The faculty includes priests assigned to Saint Charles Seminary who serve as formation advisors. In addition to their role of individually assisting the seminarian in his discernment of God’s call, formation advisors moderate weekly formation conferences with seminarians at every level. Within an eight-year curriculum, conference topics include the call to priesthood, the life of grace, and aspects of the pastoral life of the Church. In the College Division, a particular emphasis is given to understanding and living the virtues, the foundations and practice of diverse types of prayer, and a study of the Communion of Saints as a model for the practice of living in community. The conferences consist of a formal presentation, followed by discussion between the seminarians and the priest presenter, and dialogue among the seminarians themselves. The conferences aim to foster a more thorough integration of the human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral/apostolic aspects of the topic, to intensify the seminarian’s personal appropriation of these matters, and further to improve his capacity to articulate his convictions in this regard.
The college seminarians are involved in a growth process which involves their personal commitment to God and their final choice of a vocation of service. They must be assisted to understand fully the options open to them, to discover their own identity, to relate themselves personally and functionally to the Church and the world, and to integrate the diverse aspects of their personalities for effective action (The Program of Priestly Formation, 332).
At Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, the seminarians live, pray, recreate, study, and work together to form and test themselves for the priesthood. During their seminary years, seminarians prepare themselves to be qualified and ordained heralds of the Good News of salvation and ministers of the Christian mysteries. This high purpose separates Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary from other educational institutions and makes unique demands of self-education on the seminarians themselves.
The rules and directives of the College Division are related to the goals of that division: the development of seminarians into educated, mature persons and the building of a community of genuine relationships. Within the Seminary community, the Administration and Faculty are committed to the sensitive work of priestly formation. The College Division has clear structures of discipline that must be squarely faced by potential candidates for the Roman Catholic priesthood. A mature response to the structures entails authentic free choice, personally motivated and prompted from within. While recognizing that freedom is crucial in the personal development of the individual seminarian, the College Division is cognizant of the fact that community accountability is also a component in each seminarian’s vocational maturity. Considerations for accountability are heightened when the ultimate goal of Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary is understood: the preparation of men as priests dedicated to the service of humanity and committed to the saving mysteries of God. Mass is at the core of the seminarian’s day. All seminarians also participate daily in Morning and Evening Prayer and, at other times, in a variety of liturgical services and devotions such as Eucharistic Adoration, Benediction and the rosary. Seminarians share responsibility for planning the liturgical music for these services and devotions.
For the development of the social maturity and leadership abilities of seminarians, all aspects of life at Saint Charles Seminary are vitally important. Both the formal and informal experiences of Seminary life contribute to each seminarian’s exploration of his vocation.
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