Page 32 - tmt-december-2020

Seminarians
relationships, to encounter people, to help one’s neighbors, and
to give witness to the faith” (ibid., 100). Seminary formation will
utilize social media and the internet as platforms during the have to follow
pandemic because most of the activities will be done online such
as liturgy and prayers, classes, personal dialogues with formators, the structured
and extra-curricular activities. Opting to this solution is not just
forced by circumstances but it is really an inevitable consequence schedule given
of modernity that we enter into this “digital peripheries” (ibid., 98).
by the formation
II. Key Factors in the Program
program without
The efficiency of the seminary program at home has been
questionable for some formators, parents, teachers, and seminarians the sound of
especially with the challenge of going digital. In order to achieve
integral formation in this program, there are key factors that must be
given emphasis specifically: 1) self-discipline, 2) role of parents, and the bell. Now
3) vocation accompaniment. The RFIS posits that “the attainment of
formation objectives must not be equated with the duration of stay is the time that
inside the seminary nor the academic accomplishments rather the
goal of a genuinely completed spiritual journey is the ordination” they pray, study,
(ibid., 58). Therefore, seminary formation is not limited to the four
walls of the seminary, but it is more on the personal growth and work, and play
discernment of the seminarians in their formative journey.
independently

The greatest challenge for every seminary in this program is to
value “self-discipline.” Discipline must not be dependent on the and responsibly
formators or the rules and regulations established by the seminary,
but it must be the seminarian’s personal goal to “free himself from
all disordered affections and, having removed them, to seek out not for the sake
and find the will of God in the ordering of his life with a view to
the salvation of the soul” (Ibid., 43). Nurturing an appopriate level of compliance
of self-awareness is a lesson that every seminarian must learn and
appreciate during this pandemic. Seminarians have to follow the but for their
structured schedule given by the formation program without the
sound of the bell. Now is the time that they pray, study, work, and own formative
play independently and responsibly not for the sake of compliance
growth.
but for their own formative growth.

The seminarians are not alone in this journey because they are with
their families. The guidance of the parents is the second key to this
formation program. “It is important for families to be part of the The parents may have a larger
seminary process and priestly life, since they help to reaffirm these responsibility in terms of
and to keep them well grounded in reality” (ibid., 148). Parents must being in close contact with the
be empowered so as to realize that the formation of their children seminarians, but this does not
is also their responsibility. Parents will act as immediate superiors to mean that the seminary formators
their seminarian sons and they will be provided with the necessary are non-existent in the program of
tools to help them like formation seminars, constructive evaluation, formation. The RFIS made it clear
and recollections. The seminary formators will act as moderators that, “seminarians need to be
by being in constant communication with the parents as they accompanied in a personal way in
form a team with the goal of carrying out the seminary formation the various stages of their journey
program designed to address the problem of formation during the by those entrusted with the work
pandemic. Thus, the family, just like the seminary community, is of formation, each according to
transformed to be the “seedbed of priestly vocation” (ibid., 90). his proper role and competence”
(ibid., 44). The seminary formators