4 February — After the Christmas holidays, our seminarians arrived at the seminary. For this formation year we have 44 seminarians from 9 dioceses of PNG and from the Congregation of St. Michael the Archangel (CSMA). 20 of them are the newcomers.
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5-8 February — RETREAT 2019 facilitated by Fr. Marceliano Oabel CM – the spiritual director of the Holy Spirit Seminary.
„A RETREAT TOWARDS DEVELOPING A REFLECTIVE LIVING”
The goal of spiritual formation this year is to assist and mentor our seminarians in the development of their interiority. This was initially facilitated by giving them a retreat to promote reflective living. Someone said, „There is hidden wisdom in each experience, and it takes some reflecting before we can recognize that hidden wisdom.” We want our candidates to become men of wisdom for others.
Jesus mentored his disciples living a reflective life by helping them develop habit of seeing, a habit of doing, a habit of relating, a habit of serving, a habit of loving, and a habit of believing. Renewal in virtues and values is what Jesus was always telling them when he said, „You are the salt of the earth...you are the light of the world...” Jesus challenged his disciples to be different (not necessarily superior).
This retreat was our initial attempt to introduce them to inner renewal and transformation towards becoming men fully committed and fully dedicated to Christ in formation. We mentored them, sharpened their external and internal senses to help them become attentive, perceptive, reflective, sensitive, intuitive, and responsive to the movements of the Holy Spirit in their lives and in the lives of others.
During the retreat, we exposed them to various tools of participative learning through: creative-reflective conferences, reflective reading, reflective writing, reflective listening, reflective music, reflective watching of inspirational film, reflective art, reflective poetry, and reflective prayer and sharing. At the end, they said they were able to "eat", digest, process, and appreciate better their inner life. All of them ended the retreat feeling well fed, filled, satisfied, and healed. Like John, together we say, „It is the Lord!”
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11 February — The opening Mass of the new year of formation presided over by the bishop of Kerema Diocese, Pedro Baquero SDB. After the Mass there was an official ceremony to open the new academic year at Catholic Theological Institute.
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17 February — After the official ceremonies, the Holy Spirit Seminary community had the BBQ in the compound of the seminary to promote integration.
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February — The process of the maintenance and sealing of the internal road by the Grant Company is proceeding. The road was in terrible condition; now looks very nice and smooth. We hope that the final layer will be applied soon and the all works will be completed.
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