Jubilee of Seminarians

A special Jubilee of Seminarians is to take place in Rome, starting in the evening of Monday 23rd June and concluding the following day, Tuesday 24th June. It forms the first of a sequence of three "Jubilees", being followed in successive days by the Jubilee of Bishops and the Jubilee of Priests.

Adrienne von Speyr has a lovely book entitled "They Followed His Call", which explores the experience of vocational calling. It combines a theological sense with a certain psychological understanding of the experience of one who listens to the Lord's call, so that in his foreword Hans Urs von Balthasar writes that it "accompanies the young person very seriously and even maternally through the difficult time that leads from the call's awakening in the soul to the great Decision and its realization".

The chapter of Adrienne's book entitled "The Time of Choice" is perhaps most relevant to seminarians.

The experiences of the time of choice are comparable to those of a young mother who, before marriage, had only a theoretical knowledge of how to care for an infant. And now suddenly she is responsible for her living child's most diverse needs. Through his presence God shows what he needs, asks for, and expects. He creates new times and divisions in a day's work, new tools, too, and qualities. A person attempts to reciprocate God's new wishes and designs as best as he can. For the most part, this will mean valuing one's self and one's things less highly, leaving everything to God in ever greater measure, until we can perhaps say that we have totally forgotten about ourselves and find all meaning in God. ...

Just as there is a total treasury of prayer, so too, in particular, is there a treasury of the time of choice, a treasury of consent and of gleaming example. Every newly spoken consent, every example that is given in such a consent, belongs to the Church in an intimate way and is further dispensed by her. It is the Church's to administer. The Church keeps none of her treasures for herself. She no more locks up her spiritual provisions than she removes her monstrances and vestments in cathedrals from use. They are there in order to be seen, used and lived. No consent stands isolated. Each and every consent is related to a future one or an already spoken one, and to every other consent.