Spring 2016 - Mount St. Mary`s University

In this Issue:
• Mount Implements Pastors and
Stewards Program with Lilly Grant
• Seminarians on Annual Retreat in January
• Deacons Reflect on Holy Land Pilgrimage
• Communion and Liberation Movement
Growing at the Mount
• In Memoriam
• Upcoming Events
The
DuBois
Spring 2016, Volume XX, No. 2
www.msmary.edu/seminary
A Newsletter for Seminary Alumni & Friends
16300 Old Emmitsburg Road
Emmitsburg, MD 21727
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Gettysburg, PA
Permit No. 28
Photos from the 2015 Mount
St. Mary’s Seminary Priests’
Reunion
Mount Implements Pastors and
Stewards Program with Lilly Grant
by Chancelor Claypool, S’21, Archdiocese of Baltimore
Since 2012, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, with the Lilly Endowment, Inc., has worked on developing a series of
leadership and finance Computer Aided Learning Modules (CAMs) available online to seminarians. This past
month, they have been awarded a sustainability grant to continue to strengthen the program. The program,
Pastors and Stewards, is currently in use by the Mount’s theologians, but will be open to other seminaries in the
future as well.
“We want to make sure that each seminarian has at least some knowledge of the terminology, how to create a
budget, how to hire, how to let someone go in a charitable way, how to manage a staff,” Dr. Irene Wunderlich
explains. Dr. Wunderlich worked closely on the development of the program and the website. She says that
unlike other similar courses, “This is the first comprehensive course of its kind that’s specifically tailored to
Catholic seminarians. It’s specifically geared to what they will face as Catholic pastors.”
Currently, the Mount combines the online courses with an in-class seminar, but the option for other seminaries
to use it as a stand-alone course remains. The five CAMs focus on developing pastoral leadership, human
resources, and finances, both personal and parish. The seminary has spent years surveying vocations directors
and newly ordained priests across the nation to ensure the courses are comprehensive while staying practical.
Rector Msgr. Andrew Baker says, “As priests we’re not trained, nor should we be trained, in all of the details and
all of the particulars. We have to have some trust in experts.”
Second Theologian Michael DeSaye who currently uses the CAMs admits, “They are still working some of the
bugs out,” but adds, “They’re great. I really like them.”
For seminarians who may struggle with finances themselves and think them secondary to Christ’s mission, Msgr.
Baker offers some advice: “Our whole lives should be undergirded by a trust in God. That’s a disposition of
the heart,” he says. “That’s not meant, certainly, to be a reason for a laissez-faire attitude toward particulars or
administration. It means being attentive, without worry as our Lord Himself was.”
Dr. Wunderlich rejoins, “It’s all pastoral ministry. The finances are pastoral ministry. The staff, the working
environment, that’s pastoral ministry. Because that’s the mission of the Church.”
The program website is www.pastorsandstewards.com
Seminarians Michael
Ammer (L) and Logan
Parrish (R) show
off their Christmas
costumes along with
Dcn. Bob Garrow (C)
Rector’s Dinner: April 10, 2016
For additional information contact [email protected] or 301-447-5017
Upcoming
Seminary Events
Seminarians on Annual Retreat in January
Seminary Priests’ Retreat: June 13-17, 2016
Keep up-to-date with happenings at the Seminary
facebook.com/MountStMarysSeminary msmary.edu/SeminaryBlog
Communion and Liberation
Movement Growing at
the Mount
In January, Mount seminarians participated in their
annual five-day retreat at the beginning of the spring
semester. Most Rev. Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop Emeritus
of the Diocese of Lincoln, served as retreat master.
Bishop Bruskewitz offered conferences on topics such as
religious lifestyle, Church dogma, and the importance
and limitations of dialogue and tolerance.
by Tyler Kline, S’18, Archdiocese of Baltimore
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who
served as this year’s retreat master
Fr. Luigi Giussani,
founder of Communion
and Liberation, teaches a
group of young adults.
