When many hear the word “seminary” mistakenly the first thing that comes to their mind is monastery. I know that many of my friends when I told them that I was going to seminary they thought I was going to be locked up in a monastery for the rest of my life. (Which some of my friends were probably hoping for haha) After being in the seminary for almost three years monastery would be the last thing that comes to my mind. When I hear or speak about the seminary the first thing that I think of is my brothers with whom I join in fraternity. Webster’s dictionary defines fraternity as “a group of people associated or formally organized for a common purpose or interest.” Fraternity is one of the first things that you learn the day you are welcomed as a seminarian during your acceptance mass and the famous Camden Seminarian Retreat.
We are blessed in the Diocese of Camden to have a seminarian retreat each year after the acceptance mass for the new men and before we head back to the seminary. During these days together we are able not only to reunite with our old brothers but we are also able to welcome our new brothers. Diocesan Brotherhood is probably the most important because God willing you are ordained these are the men that you will be serving with in the diocese. The Diocese of Camden has always been well known for its fraternity and when speaking too many of the priest in the Diocese this is always truly acknowledged.
At seminary you are introduced to fraternity beyond the diocesan level. These are the brothers that you pray, study and live with. At the College Seminary we are blessed to have a full house with 34 men. We all have become very close not only because we are a small community but because we are all there for the same reason which is to discern the priesthood. The beauty of this is that no two seminarians are the same. We all come from different places, backgrounds and experiences. We are united because at some point in our lives we have felt God invite us to follow Him and to spend time with Him in prayer.
In the seminary you make some of the best friendships in life because these are the men that you pray, study, serve and play intramural sports with. The beauty behind all of this is Christ because he is the one who has called us here and now to spend this time together to discern his will in our lives.
I would like to leave you with a few words from Pope Francis’s message to the French Seminarians on the occasion of their meeting at the Marian Shrine of Lourdes (8-10 November 2014).
[blockquote name=”Pope Francis”]“In the seminary, you live together in order to learn to know each other, to appreciate each other, to sustain each other, and at times even to support each other, in order to live the mission together and render that witness of love thanks to which Jesus’ disciples are recognized. It is important to make this personal and definitive choice which is a true gift of yourselves to God and to others. I thus invite you to accept this apprenticeship of fraternity, placing all your passion in it; you will grow in charity and you will build unity, taking the initiative that the Holy Spirit will inspire in you. You will therefore be able to invent more appropriate ways to truly live in priestly fraternity when you are ordained.”[/blockquote]
If you are a man thinking and praying about entering seminary I would strongly recommend to come and visit the seminary to see firsthand the fraternity between the seminarians. You will also come to see that we do not live in a monastery but rather a house of brothers discerning God’s will in our lives.
Henry Laigaie
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