On August 30th, the entire seminary community gathered to pay tribute to the beginning of the academic and formation year. This annual event offers a relaxed opportunity to get better acquainted with the new seminarians and faculty and to share news about summer assignments and pastoral years just completed. In the homily for the opening Mass, Rector Fr. Brown described life in the seminary as one “meant to guide us to a life in the Spirit, from the inside out.” This journey of self-discovery is a “wonderful journey; a marvelous quest meant to tell others what you know to be true: He is the way, truth, and life.” As this journey takes place in the context of an academic environment, it was fitting that Fr. Christopher Begg, CUA’s Associate Dean for Seminary and Ministerial Studies, began the dinner following the Mass with a warm welcome to his students, one shared by President John Garvey, who asserted, “It is wonderful to begin another year with you.” Though President Garvey was delivering 30 speeches in one month alone, he found time to join the evening’s festivities, offering encouragement and a gentle exhortation: “It is the job of people like you—seminarians and priests—to express why faith matters. Evangelize the student body. Most people haven’t had the opportunity to meet someone thinking about vows. Express your happiness to them!” The beautiful Mass and carefully planned gourmet dinner celebrated this happiness in a milieu of warm fraternity shared by all present.
