Prioritizing Healing to Form Healthy Priest
Each fall semester, the Formation Staff facilitates the “Holy and Life-Giving Seminar” for all new seminarians (men in the Propaedeutic Stage) culminating in the spring with a Healing Retreat for the entire student body. The purpose of the seminar is to form new seminarians with foundations of Christian spirituality for a life of prayer. Fr. Paul Sheller, OSB, the seminary’s Director of Spiritual Formation, leads the first portion of the seminar utilizing experiential knowledge of praying with Sacred Scripture, also providing an introduction to lectio divina, meditative prayer, and Ignatian spirituality. Mr. Benjamin Darnell, M.Div., who serves the seminary as a Human Formation Advisor, expedites the second installment of the seminar integrating Christian anthropology and human sexuality through Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
The seminar-style approach, which also utilizes small group processing, is aimed at helping seminarians see that their relationship with the Holy Trinity is the unequivocal center of life. Additional methods in Christian prayer are taught to foster a personal, intimate, and affective relationship with Jesus, giving seminarians the tools to discover their authentic identity in Christ. Fr. Paul introduces and explores various forms of prayer through the life and writings of Catholic saints and the continuity of the Catholic spiritual tradition. In his own words, “those practices consistent throughout the tradition that lead souls to God.” During the second portion of the seminar, regarding Christian anthropology and human sexuality, there is special emphasis on the first three cycles of the pope’s Theology of the Body entitled: 1) Christ Appeals to the Beginning, Original Man; 2) Christ Appeals to the Human Heart, Historical Man; and 3) Christ Appeals to the Resurrection, Eschatological Man.
The seminar culminates in a three-day Healing Retreat, which is a unique integration of Christian spirituality, anthropology, human formation, psychological services, and the sacramental life of the Church, which seeks to address deeper afflictions of the whole person. Based on feedback from seminarians, this Healing Retreat is now a powerful three-day annual experience for the entire student body. Past Healing Retreats have featured presentations by Fr. Sean Kilcawley, Dr. Bob Schuchts, Fr. Jerome Krug, Fr. Etienne Huard, OSB, and Dr. Matthew Breuninger. Time in silence, small processing groups, Adoration, prayer groups, and spiritual direction coupled with conference talks on various topics, such as healing past trauma, affective maturity, breaking addictive sin cycles, attachment and identity wounds, and much more, have proven effective experiences of ongoing healing salve to seminarians.
This unique combination that begins each seminarian’s experience early on through the Holy and Life-Giving Seminar, culminating annually in the Healing Retreat has become a remarkable time of renewal in the Holy Spirit. With the onslaught of spiritual and human challenges besetting the culture today, Conception Seminary College is meeting the needs and equipping seminarians like never before.
— Mr. Benjamin Darnell
Director of Pastoral Formation
Holy & Life-Giving Seminar
Responding to the culture from which candidates arrive at seminary, Conception Seminary College introduced the “Holy & Life-Giving Seminar” to its priestly formation program in 2021. In this program, a solid introduction into authentic prayer and the Christian view of sexuality is conducted for all new students. This semester-long seminar helps each man recognize the gifts of nature and grace in his person. Ending in a weekend retreat to address wounds in coming to better mastery of chaste living, prepares seminarians to authentically engage spiritual direction and Human Formation, while also making use of chastity groups and Counseling Services.
