RELIGIOUS SIGHTINGS
CHOP WOOD, PREPARE FOR PRIESTHOOD
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COURTESY OF ST. MEINRAD SEMINARY AND SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
ENEDICTINE PRIESTS and brothers who run a seminary in rural Indiana have found a trusted way to help their seminarians be better prepared for ministry: by chopping and delivering wood to their neighbors. For more than 40 years, the monks of St. Meinrad Archabbey have run Project Warm.
Each year, around half of those studying for the priesthood at St. Meinrad Seminary volunteer to collect and split donated wood and bring it to the families in the region who heat their homes with wood but struggle to obtain it. “I’ve enjoyed the work. I love the manual labor. Even more than that, I love going to people’s houses when we deliver wood,” seminarian Isaac Siefker told The Criterion. Father Anthony Vinson, O.S.B., who oversees Project Warm, praised the students’ “zeal to serve.” Observers call it a win-win. The seminarians bond on the woodlot and get a workout break from studying. The recipients get fuel and help the priests-intraining to better understand rural people and their needs. ISAAC SIEFKER, a seminarian from Bloomington, Indiana, chops wood at St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad, Indiana as a volunteer with Project Warm.
COURTESY OF SISTER GRACE MARIE DEL PRIORE, C.S.S.F.
All in the family: An NRVC production
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ARENTS USUALLY have plenty of questions when their adult children join religious communities, and to further the discussion, the National Religious Vocation Conference sponsored a webinar on the topic in April 2022, now available at nrvc.net/webinars. The webinar—the fifth in a six-part series called “Religious Life Today: Learn it! Love it! Live it!”—features two parents and a younger Catholic sister and brother discussing their experiences. Sister Grace Marie Del Priore, C.S.S.F., pictured here with her mother and one of her sisters, was one of the panelists. In the webinar parents revealed their sometimes mixed feelings—wanting to support their child but worrying about things from changes in family time together to who will pay for seminary. One common theme among the four family stories in the webinar is that parents ultimately felt at peace with their child’s decision the more they saw their child thrive and the more they got to know the religious community. The webinar series was made possible through a grant by the GHR Foundation.
8 | VISION 2023 | VocationNetwork.org
SISTER GRACE MARIE Del Priore, C.S.S.F., pictured here with her mother and one of her sisters, was a panelist in a webinar from the National Religious Vocation Conference discussing family concerns about adult children joining religious communities.
