Seminarian retreat 2011

Hello again,

It has been since before the seminarian retreat since I wrote last.  So I’ll go ahead and get right into it.

You may remember that last year I was quite disappointed with the seminarian retreat.  I actually didn’t think that I should have even been on that retreat since I had not yet started seminary.  I thought that it was not much of a retreat, last year was very heavy on the business side of things, and didn’t feel like a retreat much at all.  It had been nice to meet a few of the guys that I would be with, but not much of a retreat.  This year was much less business but still a stretch to call it a retreat, it was more of a seminarian get-together.  We did pray a lot, and it was quite nice, but not quite what I think of as a retreat.  I will be having the silent retreat when I get to Mundelein, so that isn’t a bad thing and since I was expecting this I wasn’t as disappointed as I was last year with the diocese seminarian retreat.

On the retreat several of the seminarians were giving talks.  The talks were about their thoughts on a specific aspect of the priesthood or about their summer assignments.  I gave a talk about ministry at a scout camp, I thought it went very well.  Each seminarian who has been through at least a year of seminary had a one-on-one meeting with Fr. Hirsch, the vocation director and another one-on-one meeting with Bishop Callahan. 

My meetings went very well.  I have spoken with Fr. Hirsch enough that this went about as expected so there isn’t too much to write about.  I had only spoken to Bishop Callahan twice for about a minute each in the past so the 10-15 minutes in this was very nice. 

We all knew that Bp. Callahan was wanting to diversify where we were attending seminary a bit.  I don’t think that he sees anything wrong with Mundelein, but I think that he may be concerned that 12 of the 14 men at major seminary were there this past year.  We all expected this to be an issue.  He used to be a spiritual director at the North  American College seminary in Rome and already was sending two more guys there this year.  The other seminary that we had one guy at is St. Paul seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.  With us knowing this and the fact that these moves would normally happen either after a guy finishes college seminary or pre-theology I had obviously been thinking about this some.  I had decided that I had no interest in studying in Rome, while it would be cool to live there for four years I have been away from home quite a bit in the recent past and I didn’t want that for now.  I also felt that it seems kind of stuffy to be studying at the NAC, so I did not want this.

While I like Mundelein Seminary I am not too attached there and was going to say that I would be happy to look at and discern moving to St. Paul seminary starting in the fall of 2012.  It was surprising with the little contact that I had had with Bp. Callahan that when I sat down with him, after the initial pleasantries he said that he though the NAC would be too stuffy for me, but would like me to think and pray about St. Paul Seminary.  I am quite surprised that he was able to pick that up about me already. 

It is not set in stone that I would move there, but I got the impression that this is what he wants me to lean towards.  There will be six guys who line up in my class if we all continue in seminary, three that are going into their senior year of college seminary and three of us going into second year of pre-theology.  I think that the Bp.  Callahan and Fr. Hirsch may look to send two of us to each place for theology.

The retreat was good for me in my discernment as well.  I had been struggling quite a bit with my discernment.  While I wasn’t ready to say that I was thinking that I was dropping out of seminary I had been thinking that I’d make a few comments so that guys wouldn’t be surprised if I dropped out.  While I still am not sure of my vocation this retreat did make me more sure that I am doing the right thing in going back to seminary for this year.  I have said in the past that I am taking seminary a school year at a time, I still think that in general this is what I am going to do, but if I go back and it is clear that it isn’t right I think that it would be appropriate to leave at mid-year, but not after a little bit of issues, it would have to be very clear.  I am looking forward to this next year and the discernment that will come. 

This week after the retreat was the last week of Boy Scouts at camp, and only a half a week of Weblos to come, Weblos are the oldest two years of Cub Scouts, so a half a week is a great transition for them.  I will write about the last week of Boy Scouts and the Weblo half week in my next post as this is long enough already.

Peace,
Adam