The Priesthood is the Love of the Heart of Jesus

A Reflection on Priesthood and Seminary Life

"The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus." This quote of Saint John Vianney is how Pope Benedict XVI chose to speak about the priesthood during the Year for Priests. And in my limited experience over the last four years as a seminarian, I have already found this to be so true.

Upon receiving my first Holy Communion when I was seven years old, I experienced the call of the Lord Jesus to be a priest. After that moment, there was never a substantial doubt of what my vocation was. So when I came to the end of my high school career, it was a given (by the Holy Spirit!) that I was going to enter seminary.

For men, like myself who experience the calling prior to entering college, the Archdiocese of Denver sends to college seminary. There are two places they send: Saint Gregory the Great Seminary in Denton, Nebraska and Saint John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was sent to Saint John Vianney's, which is located on the University of Saint Thomas. Here, we took our classes with the other university students and began to receive the foundations of living the Christian life, especially communal life, and learn how to pray and be faithful and consistent in it. This new structure was in some ways difficult, because coming from the world, stability was a very foreign thing. Keeping a consistent schedule and maintaing a rule of life where all new for me, yet they were the training ground for self-mastery and entering into a life deeper union with the Blessed Trinity. The two years that are spent at the college seminary are for studying core requirements like Math, science, English, etc.

After those two years I came back to Denver, where I am now to continue my formation at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. The initial year is called the Spirituality Year or the year of the heart, where guys take a year off from studies, and are formed in the spiritual life including prayer, Scripture, the Church's Tradition, and contemplative leisure. It is also a year of learning in the School of Charity how to live in close quarters with other brothers and to practice virtue in the midst of the crucible. The highlights of the year are the month long immersion experience where we were sent two by two to various locations in the country to work with the poor, and the thirty-day silent retreat.

After the Spirituality Year, we begin our Philosophy and Theology training. This is where I am now, in my first year of Philosophy studies. From here it takes a total of 6 years until ordination.

"The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus." And so the seminary is the place where a man who is discerning priesthood dwells in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and through silence, contemplation and community is purified and strengthened for preaching the Gospel and celebrating the Sacraments for the Christian people. For before a man can be sent on mission, he has to have a deep and real communion with the Blessed Trinity. By dwelling in the Heart of Christ, we come to know God's love for us, for it was the Lord who said, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." (John 15:9) It is also the place where we learn through patience how to love with Christ's love and so priesthood is both the love that comes from Christ's Heart, and is aimed and bringing all God's people back in the Sacred Heart to experience love and mercy.