A typical day at the seminary continued...

In my opinion, the lunch hour is one of the highlights of the day, and this is not because of the food. Rather, the reason that I find it so enjoyable is because of the great conversations that take place between brother seminarians and faculty. On any given day you might overhear conversations ranging from an attempt at an explanation of the Trinity to tips on how to prepare a homily to a story about what a seminarian did on the playground back in 5th grade before he realized that God was calling him to holiness (you can only imagine the stories!). It goes without saying that this time of friendship and conversation is a blessing.

After finishing lunch, the long haul of the afternoon (from 1:30 to 5:00 pm) begins. In reality the afternoon isn’t particularly long, and in fact, it is the same length for all people in all places of the world so I am told. Nevertheless, it certainly seems long on many days. This probably has something to do with the fact that philosophy classes and full stomachs combine to make groggy students. And yet with every challenge comes new lessons learned. In this particular case I have learned that good note-taking and interesting professors (my professor from last semester speaks seven different languages fluently!) help to counteract heavy eyelids. It also helps if you have an interest in philosophy.

Our afternoon classes typically end each day around 3:00 pm, at which time we have two hours of free time. Some guys use this period to do homework, while others spend it in prayer, and still others head to the gym to get some exercise. I often do a little of each, although not at the same time. At least once a week, however, this time is used to practice works of charity such as visiting cancer patients in the hospital or helping inner city children with their homework. Regardless of how we spend this time, we are expected to be back at the chapel by 5:00 pm with our vocal chords ready to go as evening prayer provides us with the opportunity to finely tune our choral skills.

After a beautiful time of song and prayer, all of our official obligations for the day are completed. On most nights a large group of seminarians will once again head to the refectory (which is the cafeteria in seminary lingo) for dinner. Occasionally, I will skip dinner to make a few phone calls or to begin catching up on homework. For the rest of the night I will either head to the gym to exercise with some of the other men if I have not had the chance to do so already, or else I will go to the library to study. Although we are not required to be back to the seminary until 11:00 pm, most of us return by 9:15 pm so that we can pray night prayer together and spend a little bit of time in fellowship with one another before starting the cycle all over again the next day.