Seminarians gather for Lauds in St. Bernard’s Chapel
during retreat.
What resulted was a movement in the Church, known as
Communion and Liberation (often referred to as “CL”).
“I never intended to ‘found’ anything,” Fr. Giussani once
noted. Rather he felt “the need to return to Christianity’s
essential elements.”
Deacons Reflect on Holy Land Pilgrimage
Six years ago, a small group of Mount seminarians
encountered CL and began gathering to use this method
to seek Christ. This movement has grown significantly
at the Mount over the past couple years, and this year,
around fifteen seminarians, a handful of university
students, and area locals participate in the central
gesture of this movement, a weekly catechesis known as
School of Community. Based on a weekly text, usually
drawn from the writings of Fr. Giussani, this catechesis
employs Giussani’s method whereby members seek a
correspondence between what they read and their own
lived experience.
Every year between fall and spring semesters,
the Mount deacon class spends three weeks on
pilgrimage and retreat in the Holy Land. Here are
a few reflections on the highlights of the trip from
some of this year’s deacons:
“The five-day retreat on the Sea of Galilee led
by Fr. Mindling [seminary academic dean and
professor of moral theology] was certainly a
highlight of our pilgrimage. I cannot think of a
Deacons and Mount faculty on the
better setting to spiritually prepare for ordination
Sea of Galilee.
to the priesthood than in the very place where
Jesus formed his Apostles to be priests…I believe [the pilgrimage] will make me a better
preacher and teacher of the Gospel since I have actually seen the places where all of these
events took place.”
—Dcn. Craig Borchard, S’16, Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend
“Visiting the Holy Land is like reading a fifth
Gospel, it puts the environment and locations
of Jesus’ mission vividly in your mind.”
—Dcn. Brian Olkowski, S’16, Diocese of
Harrisburg
“The best part of the trip, by far, was getting
to stay a whole night in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre. The fastest 40 minutes of my
life were spent in prayer alone in Jesus’ tomb!
Later, I sat beneath one of the altars in the
Church and read the Crucifixion accounts,
and each time I read the word “Calvary,”
I reached out and actually touched Calvary….It was
among the most blessed experiences of our lives.”
Over sixty years ago a young Milanese priest
and seminary professor named Luigi Giussani
had an intuition. He believed that the young
people to whom he ministered did not share
his experience of the faith as a force capable
of shaping our lives. Giussani sought to find a
method of proposing the truth of Christianity.
His goal was to help his students to see Christ as the
fulfillment of their desires and the fact around which they
can structure their whole life.
Fr. Luigi Giussani,
founder of Communion
and Liberation, meets with
Pope Saint John Paul II.
As this community has grown at the Mount, members
have reached out to participate in other events
held by the wider CL community. Each January some
seminarians take part in the New York Encounter, a threeday cultural festival that seeks to present the relevance
and reasonableness of faith through talks and exhibits on
topics relating to politics, culture, art, and science. This past
October, the CL community at the Mount hosted over 200
members of the movement in the DC area for its annual
“Beginning Day.” This gathering included Mass, a conference
by national leader Fr. José Medina, FSCB, witnesses from
members of all ages, as well as food and games.
CL is one of a number of ecclesial movements that have
arisen in the Church following the Second Vatican Council.
Many of the seminarians involved see CL as a special
charism that will help them in future priestly ministry.
Deacons Phil O’Neill (L) and Craig
Borchard (R) at Mt. Arbel.
—Dcn. Jeff Ellis, S’16, Diocese of Norwich
IN MEMORIAM
Rev. Richard J. Broderick
College Class of 1966
Seminary Class of 1970
Diocese of Albany
December 10, 2015
LCDR W. R. Dermott,
USNR
Seminary Class of 1982
Diocese of Allentown
December 10, 2015
May they rest in peace.
Seminarians and university students gather following Communion and
Liberation School of Community in February.
www.msmary.edu/seminary/support