Life at the Seminary

Yes, it’s been over a week since my last update. This is partially because I am pretty busy here with all sorts of things, and at the same time with such uninteresting things that I do not want to bother everyone with it! Classes are well under way and this means I am trying to keep up with studying and balancing my other activities. Sport, Hebrew, playing the harp and painting the new starter set for Warhammer 40,000 all seem to need some attention. To quote the Big Lebowski movie: “the Dude abides” – the same goes for this dude right here!

To give you some insight into seminary life and some of the other things we are doing here, allow me to tell you a little about last weekend. In the hassle of every day life, it seems just two more days that we have activities and can’t go out to do what we want… but if you look back at it, you realize it was a beautiful weekend for sure!

This Saturday was the ordination for the diaconate. In case you don’t know, every priest out there has first been ordained deacon, at least about a year before they are ordained priest. The ordination as deacon is part of the true Sacrament of Ordination, but just at a different level. When the Apostles back in the day couldn’t cope with all the things involved in Church ministry, they delegated the care for the widows and orphans to the deacons. Today, the deacons in the Church still care for the less fortunate, assist at the Altar and proclaim the Word of God.

It is entirely possible to become a deacon, even if you do not intent to become a priest. Since Vatican II, we’ve seen quite a few mature men, often married, aspire to become a deacon. So, last Saturday two of them were ordained by our bishop. Every ordination has something beautiful to it, because it is a Sacrament, you see Gods love and power working through it. However, these deacon students occasionally come down here in the weekends to study here, but we do not talk with them much (mostly since most students are away in the weekends). When it is actually one of your own brothers that gets ordained, you are, of course, much more involved.

That all notwithstanding, it was a beautiful day. And on such a day, the seminarians are quite involved with all sorts of things: we start with our morning prayer for the two candidates for the ordination, move on to organize everything in the house to receive a few hundred people. Everything from tables and chairs, to coffee and snacks – it has to be taken care of. Some help serve Mass, others take care of the relatives of the two deacon-candidates, and in between you might find a few spare minutes to feed yourself around lunch time. The cleaning up… guys, trust me, it’s a busy enough day! (If anyone wants to see what our cathedral looks like, click here for a 360 degrees panorama)

On Sunday we had about 150 members of our prayer group here (which is only a very very small part, but still, be thankful not all of them show up!!). One day a year we kinda want to say “thank you” to them for praying for us and new vocations, as well as pray together. About as hectic as an ordination, and energy-consuming, because you are talking with all these lovely interesting people, each of whom want to share something with you. Lectures and presentations, rosary prayers and Adoration, and a good few hours later, we all had some pizza. I didn’t do much that evening, except drink a few beers and watch the Big Lebowski, only like, the greatest comedy movie of all time. It always cracks me up

The balance in seminary life is very important. Most obvious in my daily routine are the classes. You’re expected to attend them, then you’re expected to pay attention, study and finally pass an exam. This is the only thing that is actually measured in the seminary. At the end of each semester, you receive your report card. In this way, the seminary doesn’t differ very much from high school (except you don’t get money from your grandma anymore when showing her your report card) or university (where, I am sad to admit, one was able to skip classes and just do exams).

This apparent emphasize on study, I find, is a shame. We are after all here to grow in our relationship with God. And no matter what you think, studying a fine assortment of philosophical and theological disciplines, doesn’t really get you there. To help you in your endeavours, there are the prayer hours. A priest will pray five times a day, as well as say Mass. In our seminary, two of these prayer times are scheduled, as well as Mass and Adoration, the latter being optional.

Looking back over the past two years, I can safely say that your spiritual life is mainly up to you. There are in-house spiritual directors that can help you. There are the prayer hours. There is Mass. But how much time you spend on additional things such as scripture reading, meditation, Adoration, private prayer, no one will measure. No report card will be handed out to you at the end of the year. I find it so strange to see that there is so little emphasize on this part of seminary life, which I value above everything. Believe me, I think there are many seminarians here that would love spirituality to become a larger part of their lives, but we are weak human beings like everyone else, oft needing help in order to reserve this extra time for the Lord.

Then there are people skills. And believe me, you learn some here. Living in a community teaches you so many things about others and – above all – about yourself. You learn when and how you can irritate others, to name something obvious that springs to mind. You learn how to become more humble (sometimes with a little help from your brothers or the staff). You do chores for the community and see that you depend in many things on others doing their duties, and so on. These past two years have taught me so much and I feel like I’ve grown a lot thanks to the community life, that is way more intense than sharing an appartment with other students.

