By Fr. James Morin
Rector, St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward
Seventeen years ago in August, I arrived at St. Gregory the Great Seminary with a carload full of clothes and books, 19 years old and ready to begin the long process of formation for the priesthood.
Strangely enough, I vividly remember that I felt like I was moving home. Perhaps this was because my first year of college had lacked purpose or direction, and now I had come to a place where both were clearly laid out. Perhaps it was a sense of the ordered environment I had entered, a place stable and secure enough that I could work out the chaos in my mind and heart. In any case, as I unloaded my car and settled into my new room, I felt the same kind of relief you feel when stepping into your house after having been away for a long time.
As God’s providence would have it, 17 years later, St. Gregory the Great Seminary is again my home. After two years of serving as formator and professor, this summer I became rector of the seminary. Since taking over this new role, I have found myself reflecting on what I hope the seminary will provide for the 49 young men who now call this place home. Inevitably, this has led me to think about what St. Greg’s did for me, how it transformed me during the three years I spent here as a seminarian.
The first thing I received from the seminary was structure. The Rule of Life ordered each day. There were times for liturgy and prayer, classes and meals, study and recreation. Most of the time, I did not find the order a burden, but a gift which provided me with balance and space to attend more seriously to difficult questions that weighed on my mind and my heart.
The questions of my mind began to be answered by a second gift of the seminary: the academic coursework. Most of my questions and doubts were not answered by the discovery of new “facts,” but rather by a transformation of the very lens with which I viewed the world and the God who made it – who made me. Along with this intellectual transformation was a growing capacity to open my rather chaotic heart to God in prayer.
Learning how to pray was the third and most important gift provided for me by the seminary. The liturgical life of the seminary, along with the guidance of a wise spiritual director, helped me to hear and recognize God’s healing voice and respond to Him with growing confidence.
An ordered and balanced human life, a growing capacity to know and teach the truth, and an ever-deepening connection with God in prayer – this is what St. Gregory the Great gave me, and this is what I hope we will continue to provide for the young men who move in each August. There is one more thing, though. It is underneath or intertwined with these other gifts; it is almost a secret, hard to name or perhaps even notice.
What I am talking about is hinted at in what we call this place: it is a seminary, a seminarium. In Latin, this word originally meant a “seedbed,” a place where seeds are planted, hidden in the darkness of the ground, away from the eager or anxious eye of the farmer. Perhaps when we hear seedbed, we think of a place of growth, a place where life flourishes and increases toward an abundant harvest. This is true enough, as far as it goes. But perhaps we are also reminded of something our Lord said: “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
The type of growth which the seminary is meant to encourage is mysterious, even paradoxical. Its proper end is not life, but death. Not death as the mere destruction or disintegration of life, but death as sacrifice, the voluntary laying-down of one’s life, handing oneself completely over to Christ for the sake of his bride, the Church. Perhaps it sounds strange, but my deepest hope for every seminarian who comes to St. Greg’s is death. Yes, for a time, I hope they find a home as I did, a place which nourishes their life physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. But at the end, when that life reaches maturity, I hope they fall to the ground on the floor of the Cathedral and die, and thus produce much fruit.
