Skip to main content

A journey to Catholic priesthood

PRAY FOR SEMINARIANS AND ALWAYS ENCOURAGE THEM.

A seminarian is a man who is discerning the Lord’s call to the Roman Catholic priesthood. By virtue of his baptism, he is a member of the priesthood of all believers.

The seminarian hears the Lord speaking to him and calling him to a fuller participation in the priesthood by becoming a priest of Jesus Christ. While the priesthood has many elements that make it like a job, it is primarily a vocation: a calling from the Lord. The seminarian then needs to be open to hearing the Lord’s call in his life and be eager to respond to it.

The seminary is an environment that strives to form Christian men characterized by a life of holiness, human virtue, and generous service. Such a life is nurtured by a deep interior life of prayer and sound piety, filial devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a profound love for the universal and local Church. It is further nourished through a rigorous intellectual formation in a faithful and loving obedience to the Magisterium and the sacred truths entrusted to the Church.

The seminary provides an environment that forms men to be committed disciples of Christ who are free to respond to God’s call to the priesthood, including the call to the celibate life.
A man who enters the seminary does not possess all the answers. In fact, many more questions will arise during time spent in seminary formation!

Seminarians come from all walks of life, previous educational experiences, family backgrounds, and parishes. They bring different talents, insights, and experiences to their time in formation.

It is expected that all seminarians give witness to their conviction that God has brought them to the seminary to discern whether or not they are really called to the priesthood, and they should commit themselves wholeheartedly to carrying out that discernment.

Seminarians live in community. This means they pray together, work together, take their meals together, and study together. While the seminary is a place where individual men go to discern what the Lord is asking of them, ultimately as priests they will belong to a fraternity. The seeds of this brotherhood and fraternity are sown during their time in seminary formation.

Seminarians need your encouragement to move on this call, encourage them and always pray for them that they may receive the gift of the priesthood at the end.

PRAYER FOR SEMINARIANS

Oh God, hear my prayer for the men you have chosen to follow in your Son's footsteps.
Teach them humility and fidelity to unselfishly help others.
May their devotion to Our Blessed Mother, Queen of Vocations increase, enabling them to do your will.
Strengthen their prayer life that they may grow spiritually without worldly distractions.
Give them courage and perseverance in their studies.
May the Holy Spirit lighten their struggles with their vocations, until they know the joy of being a priest.
We ask this through Christ Our Lord.
Amen.
Our lady of Divine Vocations
Pray for us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Catholics should not eat meat during Christmas Eve

  One of the traditional acts of Christmas is to abstain from meat on Christmas Eve, 24th December.  I could still remember the temptation from the aroma of the fried chicken from my Mama Lucy's kitchen when I was 7 years old. I asked her for a bite and she shouted “Agbedo" meaning never!!! “Why grandma?” I asked, she took me by hands to the Church manger and showed me the animals in the crib: “Yes, Olu, we cannot eat meat on Christmas Eve because the animals were the ones who kept Jesus company at his birth, so we must respect them today''. “Waoo!” I exclaimed, “So that's why I cannot eat meat today...” I held unto this tradition until I entered Seminary only for us to eat plenty meat on the Christmas Eve. Then I asked: “Why are we not respecting the animals today?” And my brothers laughed at my ignorance.  Why then should grandma stop me from eating meat? According to Wikipedia, the Catholic Church historically observes the disciplines of fasting and abstinence a...

SIMONY IN THE CHURCH: Lessons from histories and stories.

The influx of Pentecostal practise and attitude are creeping into the Catholic Church and if we are not careful, her trademarks of orthodoxy and authenticity will be at the margins. Evidently, many aberrations are finding their ways to the front seat and it is disheartening how strange doctrines are celebrated and enthroned in modern fashion with personal innovations in the liturgy. What is happening to the rubrics, can we go back to the root and the books? This piece is a clarion call to my dear brothers and sisters, a wake-up call to all Catholics to protect the faith we proudly profess and keep out ‘rugalised’ doctrines infiltrating into the parishes. Personally, I am shocked with much pain in my heart on how priests and lay faithful play active parts in keeping the floodgates of error into devotional life of the church. The Catechesis of the church must not sleep nor slumber to checkmate some of the excesses we find around. Can you Imagine a situation when someone brought an O...

HOW OLD IS MARY TODAY ?

  This question was raised during the celebration of the Nativity of mother Mary in 2021 at mass. Let's go into history to unravel how old she would had celebrated if she was physically with us today 8th September 2024.  Some apocryphal accounts state that at the time of her betrothal to Joseph, Mary was 12–14 years old. According to ancient Jewish custom, Mary could have been betrothed at about 12. Hyppolitus of Thebes says that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of her son Jesus, dying in 41 AD. Some ancient authors said that she gave birth to Jesus at 16. Now let's calculate  Jesus lived 30 years with Mary and worked for 3 years with his apostles meaning he died at 33. Hence 16 +33 + 2024 = 2073 So we arrived at her age with historical information from the Sacred tradition that could only be found in the Catholic Church  Am proud to be a Catholic  Happy 2073th  birthday to mother Mary Fr law SDV