Diocesan seminarians James Domitrovich, Alexander Gilliam and William Heller have completed their first semester of the propaedeutic stage at St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. The propaedeutic stage features a distinct community, media fast and a focus on growing in relationship with Christ rather than traditional academics.
The seminarians’ days begin at 6:30 a.m. Their schedule includes Eucharistic Adoration, morning prayer, breakfast, and two classes with a break in between. They also attend Mass and have unscheduled time in the afternoon until 5 p.m. “Free time doesn’t exist in the house, it’s unscheduled time,” said Heller. “The purpose of this is to be used for productive things … A lot of the guys are physically active, including myself. I’m still doing the weightlifting training here, preparing for the university nationals in March.”
Afterward, the seminarians have evening prayer and dinner, which is prepared by one of the seminarians working with a chef. After cleaning up from dinner, the seminarians often do some sort of communal activity.
The seminarians’ classes include Discipleship and Scripture (taught by Jeff Cavins, creator of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline), Spirituality and Prayer, and Literature twice weekly. They have human formation with the seminary psychologist and a process group with counselors once weekly. Every seminarian also does apostolic work once weekly, either as a teacher’s aide at Risen Christ, a bilingual Catholic school in Minneapolis or helping teach a confirmation preparation class at a local parish.
For Domitrovich, the best part of the year has been the detachment from media. He described himself as not being “super attached” to it previously. “I get to encounter my brothers who are in the house on a more real level … One of the weirdest things was doing MapQuest. We couldn’t use Google Maps to navigate around the city because we don’t have our phones. Now that we use MapQuest, we have to have a navigator or know where we’re going,” he said. The seminarians must wait until Saturday when they have access to technology to look up MapQuest directions and print them out for a trip.
“This reliance on a navigator for directions is like our need to rely on Jesus to guide us in discerning God’s will in our lives,” said Domitrovich. “The propaedeutic year has solidified that I’m on the right path—seeing the growth here, this is the place the Lord wants me. In that growth, I’m experiencing a desire and a hunger to grow closer. Being that it’s so positive and I’m on this route toward priesthood, at this point in time, it makes me feel as if I’m on the right path. Until He says otherwise, that will be the continued plan.”
Domitrovich said that the first semester has made him realize what is important and what is not. “The most important thing is Christ Himself and loving Him. When everything else is rightly ordered toward Him, everything else will fall into place, and if it’s not falling into place, then it’s probably because the Lord isn’t calling me there, or it’s not something He’s desiring for me,” he said.
Domitrovich is currently a second grade teacher’s aide at Risen Christ. He explained that he has occasional difficulties communicating with the students since some of them only speak Spanish. “However, [I try] encountering them in the present moment, and showing them attention because some of these kids might not get that male attention,” Domitrovich said. “One kid came up to me and was telling me he didn’t want me to leave and wanted to sit next to me during one of the lessons.”
Gilliam agrees that the media fast has helped him connect more to the community and to God. “Human formation and counseling have been the greatest blessings out of normal classes. Human formation is human growth, working on understanding family systems, and how to handle the process of emotions in a healthy way,” he said. “Most people don’t gain that in their life. In class, we’re reframing how we view ourselves and the people we interact with. We’re working on communication skills.” For Gilliam, the time in prayer is helping him in his discernment of the priesthood.
“We’re constantly finding time to be in the chapel. Spending time in front of the Blessed Sacrament is absolutely amazing,” Gilliam said. He noted his relationship with God has been transformed by “being able to step back and live more in the moment, being more present, without the schedule I had prior to coming into this year.” He said he has been able to not stress about time or worry about anything. “I can just be present in prayer, be present with my brothers, and that has come with a greater recognition of the beauty the Lord gives us and His love for us—eternity in the midst of time.”
“I’ve never felt more ability to connect with the person in front of me than this semester when we didn’t have the media,” said Heller. His favorite class is Spirituality and Prayer with Fr. Jon Vander Ploeg. “There’s just a way in which he articulates ... the depth to which God wants to be with us throughout the day. Sometimes that’s very easy to see, obviously in holy hour and Mass, but when you’re struggling with brothers in the house, [you can see] how God’s working in that,” he said. “Amazing things happen when 15 guys live in a house, and all are trying to become more like Jesus Christ each and every day.”