Formation for the Priesthood

The Aspirancy
The Aspirancy is the first step on the road to profession and ordination. After a man has applied to the seminary and been accepted, he maintains a residence here with the Fathers. Generally, this is a period of collegiate studies, since the norm to date is for young men to enter the seminary directly after high school. It is during this period that all the studies necessary for entrance into a theological seminary are normally completed. Since those studies are very philosophy-intensive, it has been the norm for Oblate seminarians to receive during this period a bachelor of arts degree with a major in philosophy.

Aside from scholastic activities, this is also the period in which a man is exposed to Oblate life as it truly is, so that he can see what and who the Oblates of St. Joseph are, and decide whether that is the life to which God is calling him. During this period, which generally lasts three and a half years, there are no vows, and no juridical obligation to the religious life. Seminarians are encouraged to maintain healthy contact with their families, and also to foster healthy friendships. The Oblate life is not lived alone, and so those considering it are by no means expected to abandon their lives entirely beforehand. The Aspirancy is meant more as a time of transition, so that a man can gradually leave the trappings of this world behind and start focusing on the things specific to religious life and priesthood. The blessings of God, however, like friends and family, are never expected to be surrendered.

With that design in mind, seminarians in the Aspirancy maintain ownership of their possessions and are not subject to obedience in quite the same way that professed religious are. They are expected to maintain chastity as single men who one day intend to embrace the religious life, along with its demand of celibacy. This is a way for the seminarian to begin learning about the religious life, to be gently eased into it, so that he is not surprised on the day he takes his vows. As a part of this gradual introduction to the religious life, seminarians are expected to engage in the manual labors of the house in which they live (the seminary), the prayer life of the Fathers (the Liturgy of the Hours and daily Mass), and also certain apostolic opportunities, including catechism and liturgical ministry in an Oblate parish. Of course, it is necessary during this period to be able to embrace community life, with all its joys and difficulties alike.

These years are meant to expose the seminarian as much as possible to the life he is considering. They are designed to aide a candidate for priesthood in discerning whether this is the life for him, and so while they are challenging years, they are also acknowledged by all to be years in which the seminarian will have doubts, make mistakes, and learn firsthand what the Oblate life is.

The Postulancy
Once a man has seen what life in the Oblates of St. Joseph is really like, and he believes he is prepared to embrace that life, he does so publicly, when he is received by his superior as a postulant. Postulancy is a time no shorter than six months and no longer than two years, in which a seminarian is expected to start living the Oblate life more directly. For most seminarians, this stage will occur during the last semester of their senior year of pre-theologate studies. Since that timeframe is approximately January through June, and college graduation occurs in May, part of the postulancy will be dedicated to the religious life without the burden of studies. In this way, the postulant can experience what Oblate life will be like after his studies are complete.

The express purpose of the Postulancy is to prepare the candidate to have the human maturity necessary for the Novitiate, the next step in formation, and for both the candidate and his superiors to evaluate his vocation, so that he can enter the Novitiate "with an explicit and sincere acceptance of his vocation" (Ratio Formationis). Part of this process involves the decision to be a priest or a brother, so that the question can be answered before Novitiate begins. The entire purpose of the Postulancy is to provide the candidate with all that he needs in order to make a fully informed and intentional gift of his whole self to Jesus Christ in the Oblates of St. Joseph.

The Novitiate
Here is where a man formally begins living life within the Oblates of St. Joseph. Novitiate is the time of immediate preparation for the profession of vows. In the Oblates of St. Joseph, Novitiate normally lasts a full year, though under certain (and rare) circumstances, it can be extended by as much as six months. During this year, there are no academic studies, so that the novices can focus all of their attention on the spiritual and religious guidance that they receive.

The Novitiate year centers around the development in the novice of the virtues and maturity necessary to profess the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and also around deepening his knowledge and understanding of the Congregation. This is accomplished both through an intensive study of the formative documents of the Congregation and the life of the Founder, St. Joseph Marello, and also through an active participation in the apostolic work of the Order, to an appropriate degree.

The multi-faceted program of formation used in the Novitiate is hard to encapsulate in a small space, but the essential feature is that this is the time when a young man pauses his academic progress to make all of the appropriate preparation to profess vows. Therefore, the Novitiate is intended to prepare him both to be a religious in general, and specifically to be an Oblate.

Temporary Profession & Theology
At the end of the Novitiate, the candidate makes his first profession of vows. These are called "Temporary Vows," because they are made for a period of one year. This is done no less than three times, so that, over the course of three years, the seminarian takes vows three times. This step in the process of formation exists so that men who truly are professed Oblates, and who are now seeing and living the fullness of Oblate life first-hand, may still make the decision that it is not the life to which they are called.

For those who do continue to feel called to the Oblates of St. Joseph during this period, it is normally also the time in which theological studies are completed at a major seminary, in direct preparation for the priesthood. Formation during this period focuses on preparing a young religious to live the vows for the rest of his life, and on preparing him academically for the day of his ordination. During this time, formation is overseen by a team comprised of a rector, a prefect, and a spiritual director, all of whom work together to make sure that the new religious is happy, making progress, and living his life faithful both to the vows and to the charism of the Congregation.

Perpetual Profession & The Diaconate
Normally, the third year of Temporary Profession is also the last. Between the end of that year and the beginning of the fourth, the young religious will profess Perpetual Vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which makes him forever a part of the Oblate family. Also, as a preparation of the young Oblate for his life as a priest, he will be ordained to the order of Diaconate during his last year of studies. During this year, in which he is perpetually professed, his focus is primarily on competing the academic preparation for priesthood and getting everything in order for the day of his ordination.

Priestly Ordination
The final step in the process of formal formation for the Oblate priesthood is ordination. After years of study and preparation, after walking the long, hard path to priesthood (which, like the rosary, has been frought with days that were sorrowful, joyful, luminous, and glorious), the young Oblate lies prostrate on the ground and awaits the imposition of hands, after which he is welcomed, already fully an Oblate, into the Oblate priesthood.

It would be wrong, however, to think that his formation ends on this day. Formation is an ongoing, indeed, life-long, process, by which men who wish to "follow more closely the Divine Master" (Briciole d'Oro) are molded according to the model of Jesus Christ, in the imitation of St. Joseph, His guardian and protector. The religious life, bound as it is to poverty, chastity, and obedience, is never complete while we live on this earth, and no one is beyond deepening their communion with the Almighty. The new Oblate priest, then, has now become responsible for his own formation, in the sight of God and his own conscience, and will use what he has learned over the past nine years of formation as he continues along the path the Calvary, to the Crucifixion, and also to the Resurrection.