Seminarians donate 30,000 annual volunteer hours. – Sister Robbins and Vincentian Father Miles Heinen, associate director, oversee the program.
St. John’s Seminary students soon will be fanning out over Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties to contribute more than 30,000 annual volunteer hours of supervised field education. They will serve in crisis counseling, work with the homeless, the hungry, and with battered families, hospital and nursing home chaplaincies, detention faculties and jails, as well as in education and parish settings.
Pastoral ministry and field education are an integral part of formation for priesthood, said Msgr. Helmut Hefner, rector of the seminary in Camarillo. Service in the community followed by theological reflection is a key component of working towards a Master in Divinity degree.
“The students prayerfully reflect on their experiences from a theological point of view,” said Msgr. Hefner. “How was God at work in this particular situation?”
Ongoing ministry allows seminarians to verify their vocation and enables faculty to assess a seminarian’s pastoral and human capacity for ministry, he added.
First year theology students all serve in various nursing homes once a week and reflect together on common experiences. Second year students are assigned to various ministries such as answering phones at a crisis counseling center, teaching religion in high schools, or working with the poor in Catholic social service ministries or in detention facilities.
Following the second year, seminarians are assigned to serve 10 months at designated internship parishes trained to supervise the students.
“Students often come back with the idea of ‘boy, I still have a lot to learn,'” said Msgr. Hefner as they begin their final two years of theological studies. Their final field education experience is to serve in hospital chaplaincy.
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In many ways, then, St. John’s Seminary makes a contribution to the world far beyond its size.
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