How Saint John’s Seminary Forms Priests After the Heart of Christ | 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time | Sunday Reflection

“When first our Diocesan Seminary was founded, people thought of it as being located almost in the country, and those who studied in it for the priesthood were said to have ‘gone to Brighton.’ Later, as the area became less suburban and more closely knit with the life of the city, the more intimate name for the institution became the ‘Sem.’ The neighborhood has changed; the administration of the Seminary itself changed; several generations of our priests have made their studies there; but the ‘Brighton’ of an older generation and the ‘Sem’ of more recent nomenclature remain still Saint John’s Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary, in Brighton.” These are the opening words for the Foreword that the Most Rev. Richard J. Cushing wrote for the book tilted, History of Saint John’s Seminary published March 29th, 1945, in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of this Holy House.

When this “training place of the clergy fittingly opened its doors for the first academic year” on Monday, September 22nd, 1884, the story of God’s work among the people of Boston and beyond Boston entered a different stage; it went from a nursery in God’s vineyard where “seedlings are nourished until the time for transplanting,” to a ground of booming fruitful harvest of good and holy priests who set the earth on fire, the fire of the love of God that Jesus himself desired in today’s Gospel.

It is credited to Tertullian the saying that, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” The story of Jeremiah in today’s First Reading and the encouragement from the Second Reading remind us of the many who bore witness to the love of God, setting the earth on fire to the point of giving their lives. While the red (blood) martyrdom is the ultimate witnessing, there are a lot of our brothers and sisters today bearing tremendous witness to God by their lives and choices they make in their daily living. These are the white (bloodless) martyrs, silent heroes whose witnessing arealso the seed of the Church. The witness of a good young man who aspire the life of the Catholic priesthood is the seed of the seminary as well as the seed of the Church’s growth eventually. They are among the heroes of the Church today! The vocation of good young men is the seed of the seminary.

So, we thank God for the gift of our seminarians; they are the ones ensuring that the mandate given by Rome to the first Bishop of Boston, Bishop Cheverus, in 1810 to establish a diocesan seminary continues; they are keeping the mission of the seminary going; their YES joins thousands of yeses of generations of young men who have entered, lived, studied, were formed and ordained as priests from this Holy House, St. John’s Seminary, the “Sem.”

To our seminarians, thank you for being here and ensuring that the story of St. John’s seminary never stops being written. The authors of the Preface to the History of Saint John’s Seminary noted that the “seminary’s story is more than the buildings…more than the list of names of the Seminary’s professors and graduates….The real story is what they did here.” Truly, the real story is the one you are making in the present time; the joy and laughter in the house; the love and kindness of fellow brothers; the little acts of charity that sometimes go unnoticed – like dusting the pews in the chapel when nobody is here, marking the ribbons of the Mundelein Psalter and arranging them in the shelves before morning prayers, cleaning the tables in the refectory after meals, even acts like smiling to a fellow brother, offering words of encouragement to each other, and so many more. These are the real stories, what we do here and how they all add up for a well-rounded integration of the four dimensions of formation. They all lead to forming a good, personable and holy priest to serve the Archdiocese and beyond. They all are part of what it takes to form priests after the heart of Jesus Christ, priests who will go out to set the earth on fire for Jesus.

As we soon begin another academic year (starting on Saturday, August 23rd), we pray for all of our seminarians, new and returning, that as they have “gone to Brighton,” gone to the “Sem,” as the first Archbishop Richard recalled, we pray for God’s grace to continue the mission of the Church, setting the earth on fire with the love of Jesus Christ, and to continue to work for the conversion of men. As your vocations serve as seed for the mission of this “Sem,” we pray for you to be nurtured just as seedlings are nourished in a nursery until the time for transplanting, to a booming fruitful harvest of good and holy priests who will keep the story of this institution going for many more years,but more importantly continue to make known God’s presence and blessings through the tri munera that the priest receives at ordination, especially the munussanctificandi, administering the sacraments to those in most need of it.

Thank you for your vocation!

And to our friends, families, benefactors and alumni, please continue to pray for the advancement of the mission of the Church as well as the mission of St. John’s Seminary, the “Sem.” God bless you!