To summarize, seminary life -if you want to make the most out of it- is about giving till it hurts. Attending classes while you would rather do something else; go to Adoration and give God the time He needs to prepare you for the priesthood, although even though no one else will reward you for it; and becoming more humble in community life in order to become a better person. Through all of this, you feel that He is working in you, and that seminary does exactly what it is meant to do: provide the formation you need to be able to become a priest.

(If you are a seminarian reading this, I would love to hear their thoughts on seminary life!)

This weekend I had the opportunity to meet 50 fellow Games-Workshop Outriders… and best of all: in Nottingham, where GW has its HQ. It was a riot! All of us had such a great time! I knew most of the Dutch Outriders, but there were folks from Belgium and all over Scandinavia as well. Yeah… a real bunch of oddballs bound together by the great hobby called Warhammer!

I don’t know why, but for some reason I love sitting in my room, just painting miniatures. A finished mini is usually very rewarding to look at, you can play a cool strategic game when you have a bunch with them, but just painting them is very relaxing in itself. Now imagine other folks that give demos in painting and playing for GW just like I do and then share the enthusiasm for the hobby with them, as well as a couple of beers at the official GW bar “Bugman’s” (with loads of nice English beers!)

I’ll just mention some highlights of our Outrider gathering: getting to know each other, presentations by various GW employees, like those in HR, sales, the design studio and support, playing small battles against one another, trying the various beers at Bugman’s, visiting Warhammer-World, where you can spend hours gawking at the ‘official’ GW armies, which they use for pictures in army books and promotion material, getting sneak peaks at stuff that is about to get released, and so on!

Now Sunday we all went to Birmingham for Games Day (UK edition). Games Day is the largest event GW hosts. Here, all of us worked all day long in various halls. I cannot describe how large this event was. If you think this is a niche hobby or something – yeah, maybe you are right, but nearly 10,000 people take the effort to come down to Games Day anyway. And I think that is quite a large group! The hobby is really growing, more so now that some of the Warhammer PC/Console Games (like Dawn of War) are getting more popular.

At Games Day, you can pretty much do all things hobby related. You get sneak previews of new models, you can purchase some stuff that won’t be in stores for weeks, there is a very tough painting competition, where you can look at the most beautiful models ever painted, I daresay… you can play and try out various Warhammer armies, assemble and/or paint models yourself, buy loads of GW items and merchandise, buy the Warhammer novels from Black Library and get them signed by the authors (I got two books signed by Mike Lee *yay!*), you can play some upcoming PC Games they are releasing… and boy, a lot of other stuff that I probably have no idea of. That’s to say, there was barely  any time to do anything for us, it was just *that* busy. At the end I was able to sneak over to the Black Library corner, buy the books and talk to Mike, who by that time had signed well over a 1,000 books. Ouch.

In any case, you guys will all gather that I had a swell time. Some pics to be made available soon

Hey everyone!

Week 2 at the seminary is over. What might have been a boring evening, changed when the rector caught up with me in the hallway and gave me his ticket for the opening of our diocesan year. In one year, our diocese will be around for 450 years and this was kind of the opening for the whole anticipation towards that day… you know how these things go. One of the reasons I wanted to go, or actually the reason I wanted to go, was that Cardinal Godfried Danneels would give a lecture of approximately one hour.

One thing that strikes me is how you can’t wait till your class of 45 minutes is over, but you can listen to certain people for an hour and still want them to go on and tell you more. Cardinal Danneels is one of these people. He spoke about evangelization today and about the challenges we are facing, for instance: our faith is built on philosophy and logical thinking, whereas today this mode of thinking is not very popular in our culture. While our philosophy is still very true, we have to find another way to get the message across.

Another thing he said was that we cannot scientifically prove our faith. We cannot verify God. What we can do, however, is make it reasonable to believe. We aren’t stupid when we believe. It’s also not just a feeling. No, there is something very reasonable in our faith. To this effect, he gave some examples and he continued to elaborate on various topics such as the historicity of the Bible, that dogma’s can only be understood inside a religious experience (like an aspirine -the dogma- only dissolves in water -the religious experience-) and that the miracles Jesus performed were real. What I liked about that last point is that he said that they were totally in character, they were always done out of love, never for personal gain or showing off, always humble, in his own name and afterwards he taught people. Such as the feeding of the 5,000 – after the feeding he taught them about the heavenly bread.

