Seminary life

Seminary behind the scenes: Get an up-close look at what one seminarian's week entails

Hayden Eighinger is a second-year pretheologian at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West in Cincinnati. A native of Mansfield, Hayden graduated from St. Peter High School in 2013 and Ashland University in 2017 with a degree in Biotechnology. Prior to attending seminary, he worked in pre-clinical research as well as the family machine shop. He is one of 14 seminarians currently studying for the Diocese of Toledo. Hayden gives us a glimpse into life at seminary through his journal.

BY HAYDEN EIGHINGER

MONDAY: My first alarm goes off at 5:50 a.m. Some seminarians might call that “sleeping in,” but most days I can still make it to the chapel with enough time to pray the Office of Readings before Morning Prayer starts at 6:30 a.m. The seminary’s schedule is structured around communal praying of the Liturgy of the Hours, a set of daily prayers that are often chanted. We pray four of the hours in common: Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer (noon), Evening Prayer (6 p.m.), and Night Prayer (9 p.m.).

Morning Prayer is followed by Mass and breakfast. The window for breakfast could be anywhere between 10 to 30 minutes, depending on how long the homily lasts. I usually sit at “the crossword table,” where we race against time to eat breakfast and complete the USA Today crossword puzzle before classes begin at 8 a.m. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have Ethics followed by Contemporary Philosophy.

After my two morning classes, I’m off to the monthly Student Life Committee meeting. My “house job” is seminary Athletic Director, meaning I’m in charge of organizing house and sports tournaments and recreational games. Typically I work with the Student Life Committee to help schedule communal events. This month I’m hoping to broach the subject of new uniforms for the seminary basketball team, the Minor Prophets. To help promote vocational discernment, the Prophets normally play exhibition games against local middle schools. And yes, we sometimes lose. Monday afternoons are spent at Hillcrest Cemetery. Part of seminary formation includes an apostolic outreach assignment for the year. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we haven’t been able to do our usual work at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters, so most of the men go to Hillcrest, a paupers cemetery which serves as the final resting place for hundreds of veterans, mostly AfricanAmerican. The graves are in shambles – overgrown, leaning over, or even broken. I’m in charge of a headstone realignment team. After two hours of work and a quick shower, I’m ready for a nap.

TUESDAY: My classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays are Philosophical Anthropology and Catechism: Morality. “Shouldn’t you be studying more theology?” you ask. Eventually, yes, but I’m currently in my second year of pre-theology. Mount St. Mary’s Seminary is a graduate seminary, so the men typically enter with an undergraduate degree. If that degree came from another seminary, you’re all set to enter theological study. If it came from a university, you’ll need to complete a Master of Arts in Catholic Studies – a two-year pre-theology program that provides foundational knowledge in philosophy, the Catechism , and Latin. Theology is a four-year program typically accompanied by a pastoral internship year at a parish. The final year is spent as a transitional deacon preparing for ordination to the priesthood and completing a Master’s thesis. Should I be called to the priesthood, my discernment will take a minimum of seven years.

On Tuesday, I’m assigned to lead Midday Prayer, so I’m responsible for intoning several of the chants. Seminarians chant – a lot. We sing at all communal prayer hours as well as daily Mass. Vocal training is inevitably built into the curriculum, but I usually need extra. Thankfully, Midday Prayer is pretty easy. Lunch follows. It’s Skyline chili day in the refectory –praise God!

Holy Hour begins every day at 5 p.m. with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and the Rosary. The men kneel and pray aloud together for the Church, our benefactors and the whole world. I frequently supplement the hour with some form of spiritual reading. St. Bonaventure and St. John of the Cross are personal favorites. I’ll read and pray until it’s time for Evening Prayer and Benediction.

Seminarians in the chapel attending Mass.

WEDNESDAY Today is sleep-in day –30 extra minutes! Morning prayer begins at 7 a.m., and the rest of the Liturgy of the Hours will be prayed in private. Mass will take the place of the evening Holy Hour, followed by a formal dinner and community night activity. Community night is sometimes affectionately referred to as “forced fun.” Dinner, on the other hand, is highly anticipated. If you remember what cafeteria food is like, you know it’s always a gamble. It’s no different here, but community night dinner is usually the best meal of the week. This week’s community night activity? Trivia night. The winning team will receive a handful of gift cards funded by the Student Life Committee, so brush up on your Catholic knowledge! (Can you name the largest Catholic Church in North America?)

A seminary dorm room.

THURSDAY I'm fortunate to live in a brand-new residence hall. Each room is fully furnished with climate control and a private bathroom. The only thing I’m ever short of is shelf space to accommodate my many books. Stacks of literature tower over me at my desk as I do my homework. When I’m not working on assignments, I usually spend my free hours reading in the library or exercising. The seminary has a gymnasium, weight room and some expansive grounds for hiking and outdoor sports. One of our brothers is stuck in quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure, so after Night Prayer I’ll be filling in for him at Bar Jonah. Remember that house job I told you about on Monday? I forgot to mention my second job: I’m also a volunteer bartender. Now I don’t know what comes to your mind when I talk about a “seminary bar,” but it’s basically just a giant man cave. We have three keg taps, a pop cooler, an ice cream freezer, and a popcorn machine. Sometimes we even have pizza made from our own pizza oven. For entertainment, there’s a sound system, two TVs, billiards and ping-pong tables, a dartboard and almost any board game imaginable.

Seminarians working on campus during their monthly "work weekend."

Though everyone is of age, many of the men don’t drink and simply come to the bar for fraternity. A seminarian from Mexico has been trying to help me improve my pool game. If you want to know how that’s going, last month he nicknamed me Salado (slang for “bad luck”). Every now and then a group of us will go on a late-night Taco Bell run and try to make it there and back before the 11 p.m. curfew. (By the way, the answer was the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.)

FRIDAY Buenos dias! Mass today will be in either Latin or Spanish; then I have Ethics and Latin classes. On "free weekends," you're free to go home after your final class and return on Sunday. Once a month we also have "work weekends," which require us to get up early on Saturday and spend the morning doing manual labor around the seminary campus. We build rock walls, hack weeds, and split firewood. Some are better at this than others.

On Sunday night, we all reconvene for Night Prayer and prepare ourselves for another busy week. At the end of the day, all we can ask is that God continue to bless our dioceses, families, studies and discernment. Thy will be done, Lord.