A typical day at seminary

Over the course of the next few days I will be posting excerpts from a description I wrote for friends and family members about what a "typical" day at the seminary was like in my first semester.

Although I am not quite sure that there is such a thing as a typical day at the seminary, I will do my best to describe some of the more common daily happenings of seminary life as I have experienced them in my brief time in St. Paul. During the week, most of us wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning. I once heard a priest say that the first “cross” the Lord gives to us each day is the cross of getting out of bed; I can attest that this is certainly the case for me as I am still adjusting to life as a “morning person” after many years of being otherwise. Upon rising (and having a cup of coffee to help jumpstart my day), I get ready to face the world by showering, ironing my clothes, and grabbing my breviary after which I head to the chapel to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament until 7:00 am. Following benediction all of us are expected to be at Morning Prayer before heading to the cafeteria for breakfast. Breakfast usually lasts about thirty minutes, which is just long enough for all of us seminarians to make it through the coffee line for our second cup of the morning.

It is at this point that things can get interesting. As we seminarians struggle to balance our to-go cups of caffeinated beverages, books, and the morning newspaper without dropping any, we walk to our next destination. You can usually tell what year a man is in at the seminary by how well he can pull off this balancing act. I for my part am still a novice as evidenced by the numerous coffee stains which adorn the sleeves of my shirts. Walking and carrying such a heavy load is a delicate art form and I am still learning! Thankfully my seminary evaluations do not depend on how well I do in this regard. What they do depend upon, however, is what takes place throughout the remainder of my morning. Each of our schedules vary depending on the day but typically the next few hours are occupied with some combination of classes, spiritual direction, spiritual formation talks, and homework time. Last semester I had classes which occupied my Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday timeslots, while Wednesdays were designated for formation conferences, and Fridays were set aside for spiritual direction, homework, and errands.

Throughout the week we celebrate the sacrifice of our Lord (and the close of the morning) with daily Mass at 11:35 am. Mass is at this time, right in the middle of our day, so as to remind us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our daily lives. I find that this is a good and necessary reminder, since after a busy morning I can tend to lose focus as to why I did all that I did. I guess this goes to show that the busyness of life, which makes it so difficult to continually remember the Lord, even affects us in the seminary from time to time. The length of these “daily reminders” is directly related to the length of the celebrating priest’s homily but usually we clear out of the chapel somewhere between 12:15 and 12:45 pm. At this point, as if all of us seminarians have taken a cue from the liturgical procession which we have just witnessed, we too process over to the cafeteria once more, this time for lunch.

To be continued...