All in all, I was very happy to be there, not to mention very grateful that someone had forgone his chance to go in order to let me go. When someone offers you such an opportunity, I always say take it! What is friendship if you cannot also accept each other’s love? Of course, don’t take the offer out of greediness, but out of an accepting and thankful attitude towards someone who wants to give you something out of love.

Now, as for this seminarian, he is soon going to bed, but not before finishing packing a small suitcase. This weekend, I will be going to Nottingham, UK where Games-Workshop’s HQ is. GW is one of my hobbies, as most of you know. They produce various games in the Warhammer series, where one collects, models, paints and plays with miniatures. Their largest event is the so called Games Day. This year, over 50 North-European Outriders (including me), will be attending Games Day and giving demos in painting and playing the Warhammer games. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Pics and a detailed report when I come back on Monday!

Schools all over the world began their new academic year last week, or will do so shortly. Seminaries are not much of an exception. Coming back from holidays, every seminarian will have a different experience, but I’ll write down some of mine.

First of all, being back at the seminary means being back among brothers. I must say that one of the things I have missed most was my fellow seminarians. Despite some minor effects of a jet lag, I stayed up way too late two days in a row just to catch up with some of them. As more and more start coming back, a sense of community life comes back also: the chapel fills up slowly, chatter (and God forbid, laughter) in the refectory, the amount of visitors to your room, just checking in what’s up, and so on…

Second, there is always the “what’s up this year” anticipation. I must admit, this first semester is going to be a tough one. In addition to our regular 3rd year philosophy classes, they’ve given us a few classes usually taught in the theology course. I find it pretty tough to deal with 15 different classes and keep my head on straight. 15 classes will mean at least 12 or so tough exams within 9 days at the end of the semester. I better start planning…

The other thing we all want to know is whether there are any new seminarians, if any have decided to leave and who is getting ordained this year. I cannot tell what it does to you to see no new seminarians come in… and I am not going to discuss it on my website. We have put all our trust in the Lord, and when no one comes, one wonders where and how He is calling people. Let’s just say it makes you think about the future for your seminary and diocese. Then, of course, there are seminarians that have left. This hurts the community also, because these are people you have shared at least one year with, and often quite a lot more. The joy of two new ordinations, however, is something that’s share among students in general

In our seminary, the first week has a little hectic aura about it. The class-roster isn’t very solid yet. In fact, I find it rather amateuristic to find out 3 classes are cancelled because professors being elsewhere, or other classes suddenly appearing halfway through the week, with professors that only heard a few days ago about having to teach it… well, I guess those things happen and even seminaries aren’t perfect, to say the least. All in all, it’s been a busy enough week and is bound to get busier.

Last but not least, there is the inevitable duty-roster. Each seminarian will receive several task throughout the year that he will perform in service to the community. This could range from a year-long job, such as singing in the choir and locking the doors every night, to tasks that involve organising a specific event, such as an open house day. This year I will be sacristarian (who takes care of all things in the chapel and the sacristy, and is a pretty cool job – although you do have to get up earlier!) and I will organize our seminary’s lent program as well as our Sint Nicolaas celebration. In Holland, Saint Nick doesn’t come on Christmas Eve, but at the eve of his ecclesial memorial, so on December 5. This way, the gift-giving and the religious atmosphere of the Christmas holiday are not so much intertwined. Well, that’s it for this post. I hope everyone has a good weekend and will join me in my prayer for vocations!

Hello everyone! Thanks for coming back so faithfully to my little webspace, even though I hadn’t been able to update it for a week. Fortunately I did not get detained for importing a suitcase full of Canadian artifacts, so I am not writing this from prison. I am, in fact, home!

It has taken a few days to really get settled. This weekend I will write a post on the first week of seminary life, what it is like to come back to the seminary after holidays, and so on. For now I can tell you that the days after I landed in Amsterdam were completely crazy. My family, including grandparents and other relatives, all went out for pancakes a few hours after I came back. The next day, I did a mission for Games-Workshop in a cute little town called Schoonhoven. GW makes all sorts of miniature games, most prominently Warhammer, of which I am an avid player. During these missions, I teach people how to play the game and how to paint miniatures. In some easy-to-learn steps, you can learn how to paint minis to a very decent standard. And, it’s good fun, too!

Well, these last few days I have had a couple of classes already, and I am actually writing this in between classes. I best get ready for the next one… it’s proving to be an interesting year! Check back this Saturday for more updates, and thank you for all your prayers!