Evaluation season here at Mount Saint Mary’s
The end of the winter quarter and the beginning of the spring quarter is the time when the young (or not so young) seminarian’s thoughts turn to summative evaluations. They ask a couple of seminarians to write an evaluation of them. They write a self-evaluation. All the faculty has an opportunity to offer input on the seminarians. Finally they meet individually with the formation team in which all the various informaion is brought together and discussed with them. The majority of the feedback is usually positive, and many of the criticisms that come out are not new, but a restatements of what the semiarian has been working on for the past year. It is not the kind of “cloak and dagger” approach that was used in my day.
Last week and tomorrow, the fourth year seminarians have their summative meetings with the formation team to determine whether they will be ordained to the diaconate in April. Next week, the fifth year seminarians/deacons have their meetings to determine whether they will be ordained the priesthood. Please keep the guys in your prayers, because anytime someone is looking at your life, it is going to be stressful. Pray that the formation team will help them in their discernment of their vocation.
