Daily life was fragmented again at the Seminary San Carlos and San Ambrosio, finished the contents corresponding to the first academic semester of the 2018-2019 academic year and came the not always welcome final tests that brought with it a common agenda that included: tensions, exhaustion, suspicion, satisfaction and thanksgiving that, in some cases, came together both to the good qualification and to the pleasure of knowing that we would no longer give that subject that demanded greater effort. Yes, in the seminary we also do final tests and what tests some.
This is a period marked by the silence and depth that absorbs each seminarian in the different subjects according to the personal study he carries out, but at the same time contrasts with the enriching experience of community study, by courses, of those subjects that usually present a serious historical curriculum of high degree of difficulty. Of course, without lacking the help, always enriching, that the most advanced can offer to the new generations.
As the public university at the end of January closes its first stage of training, the Seminar as a school year also marks the end of its first period on a similar date. On this particular occasion it was scheduled from January 28 to February 8, perhaps somewhat delayed since the well-known celebration of World Youth Day in Panama brought together not only some teachers from the center but also three of our brothers, who represented us in this special event, accompanied by Father Jesús Delgado , Vice-Chancellor of the Seminary. So, with a little more time we prepare for this evaluative stage.
It may be thought that it does not fit into the reality of a man of God and on his way to the priesthood, a level of high tension because of this temporal process. Experience shows us that this assumption is not true, seminarians are normal men with the same psychosocial abilities that a man his age, single or married, can have. We live and believe in God’s assistant grace in our walk, but we are not alienated into the infrastructure of a glass bubble, although sometimes it may seem so. We are men, beings in the world, even if we do not belong to you. We suffer the pressures of daily life, so we strongly ask you to pray for us, even more so in this specific time, because we are also often victims of pain, often because of our faults and so many others for reasons beyond our control and unattainable to it. It is there that the act of faith is consolidated in God’s call for whom nothing is impossible (cf. Lk 1:38); it is there that our yes is renewed, having to say, in the intimacy of being: “Father, let not my will be done but yours” (Lk 22:42); that is when by His grace we can experience how “everything has prepared for the good of those who love Him, those who He has chosen” (Rom 8.28).
To strive for the stay true to this call and not let ourselves be dragged by the exhaustion of the exams, while some are content around the taste of a good cup of hot coffee, others release their pressures on the sports court, some prefer to walk or run through the environments of the Seminary, without missing who rests in the enjoyment of a good film , elements that manifest the blessed diversity of our environment. But there is a minimum common multiple that makes us discover ourselves as one body, one family, it is the time of prayer before Sacramentd Jesus Christ, that is when we all pray intensely that the Holy Ghost will grant us the gift of wisdom and intelligence at the difficult time to examine us.
We always hope that every end of the semester will pass happily, that there are no misachers, not many headaches. We hope that the teachers will not “picheen” at such a speed that the third swing will go blank. May the good results be the result of the responsible effort of each of us and that Jesus may be the center of our study so that we do not do so with the sole intention of passing the exams, but that everything we have learned will serve us in the integral growth of our personality for love. Thus one day we can apply it for the sake of the flock that we will guard in the service and imitation of the one Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who surpassed with an outstanding the test of the Father’s eternal love for us on the cross (cf. Rom 5.8) and who will surely not look at our notes but our hearts. Until then, “Let us run with strength the test which is proposed to us with our eyes fixed on Jesus, who initiates and consumes our faith” (Heb 12:1-2). Ω
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