TWENTY seminarians from St. John’s Seminary have started their parish internship this week. They are excited and happy about this new experience. After four years of academic work, the seminary is giving them a one-year break to experience parish life, to gain pastoral skills, and to continue their discernment on their vocation to the priesthood.
They are delighted and relieved with this long break from academics. But they are also anxious and fearful about the uncertainties of this parish internship and their personal inadequacies.
Their pastoral skills will be tested and their integration of spiritual, academic, human, and pastoral formations will be evaluated. One can understand their fears and anxieties.
But we, their mentors, have assured them that God is with them in this new and exciting journey. Absolutely, this experience will challenge their pastoral wisdom and skills, but they must always remember to do their work with the consciousness that our Lord, Jesus Christ, will empower them with his Spirit. After all, it is Jesus whom they will preach; it is the hands, the eyes, the heart, the mind, and, indeed, the Spirit of Jesus that will reach out to the people that they will be serving. They must always act and relate with people in the person of Jesus, with His compassion and love.
We ask you to pray for them that they will have courage, wisdom, strength, and, most of all, inner joy and peace to fulfill their pastoral work.
We must be grateful to these men for responding to the call of God to be priests for, indeed, “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” They are giving up a lot of this world’s pleasures to follow Jesus. They promise to be celibate, to give up having a family of their own for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Some of them had promising or successful careers, but they are willing to live simple lives and to give themselves a hundred percent to serve the people of God.
We need more courageous men like these seminarians to give themselves generously to serve the Church. We should tell young people that there are alternative ways like the priesthood and religious life to live a happy and fulfilling life.
Once again, I ask you to pray for seminarians and for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
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Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas attended St. Johns Seminary in Camarillo, Calif. and earned his Doctor of Ministry in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. For 20 years, he has been in the parish ministry of large multi-cultural communities. From 2002 to 2014, he has been the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Angeles. He will begin teaching at St. John’s Seminary this July. Please email Fr. Rodel at [email protected].