MY
The past couple of weeks have been the busiest weeks of the year at the Josephinum. Two weeks ago, we held a basketball tournament for seminaries around the country. Last weekend, we held FOCUS Mission's regional SEEK 22 retreat. Over 400 college students came to visit the campus, and we spent much of the week and all of the weekend making sure that the conference ran smoothly and trying to be good hosts. It was a powerful conference. My saturday-night-adoration job was to take care of the confession and prayer team lines. By my estimation, a third of the people who entered the line were crying, and many more seemed deeply moved. Two-thirds of the people who exited confessions were crying. I've helped out at big Catholic conferences before, but never as a seminarian, in a seminary, wearing a cassock. A lot of the attendees had never been to a seminary, let alone met or really talked with a seminarian. We were able to witness to the beauty of the seminary life.
This week, midterms began, and us first and second year Collegians had our summative interviews. Since we're about 3/4ths of the way through the school year, it's time to evaluate our growth over the last year, what ways we've done well, and what ways we're deficient so we can prepare for next year's formation goals. The summative interview is when the seminarian meets with the formators, or the priests in charge of shaping our character into that of good priests. We dress formally and have a meeting in the board room. After the meeting, the formators will write a report about us that will be delivered to the Rector, our Bishop, and our Director of Vocations. I had my summative yesterday. My formators were very supportive. My formators asked me what I thought my greatest growth was this year. I responded that it was a growth in charity. I very quickly discovered that I have difficulty loving some of the guys here. After some discernment with my spiritual director, I realized it's because they remind me of parts of myself that I don't like. I resolved to go the extra mile in showing charity towards my brothers. I made a point to pick up trash if I found it in the halls, to spare the time to complete any house chore that was undone, and to offer to throw out other people's garbage or wash their plate. Before, I was holding my brothers' faults in the way of loving them. I was too prideful to show them as much mercy as Christ wants me to, just as I was too prideful to completely forgive myself. Every act of service was a reminder of how God sees me and how God sees them - as worthy of my love because Christ loves and deserving of my forgiveness because Christ forgives. This is a life-long struggle, of course. But in a special way this year, charity has soothed a lot of the pains of community life and has opened the door to its many blessings. Totus Tuus! P.S. My sincerest apologies for missing a post last week. The weeks have been slipping by me as papers and tests pile up. But that's not a valid excuse. I'm sorry.
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July 2023
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