Well, I don’t have any specific experience with St. Meinrad, I might be able to offer some helpful pointers since this is my fourth year in seminary. I finished my last two years of undergrad in college seminary, and I am currently in Theology II (the toughest year!). Since you didn’t give much background, I made a couple of assumptions, so if some of these points don’t apply to you (for example, if you’ve already called your vocation director), then simply disregard.
Thanks I forgot to say what I had done.Well, I don’t have any specific experience with St. Meinrad, I might be able to offer some helpful pointers since this is my fourth year in seminary. I finished my last two years of undergrad in college seminary, and I am currently in Theology II (the toughest year!). Since you didn’t give much background, I made a couple of assumptions, so if some of these points don’t apply to you (for example, if you’ve already called your vocation director), then simply disregard.
Keep praying the Liturgy of the Hours. If you don’t have one yet, find a good spiritual director who can help guide you in this, other spiritual practices, and your discernment. This is key, and you will be asked about it during the application process! If you haven’t contacted the Diocese or order in which you are interested yet, do so as soon as possible. The application process is quite lengthy and will take a long time, and they will also help you in your discernment.
Stay focused in your online courses and do well; you’ll be doing a lot of writing in seminary, so be sure to get the practice in now. But don’t make life all about school and prayer! Be sure to stay involved in your parish, whether choir, lectoring, the Knights, and perhaps most important (in my opinion), altar serving if that’s a possibility. Also stay balanced and cultivate outside activities (for example, I am into archery and amateur astronomy).
Finally, above all else, just keep praying and trust in the Lord. Take definite steps forward, and if you trust in Him, He will guide you and keep you, no matter what the result. I still have three more years, and I can definitely say that each year has been better than the last; it is a beautiful life full of blessings and sacrifice, one that is a true gift!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here or drop me a PM and I will try my best. For now, I will add you to my prayer intentions; please pray for me too, especially as I get ready for finals!
-Pax
Excellent! Remember too that while you do of course have some (name removed by moderator)ut on which seminary you go to, ultimately it is up to the Bishop. Once you are accepted to the Archdiocese, there will be a separate application to the seminary.
Thanks I have read to save a thousand souls. I do know that the Bishop has the final say however the vocational director also seems to be in favor of me going to Saint Meinrad also I have a strong case (about medical history and needing to stay relatively close to my doctors) for going there as opposed to places farther away.Excellent! Remember too that while you do of course have some (name removed by moderator)ut on which seminary you go to, ultimately it is up to the Bishop. Once you are accepted to the Archdiocese, there will be a separate application to the seminary.
An wonderful book to read would be To Save a Thousand Souls by Fr. Brett Bannen. It goes through almost everything you could think of, and provides a lot of useful guidance. Many vocation directors have copies, and if yours doesn’t have it, it’s pretty cheap online. Highly recommended! I think the majority of the guys here at my seminary have read it and have given good reviews (including me).
Keeping you in prayer, AF!
Get a hobby (if you don’t already have one) - to put it another way, find something to do (preferably outdoorsy) which is completely unrelated to study and which you enjoy so that you can use it to de-stress as and when needed. Maintain your friendships with those in the secular world - it helps to have “normal” people in your life who you can hang out with and who know you as you and so don’t take you too seriously!
Across the decades, I had the chance to visit Saint Meinrad several times; it is a lovely archabbey in a beautiful part of southern Indiana. The setting is perfect for biking and walking.
As someone currently in seminary, I can attest to how easy it is to get caught up in this! As with many other things in life, don’t stay so single-minded as to miss what is going on around you. Enjoy your time in the seminary, cherish it, and enter into the moment. There really is nothing else like this experience!
Being that I live the experience, my advice would be to not prepare at all… Quite literally, to go in with nothing prepared so as to enter with an open mind, heart, and soul. In preparing, there is a danger of losing that openness, no matter how well intentioned one is.
Agreed! I’m in my second year and the first year was rough because I was so focused on the end goal rather than the moment.
) and I’ve begun to realize that even though I’m in seminary I’m still at college. So, basically I should be enjoying my time now rather than thinking that all joy is going to come when Ordination hits.
The priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville usually went to St. Meinrad. My catechist was an alum, and I heard each seminarian is forced to be a Benedictine Oblate.
I am trusting that you misunderstood this. Becoming an Oblate of Saint Benedict is its own very special lifetime commitment that makes the oblate to be part of the monastic family, whether they be a lay person or a secular cleric. It is a vocation within a vocation, as it were, but it is assuredly never to be forced.
Thomas Merton used to come into our store to have keys made for the abbey. I was a very small child at the time, and asked him to pick me up. He taught me the first part of the Hail Mary after I nearly choked him with a hug. Fr. Basil Pennington was with him. He always traveled with another monk.
What a special memory to have of Thomas Merton!
And to bring Bardstown to the rest of the world as an example. We were proclaimed the “most beautiful small town in America” this year. I don’t understand why there’s not a retreat center there, where silent retreats and walking the streets would be core. I remember the interior silence I was led to when the house windows were open when growing up. Bishop Flaget’s efforts required extraordinary graces, and one can still sense this, if interior silence is embraced.