Dear Friends of SJV,
Greetings as we enter into the desert of the Lenten season. The men spent Ash Wednesday working in parishes to help distribute ashes during one of the busiest days of the liturgical year.
As you may have heard, Pope Leo has appointed the next Archbishop of Denver. Our men were invited to the announcement press conference, and celebrated Mass with Archbishop-designate James Golka on Saturday, February 7. You can watch a brief review of their day here: Meet Denver’s Next Archbishop!
This month, our newsletter was written by Fr. Brady Wagner who is the Coordinator of the Spirituality Year, and Sean Morton who is a seminarian in his Spirituality Year. Their articles give us insight into what the Spirituality Year is like at our seminary. The Spirituality Year is designed to withdraw the men from the world in order to deepen their interior lives with Jesus Christ and prepare them for the years of formation to come.
Thanks to each of you for your ongoing support. Please keep our men in priestly formation in your prayers.
In Christ,
Fr. Angel Perez-Lopez
Photos provided by Denver Catholic
Spirituality Year Retreat
One of the more significant and foundational experiences for all seminarians at SJV is the retreat at the end of the Spirituality Year. This 30-day silent retreat with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius has the seminarians spend 4-5 consecrated hours of prayer each day, meditating on the mysteries of Christ’s life. Its goal is to develop the freedom to hear and respond to God’s call with profound faith, love and generosity. This opportunity profoundly shapes the spiritual life of the men and inspires them to find more creative ways to respond to the Lord’s invitation to follow Him more closely and to share in His mission for the salvation of souls.
Because it takes a certain amount of spiritual maturity to complete the exercises fruitfully, the spirituality year seminarians spend much of the year developing their interior life to prepare for it. They recently completed a 5-day silent retreat patterned after the exercises to test their readiness more concretely. It takes them through a journey to root them in the unconditional love of God, to confront the reality of sin and its consequences, and to be amazed by the response of God in the incarnation, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. As they move from the wonder of creation to the fall, from the tragedy of sin to the mercy of God, from the life of Jesus to a unique and personal call, they begin to find their lives and understand their own identities within the context of the life of Jesus. They realize more fully the freedom and joy of living life through, with and in Him. By the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into their hearts, they not only cry out ‘Abba Father’ with Jesus, but they also begin to taste more deeply a thirst for souls in Him.
It is a tremendous joy for me, as the Coordinator of Spirituality Year, to witness the grace of God transform these men year after year through these times of retreat. Please pray for them as they continue to prepare for the 30-day retreat at the end of the semester, that they may allow the Lord full freedom to heal, strengthen and inspire them to respond more generously to His call.
Fr. Brady Wagner
Coordinator of Spirituality Year
Silent Moments
As a seminarian in the Spirituality Year, my average day starts with prayerful silence and ends with prayerful silence. The Spirituality Year is a year focused on growing in intimacy with the Lord and learning how to hear His “still small voice” throughout the rhythms of daily life. In order to hear His voice, a certain interior silence and stillness is required. To this end, there are many silent moments and opportunities to pause built into our day. We start the day with an hour of silent prayer, then enter into two hours of quiet time for study and reading. After a morning of classes, we pause our day to celebrate Mass and have lunch with our brother seminarians. In the afternoon we pause yet again to pray the rosary and Evening Prayer together before dinner. Finally at the end of the day, we gather to pray Night Prayer after which no talking is allowed in the house until after prayer the next morning. The topics of the classes, the books we are reading, the sort of work we do in the afternoons, all of these things change but the real character of our day is built around these moments of pause where we quiet everything down and touch base with the Lord. The great grace of this practice of returning to the Lord throughout the day is that these moments of pause begin to bleed into everything that we do. Attentiveness to the Lord during these moments of prayer and silence becomes attentiveness to Him during class, during work, during conversations and interactions with each other. The structure of our life conditions us to be aware of the Lord and all the varied ways He communicates to us in the persons, places, and things of our daily life.
Sean Morton
Spirituality Year Seminarian, Archdiocese of Denver
