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By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer
EMMITSBURG, Md.—At Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, nicknamed
“the Mount” by seminarians, pick-up basketball games are as much a
part of priestly formation as pick-up rosary walks.
Here, at the nation’s second oldest Catholic seminary,
situated in the Maryland countryside, future priests receive spiritual,
intellectual and pastoral formation, but emphasis is placed on forming
well-rounded people.
“One of the most important aspects of a priest is his
personality,” said Father Kevin Rhoades, rector. “We can teach them
theology, we can teach them philosophy, and we can teach them to be men of
prayer, but kind of foundational to all of that is a healthy, balanced
individual.”
Father Serge Ward, vocations director for the Archdiocese of
Atlanta, who was ordained in 1995, is a “Mountie,” an alumnus of
Mount St. Mary’s. He remembers fondly the fellowship that developed on the
courts between seminarians and students at Mount St. Mary’s College, which
shares the campus.
“One of my favorite activities that I miss the most is the
pick-up basketball games that occurred on a daily basis on the college campus
at the Athletic Recreational Campus Complex,” he said. “We would run
for game after game playing full court basketball with other seminarians and
college students until we were exhausted.”
Fellow Mountie, Father Kevin Peek, parochial vicar at Holy Trinity
Church in Peachtree City, said he remembers in his last year playing soccer for
hours on end.
Everyone had a touch of “senioritis,” he admits, waiting
to move from seminary life to priesthood.
“We called it ‘deacon day care.’ Once you were
ordained a deacon, you would have had to screw up pretty badly in order not to
be ordained . . . I was playing soccer like two hours a day. It was almost
confessional material out there,” he joked.
Father Peek’s brother, Joe, who is currently in formation at
the Mount and a deacon, agreed that sports play a major role in rounding out
preparation in the seminary.
“I think that the sports are important to our formation, as
far as developing that balance,” he said.
Physical activities not only balance the seminary’s
commitment to the spiritual, intellectual and pastoral aspects of priestly
formation. Sometimes they enhance it. Father Ward remembers playing sports
helped to deepen the prayer experience.
“It was in the evenings after exercise that study and prayer
was best accomplished because we were able to be still and listen,” he
said.
Located approximately 12 miles south of the famed battlefield of
Gettysburg, Pa., in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the seminary and
college share a 1,200-acre campus. Though in a rural setting, it is within
commuting distance of Washington, D.C., to the south and Baltimore to the east.
The metropolitan areas are accessible for pastoral fieldwork, provide cultural
opportunities and amplify the resources of the seminary.
The quiet campus location was appreciated by Father Peek.
“It’s so key. You need the quiet to hear God. You need
that peace,” he said. “Being in the country like it is, allowed you
to get away from everything for a while and that’s so important.”
Mount St. Mary’s was founded in 1808 by Father John DuBois,
who had come to America in 1791 to escape the terror of the French Revolution.
Father DuBois settled in Richmond, Va., where he was tutor to statesman Patrick
Henry’s children while learning English. In 1794, he requested an
assignment from Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, the first Catholic bishop of
the new nation, and was sent to Frederick, Md., with an expanse of frontier
territory that included Emmitsburg.
It was near that small town that Father DuBois built a church and
began educating area children. Soon he was operating a boarding school. Then,
in 1808, the Society of St. Sulpice in Baltimore closed its preparatory
seminary in nearby Pennsylvania and transferred the seminarians to Emmitsburg.
Their arrival is considered the formal beginning of Mount Saint Mary’s
College and Seminary.
In 1830 a Maryland state charter was obtained for the Mount,
allowing it to grant advanced degrees.
Early on, the Mount earned for itself the nickname “cradle of
bishops.” By its centennial year, the institution could boast of 28 alumni
bishops, including Archbishop John Hughes, first archbishop of New York, and
Cardinal John McCloskey, also archbishop of New York and the first American
cardinal.
Father Rhoades said the Mount has a strong spiritual tradition.
“There is a really wonderful spirit at the Mount in the sense
that we are a joyful community and the spiritual life of the Mount is very
strong,” he said. “It has been that way for many, many years.”
Father Peek, who earned his master of divinity degree there in
1998, said that it was the spirituality that attracted him to the seminary.
