Rector's Conferences

“The rector’s conferences are especially helpful in aiding students to interpret rightly their life in common, their discernment of vocation to the priesthood, and the human and spiritual virtues they strive to appropriate.”
-Program for Priestly Formation, 267

I’ve written before about the role of the Rector, in general, and the Rector here, Fr. Peter Vaccari. The Rector carries out numerous tasks and responsibilities. One of these is a monthly Rector’s Conference. This takes place in every seminary. (Archbishop Dolan has put together a book of his Rector’s Conferences from the time he was a Seminary Rector. It’s a great book!) Each month, the seminarians meet with Fr. Peter, usually in the Main Chapel, for a time of information and formation.

Tonight, on the first day back from the Easter break, we gathered in the Chapel for the April Rector’s Conference. In this semester, Fr. Peter has examined each of the theological virtues (faith, hope and love) and how they need to be cultivated and realized in the life of each seminarian and priest.

Fr. Peter spoke about hope tonight and there were three main points for the seminarians – and perhaps for each person who reads this. (These are not Fr. Peter’s exact words just the ideas I left the Chapel with tonight.)

1. A priest must be a person who emanates hope. As seminarians and priests, our presence must demonstrate that we are people of hope. In welcoming, reaching out and even challenging, our faces should reveal what is in our heart. Our speech - in every work we speak - should be spirit and hope-filled. This leads to the second point.
2. You cannot give what you do not have. We cannot preach, live, speak about or emanate hope if we do not believe it ourselves. We are called to pray, reflect and talk about our feelings of hopefulness and perhaps even more importantly, in times of hopelessness. We can never be authentic disciples if we are not honestly engaged in consistent self-examination and reflection, particularly when it comes to hope.
3. Be aware of false hope. Fr. Peter’s last point, at first, may appear relevant for seminarians and priests but I think has a message for each of us. It is easy to imagine ourselves in a certain role or career, i.e. I hope to be assigned to a certain parish, or be the “Director” of this, or have this particular job or something like that. It’s unrealistic. It is not who we are called to be as priests (or as people). It’s a false hope, one bound to leave us disappointed and discouraged.

Now this is only one Rector’s Conference so you can imagine what a year’s worth of them offers. It is another part of the formational process and one that has been a huge source of inspiration and support.

This particular conference, offered in the Easter season and on the first day of a new semester, gives much for me (and hopefully all of us) to think, pray and reflect upon!