The Minor Seminary and Other Forms of Fostering Vocations
63. As long experience shows, a priestly vocation tends to
show itself in the preadolescent years or in the earliest years of youth. Even
in people who decide to enter the seminary later on it is not infrequent to
find that God's call had been perceived much earlier. The Church's history
gives constant witness of calls which the Lord directs to people of tender age.
The Church looks after these seeds of vocations sown in the
hearts of children by means of the institution of minor seminaries, providing a
careful though preliminary discernment and accompaniment. In a number of parts
of the world, these seminaries continue to carry out a valuable educational
work, the aim of which is to protect and develop the seeds of a priestly vocation
so that the students may more easily recognize it and be in a better position
to respond to it. The educational goal of such seminaries tends to favor in a
timely and gradual way the human, cultural and spiritual formation which will
lead the young person to embark on the path of the major seminary with an
adequate and solid foundation. "To be prepared to follow Christ the
Redeemer with generous souls and pure hearts": This is the purpose of the
minor seminary as indicated by the Council in the decree Optatam Totius, which
thus outlines its educational aspect: The students "under the fatherly
supervision of the superiors - the parents too playing their appropriate part -
should lead lives suited to the age, mentality and development of young people.
Their way of life should be fully in keeping with the standards of sound
psychology and should include suitable experience of the ordinary affairs of
daily life and contact with their own families."(199)
The minor seminary can also be in the diocese a reference
point for vocation work, with suitable forms of welcome and the offering of
opportunities for information to adolescents who are looking into the
possibility of a vocation or who, having already made up their mind to follow
their vocation, have to delay entry into the seminary for various family or
educational reasons.
64. In those cases where it is not possible to run minor
seminaries (which "in many regions seem necessary and very useful"),
other "institutions" need to be provided, as for example vocational
groups for adolescents and young people.(200) While they lack the quality of
permanence, such groups can offer a systematic guide, in a community context,
with which to check the existence and development of vocations. While such
young people live at home and take part in the activities of the Christian
community which helps them along the path of formation, they should not be left
alone. They need a particular group or community to refer to and where they can
find support to follow through the specific vocational journey which the gift
of the Holy Spirit has initiated in them.
We should also mention the phenomenon of priestly vocations
arising among people of adult age after some years of experience of lay life
and professional involvement. This phenomenon, while not new in the Church's
history, at present appears with some novel features and with a certain
frequency. It is not always possible and often it is not even convenient to
invite adults to follow the educative itinerary of the major seminary. Rather,
after a careful discernment of the genuineness of such vocations, what needs to
be provided is some kind of specific program to accompany them with formation
in order to ensure, bearing in mind all the suitable adaptations, that such
persons receive the spiritual and intellectual formation they require. A
suitable relationship with other candidates to the priesthood and periods spent
in the community of the major seminary can be a way of guaranteeing that these
vocations are fully inserted in the one presbyterate and are in intimate and
heartfelt communion with it.(201)
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