“It was the spirituality, the guys, and the orthodox teaching
there, but not necessarily (in) that order,” he said. “It kind of all
goes together. The orthodoxy is supported by the spirituality and that attracts
the guys.”
Father Peek said that when he was at the Mount, an article about
seminary life was published in The New York Times Magazine, featuring Mount St.
Mary’s. He asked the rector why their seminary was chosen.
“He said that the balance and all-around focus and humanness
resounded among the faculty and the student body, and that made it real,”
he said.
Father Peek said that he thinks that the seminary may sometimes
carry a stigma.
“Unfortunately the Mount has been kind of silently
persecuted,” he said. “There is a misconception that we are this
stodgy, ultra-conservative place, but when you finally talk to a Mountie you
find it’s not that way.”
His brother has the perspective of having studied at two other
seminaries. Rev. Mr. Peek said that he has found a special bond among
classmates at the Mount.
“In the two years I have been here, I have found a great
camaraderie between the students and an openness among them. It’s the
prayer life that ties it all together,” he said. “The seminary has an
openness to what the guys bring to it, and it takes that and forms it with the
mind of the church.”
Rev. Mr. Peek, who will be ordained a priest next June, said that
the Mount made an impression on him when he came for his brother’s
ordination to the diaconate.
“I was just impressed by the formation,” he said.
“It seemed to be very successful at building men on the human level.”
He said that although each seminary has challenged him, the Mount
has challenged him in a different way.
“The Mount, in their stretching of you, considers who you
are,” he said. “They are balanced in their stretching. They are not
trying to make a cookie-cutter priest.”
Rev. Mr. Peek said he often joins in on what he calls
“pick-up rosary walks,” when a fellow seminarian will decide to pray
the rosary while walking, and others will join.
“What you learn from this place is an open brotherhood,”
he said. “Becoming a priest is not something you do by yourself, and being
a priest is not something you do by yourself. It takes a communio of the people
of God, of your brother priests and of Jesus Christ to make it happen.”
Father Peek said that he was often affirmed by his fellow
seminarians. In the busy days of seminary, when it is sometimes difficult to
make it to study groups, Father Peek said that he always had a little help from
his friends.
“At the Mount, guys just knew that everyone was trying to
pull his weight,” he said, remembering times when he would spend all day
ministering, missing study groups, only to come back to his room late at night
to try to catch up. “All of a sudden something would slide under my door,
and it would be the study notes, all typed up. The guys were always just so
generous in helping everyone else get to the finish line. That was the
spirit—one for all and all for one. It was just a great brotherhood.”
Another important aspect of formation at Mount St. Mary’s,
Father Rhoades said, is a focus on Hispanic ministry.
“The pastoral needs of the Hispanic community are very great.
In many places the church needs to be doing more,” he said. “A priest
needs to be well-trained in the Spanish language and culture, so he can
minister to them in their own language.”
Father Ward, who speaks fluent Spanish, said that though he
already had an interest in Hispanic ministry, the Mount “really made
strong steps to support that.”
With a growing Hispanic community, the Archdiocese of Atlanta,
which has seven men in formation there, and the Mount form a good match, Father
Rhoades said.
“I think those needs are important and I think our seminary
can help form men for that type of ministry,” he said. “I am very
happy that Atlanta uses the Mount. We have had a good relationship for many
years.”
Those who have participated in that relationship feel fortunate.
Father Peek said that in the busy life of a priest, he can draw strength from
his seminary experience.
“The whole spiritual tank that was filled there and the means
and method by which it was filled—that’s what’s kept me
going,” he said. “That was the most incredible gift the Mount gave
me.”
Father Ward agrees.
“Mount St. Mary’s Seminary has nurtured me in human,
ministerial, academic and spiritual ways, just as a mother with an infant. When
arriving at any seminary for the first time, there can be insecurity, questions
and doubt. The Mount is the type of environment where all those issues can be
dealt with quickly so that the seminarian grows in self-confidence as well as
in relationship with God and the community the Lord has brought together,”
he said. “The Mount prepared me to be very natural in priestly ministry.
There have been very few issues in priestly ministry for which I felt
unprepared.” |
