FOCUS ON VOCATIONS, IN AD NEWS 1 OF 2023: As seminarians we feel called by Christ to be his companions, learners and ambassadors. For a seminarian this is formed in us by the four pillars of our priestly formation: spiritual, intellectual, human and pastoral. Every semester begins with a seven-day guided retreat. It is a time of prayer and reflection, silence and solitude, to help foster companionship with Jesus, to be attentive learners, in order to become passionate ambassadors of Christ.
In this time set-apart, I take it upon myself to learn to mind my thoughts as they will affect my tongue and behaviour. I learn to mind my emotions and my ego, for as you progress in formation, it is easy to become arrogant from all the praise and attention one receives while back at home during winter or summer holidays. There is also the temptation of looking at your junior brother seminarians as subordinates. It is through nourishing our interior life that we lose the need to be puffed up with vanity. It is through sitting at the feet of Jesus that one is reminded that he is Lord.
Our spiritual father, Fr Jerome Nyathi, hands us what he has dubbed ‘a love letter’. It contains the theme as well as words of encouragement and this semester’s theme was ‘Finding God in our deepest struggles of life.’ This semester’s ‘love letter’ has a quote by William Booth. It reads, “then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you professed to obey – and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world.” I would like to add another, “the greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”
We pray for family and friends, we pray for our benefactors, we pray for our country, we pray for our continent, we pray for the world. May we continue to pray the Lord of the harvest for vocations to the priesthood and religious life as well as for men willing to serve Christ and his Church who are after his heart.
Solomon Shikwambana
3rd year Philosophy
St John Vianney Seminary
Becoming Christ’s companions, learners and ambassadors
Posted in Archdiocesan News.
Thank you for this information. Added to these studies and formation should be elocution.
One can be how knowledgeable but if us in the congregation cannot understand an accent then the message needed to be heard wafts away in the breeze.
We cannot ignore our instructions, of a better life and relationship with God.