is not for us or for our personal satisfaction and delight. Rather, it is for the service of the Church and souls: God calls men to be priests so that he will be able to make himself present "in the flesh" in the Eucharist for all who need him. He makes men priests so that all who need their sins forgiven can go to them and be cleansed of their sins. He makes men priests so that the sick can be strengthened with the Sacraments, so that his word will be preached, so that people will receive hope and be renewed through their work and service... He makes priests so that the poor and abandoned may be administered to.
Therefore, I shouln't let my own emotions get in the way of my discernment.
I would like to thank:
- God the Father for giving us the opportunity to discern His will together as one body; united in the Christ that cannot be divided,
- Rev. Fr. Willaim Goh (Rector and Formator); though I didn't get a chance to speak to him personally. God had indeed used him as an instrument in answering some of the doubts and queries in my heart.
- I also thank God for the Seminarians, especially Br. Jude David who had sent me many messages, inviting me to the retreat; I wouldn't have gone otherwise due to my heavy workload.
To quote Dominic Hutt (one of the retreatants) in his testimony, may we all someday "sing praises and walk through those seminary doors".
Amen. So I hope. So may it be.
Pro Eccelesia et Pontifice,
J-PDM
St. Rita of Cascia
Labels: Photos, Priesthood, Retreat, Seminarians, Seminary, Testimonials, Thanksgiving, Vocation
Monday, May 14, 2007
Pope Answers Seminarians
Gregorpaolo Stano, Diocese of Oria (First-Year Philosophy): Your Holiness, ours is the first of two years dedicated to discernment, during which we are taught to make a profound personal examination. It is a tiring exercise for us, because the language of God is special, and only those who are attentive are able discern it among the thousands of voices clamoring inside us. We are asking you, therefore, to help us to understand how God talks in practice and what clues he gives you in his private pronouncements?
Pope Benedict XVI: As a first word, a "thank you" to Monsignor Rector for his address. I am already curious to read that text you will be writing and also to learn from it. I am not sure whether I can clarify the essential points of life in the seminary, but I shall give it a try.
Now, for the first question: how can we distinguish God's voice from among the thousands of voices we hear each day in our world. I would say: God speaks with us in many different ways. He speaks through others, through friends, parents, pastors, priests. Here, the priests to whom you are entrusted, who are guiding you.
He speaks by means of the events in our life, in which we are able to discern God's touch; he speaks also through nature, creation, and he speaks, naturally and above all, through his Word, in Sacred Scripture, read in the communion of the Church and read personally in conversation with God.
It is important to read Sacred Scripture in a very personal way, and really, as St Paul says, not as a human word or a document from the past as we read Homer or Virgil, but as God's Word which is ever timely and speaks to me. It is important to learn to understand in a historical text, a text from the past, the living Word of God, that is, to enter into prayer and thus read Sacred Scripture as a conversation with God.
St Augustine often says in his homilies: I knocked on various occasions at the door of this Word until I could perceive what God himself was saying to me. It is of paramount importance to combine this very personal reading, this personal talk with God in which I search for what the Lord is saying to me, and in addition to this personal reading, reading it in the community is very important because the living subject of Sacred Scripture is the People of God, it is the Church.
This Scripture was not simply restricted to great writers -- even if the Lord always needs the person and his personal response --, but it developed with people who were traveling together on the journey of the People of God and thus, their words are expressions of this journey, of this reciprocity of God's call and the human response.
Thus, the subject lives today as it lived at that time so that Scripture does not belong to the past, because its subject, the People of God inspired by this same God, is always the same, and therefore the Word is always alive in the living subject.
It is consequently important to read Sacred Scripture and experience Sacred Scripture in the communion of the Church, that is, with all the great witnesses of this Word, beginning with the first Fathers and ending with today's Saints, with today's Magisterium.
Above all, it is a Word that becomes vital and alive in the Liturgy. I would say, therefore, that the Liturgy is the privileged place where every one of us can enter into the "we" of the sons of God, in conversation with God. This is important. The Our Father begins with the words: "Our Father"; only if I am integrated into the "we" of this "Our" can I find the Father; only within this "we", which is the subject of the prayer of the Our Father, do we hear the Word of God clearly.
Thus, this seems to me most important: the Liturgy is the privileged place where the Word is alive, is present, indeed, where the Word, the Logos, the Lord, speaks to us and gives himself into our hands; if we are ready to listen to the Lord in this great communion of the Church of all times, we find him. He opens the door to us little by little.
I would say, therefore, that this is the focus for all the other points: we are personally directed on our journey by the Lord, and at the same time we live in the great "we" of the Church, where the Word of God is alive.
Moreover, other points are associated with it: listening to friends, listening to the priests who guide us, listening to the voice of today's Church; hence, listening to the voice of the events of this time and of creation which become decipherable in this profound context.
To sum up, therefore, I would say that God speaks to us in many ways. It is important to be in the "we" of the Church, in the "we" of the life of the Liturgy. It is important that I personalize this "we" in myself; it is important to be attentive to the other voices of the Lord, also letting ourselves be guided by the people who have experience of God, so to speak, and help us on this journey, so that this "we" becomes my "we", and I become one who truly belongs to this "we".
Thus, discernment grows, and personal friendship with God grows, the capacity to distinguish God's voice among the thousands of voices of today, which is always present and always speaks with us.
Labels: Holy Father, Priesthood, Seminarians, Vocations
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
