By Dennis Stameza
Diocese of Wilmington seminarian
Pastoral year is a one-year program of supervised ministry in a parish, which normally takes place for our seminarians after the second year of academic studies. In my case, it was a period of 14 months in the beautiful and marvelous parish of St. John the Beloved, which is one among the biggest parishes in the Diocese of Wilmington.
The pastoral year for me was a special time to nurture the virtues within me and make them grow. Virtues like humility, kindness, forgiveness, love and many others grew when I was in my pastoral year. This is because I had a chance to be assigned to different ministries such as the baptism preparation classes, serving holy Mass, teaching children at school, attending and serving at funerals, leading committal services in the cemetery, leading funeral services at the funeral homes and meeting people after Mass, at the parish carnival and other activities and ministries.
Furthermore I had an opportunity to attend ecumenical meetings with my pastor as well as going for the anointing of the sick with him as well.
Working in the outreach, visiting people in their homes, nursing homes and in the hospitals was also among the ministries assigned to me by my pastor. All of these made me grow in faith and my heart was vigorously filled with gladness.
At first, I was really afraid considering that I am an international seminarian and so there could be many things I am naïve about. But things changed when I started my pastoral year. I loved the ministry that I was assigned by my pastor. I was extremely happy, seeing those entrusted to me for baptism class and RCIA group accomplishing and making their dreams come true by receiving the sacraments. The joy that was received by those baptized, their parents, relatives, their loved ones together with the holy mother church was the same joy I experienced and I am sure that nowhere else can I find such joy in such an unimaginable way.
Preparing someone to follow Christ by joining the church through baptism, it is actually one beautiful act that left me with joy deep in my heart. The happiness of directing the people of God to embrace the Catholic faith is marvelous.
Apart from that, other ministries assigned to me as mentioned earlier were also bringing me closer to God. I saw Christ to those I served, visited, taught and all those whom I helped in one way or another. How can I not be happy? Serving God through his people is fulfilling. I am now at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, and I am still experiencing the happiness of pastoral year as I am taking my classes and serving at a parish here on weekends.
All of these wonderful experiences have made me courageous enough to say thanks to the Good Lord, and I am still thanking him for having allowed my bishop and vocation office to trust me in so many ways that has helped me to grow physically, spiritually and mentally. All of this made me act as a leader and could be such in the future.
Consequently, there are so many happy moments in serving the people of God than whatever happiness any one can imagine. My pastoral year gave me an extreme feeling of belonging to the holy mother church as I had a chance to partake in her divine ministry to her people. This is the greatest happiness I can imagine.
