With the new year underway, theology students in San Antonio are back in school and assignments are beginning to pile up. We made time to catch up after our Christmas break, reflect on what we have accomplished as a community, and plan for the future. Our community is very diverse and well represented by the different units in the North American Conference. We currently have two students from the Denver Province, one from the Baltimore Province, three from the Province of Canada, one from the Province of Curitiba, and five  from the Extra-Patriam Vice Province.

The formation house in San Antonio is a happening place full of energy and new ideas aside from our studies during the week. Fridays are big community days. We get together to do chores around the house, and Fridays are our formation days. Topics vary each week. Once a month, we have a day of recollection. Other Fridays we gather for community meetings, and the remaining Fridays we enjoy a formative talk. Last semester, most of our formation days were focused on our Plan for Community Life. This semester, we already have had a workshop on conflict resolution, a conference with Redemptorist Bishop Jon Hansen, and a presentation about the For Better and For Ever marriage preparation program by our confrere, Fr. Rob Ruhnke.

We also have attended some workshops specifically for seminarians through the Archdiocese of San Antonio and Oblate School of Theology (OST), and participated in workshops with other religious of the Archdiocese of San Antonio. We are looking forward to attending a preaching workshop led by Fr. Peter Hill of the Baltimore Province hosted by OST later this month.

Next month we will join other seminarians in the Archdiocese for a workshop about celibacy and internet pornography, as well as participate in an inter-religious workshop to discuss the latest Encyclical, Dilexit Nos. We enjoyed several opportunities to give back to the community by volunteering. We recently participated in several community service projects, such as visiting seniors at a retirement community and helping out at Catholic Worker. This semester we already have volunteered at the food bank, and a few of our confreres participated in the Martin Luther King Walk, which is considered the largest in the nation. We have a few more projects in store for the rest of the semester, and each student is involved in individual ministries at different parishes, food banks and the soup kitchen, to name a few.

Despite our busy schedules, we make time to recreate and build community every Friday evening. Some call it community recreation; some call it forced fun. Whatever the case, we enjoy different activities that encourage us to interact with each other, laugh together, relax and build community. Students organize these events, which have included such things as occasional parties, Karaoke night, movie nights, board game nights, Halloween pumpkin carving, and a boat ride in the River Walk, among other things. All of these activities help us strengthen the pillars of formation as we continue to prepare for ministry.

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