If you ever wondered what seminarians do during their summer vacation — I know that has been on your mind, hasn’t it? — the Florida Catholic newspaper has this intriguing profile of how some men in St. Petersburg are spending these weeks:

College students home for summer break typically hang with friends or work jobs. Diocesan seminarians often spend their summer breaks serving without pay and hanging out in churches.

Summer continues a seminarian’s preparation for the priesthood. It’s a time when they learn firsthand what is involved in the service of a priest.

“I think it’s a great thing because it helps you learn what priests do, even though it’s during the summer and so a little more laid back,” said Brian Fabiszewski, a theology student at St. John Vianney College Seminary who is serving at St. Paul Parish in Tampa. “I’ve gotten a little snapshot of what their life is like.”

Because they live in the parish rectory, seminarians get a realistic view of life as a priest. They see how priests work to fit personal prayer and public service into an always-changing schedule filled with administrative and ministerial duties. They get to ask questions about real situations that simply have no parallel in the classroom.

“You’re kind of putting them out there on the front lines,” said diocesan Director of Vocations Father Len Plazewski.

Father Plazewski said the pastor hosting the seminarian has to be a good guide and the parish has to have a rectory with room for the seminarian. The parish also has to be active during the summer. Diocesan seminarians cannot spend summers in service until they have completed at least a year of theology. How they serve depends on their progression toward the priesthood. Seminarians never go to their home parish and often are sent to places that have no seminarians. That way, more people can learn about the process of a priest’s formation.

Having a seminarian around can be a boost to vocations. Young people considering the priesthood or religious life can feel more comfortable approaching seminarians than a priest.

“Parishioners come up and ask me what my first year was like, about classes, our daily activities, different things we’ve done. … There’s a lot of interest in the people here,” said Fabiszewski. “(A couple of altar servers) ask a lot of questions about the classes and the different experiences we have.”

Kyle Smith, a diocesan seminarian on his first summer assignment at Light of Christ Parish, Clearwater, said his biggest surprise of the summer is that priests really do serve 24 hours a day. Seminarians are told that, he said, but seeing it firsthand was a surprise.

“Just the constantness of the parish (surprised me),” he said. “I knew that, but it never encapsulated in my mind for some reason.”

A seminarian is exposed to many different experiences through his working summers. In his last summer assignment before ordination, transitional Deacon Carl “Buster” Melchior has served in a hospital, in parishes that are mostly elderly and in parishes with schools and a younger demographic. Because he is now ordained a deacon, his duties are closer to what he will do as a priest. Now serving at St. John Vianney Parish, St. Petersburg Beach, he performs baptisms and graveside services and wears a clergy collar.

Deacon Melchior said his summer assignments and in-parish service have been a great preparation for the priesthood. He has comforted those whose loved ones have died, prayed to find words of hope for those whose health is failing and encouraged young people to grow in the service of God in a world designed to pull them away.

But he added that all summer lessons do not relate to active ministry. These are times when the seminarian practices what he preaches on a practical and personal level. The men learn what it means to behave as priests.

“We’re public people and that’s something they kind of beat into our heads,” he said. “If we’re in a restaurant, we have to temper our conversation. … That’s not something you wake up one morning and say, ‘OK, I’ll temper my conversation.’”

Check the link for the rest. And remember to keep these fellas in your prayers!

Photo: by Eric Rogers/Florida Catholic