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Seminarian Reflection: The Vocation of a Student in Rome by Rev. Justin Kizewski

There is no better setting for a seminarian to go about his intellectual formation than Rome.  The first part of this bold statement involves looking at the intellectual life of a seminarian; the second part involves looking at the seminarian in Rome.

We are seminarians studying theology.  Theology literally means the study of God; more particularly, we could say that theology is the study of what God tells us about Himself.  God has communicated Himself to us, spoken to us, through the Scriptures and through the tradition of the Church.  So when seminarians study what God has told us about Himself, we have to study the Holy Scriptures and the tradition of the Church.  This means that seminarians, on a daily basis, take just as seriously something written seventeen hundred years ago as something written by the current Holy Father as well as everything in between.

What we are trying to do is form our minds and hearts after the mind and heart of the Church.  We are trying to get to know what God is trying to tell us so that we can hand it on to our future parishioners.  The Dominicans have a motto in Latin: contemplata aliis tradere – hand on the things which you have contemplated.  In studying deeply the Word of God in the Scriptures and in the Tradition, we try to put ourselves in contact with Him so that we can hand that on when it comes time to serve.  Because our vocation later is to hand on what we have learned, our vocation now is to study.  We know that it is only by living out that vocation, in this particular instance to study – that we will become holy. We are studying for our future parishioners and to become holy.

There are some virtues that one develops in the life of study.  The first I will mention is humility.  In studying, we run into truths that we do not understand.  Not only do we not understand the mysteries that we are contemplating, but also sometimes we do not understand the people who are trying to explain those mysteries.  When we read them, we meet these people who are smarter than we are; we do not understand them perfectly and this humbles us – in this, we realize that we cannot outsmart them, nor do we desire to.  Aware of our own limitations, we are left in awe of the great mysteries and the great minds that have attempted to explain them.

This also gives the student a sense of obedience.  There are people with a greater picture of the way things are.  This recognition asks for obedience – a submission to what might not be my own way of thinking. This submission includes a thinking through of the issue, an examining, and finally, a submission.

Discipline and perseverance are also included in the life of study.  Studying something in depth is not easy.  No matter how smart a person is, a life committed to study will require discipline and self-denial. 

Finally, a life of study demands that a person desire to do great things – to be excellent.  This virtue is called magnanimity, or great-souledness. We study the mysteries and hope to make progress in our understanding of the mysteries.  To undertake such a venture – such a difficult endeavor – one needs a kind of confidence that the venture will not be in vain.  To set out to make progress in the understanding of the great mysteries of the faith means that I think that with the help of God this is possible.  This is a bold pursuit of excellence.  This is daring.  This is great souledness. 

So what difference does studying in Rome make?  No matter how much one learns in the classroom or in books, Rome and the experiences that Rome offers increase the learning curve exponentially.  Suddenly everything – even what seem to many to be abstract ideas – becomes tangibly concrete.  History for us in Rome is not a subject that we study; it is a walk to school.  Whether it is praying at the tombs of the great martyrs, such as St. Peter and St. Paul or witnessing recent history such as the death and funeral of John Paul II, history is something that we are able to live, whether the 1st century or the 21st.

Finally, the most tangible subject that we experience might be ecclesiology – the study of the Church.  Through the many Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica, we experience firsthand the unity and the universality of the Church.  There are people from all over the world, but they are praying the one Mass together.  By witnessing the death and funeral of a saintly Holy Father and the election of another, we saw the holiness of our bridge to Peter and Christ.

These opportunities to study and to learn in THE CITY will form our hearts and minds after that of the Church and inform our future ministry.  The more we know about the person, the more we can love him or her.  Hopefully, the more we study about God, the more we fall in love with Him who first loved us.