“I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

These words which come to us at the end of today’s Gospel are worth pondering over. Today’s entire Gospel, in fact, deserves time for meditation. Jesus speaks to us so lovingly and clearly about His relationship with the Father, a relationship that we too must strive after—becoming by grace what Jesus is by nature.

But I want to pause at these final words of Jesus to his listeners: “I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” That we could wholeheartedly say the same thing about everything we do must become, especially during our time of formation, the true source of our fulfillment and happiness in this life. In fact, doing God’s will faithfully was the great consolation that Bl. Joseph Allamano remembered on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of priestly ordination.

Fr. Nathaniel Dreyer, IVE
Friday of the Second Week of Lent / St. Patrick

In today’s Gospel, we heard what’s called the “Parable of the Tenants.” There’s a lot we could say about the Gospel, but what should call our attention is how God prepares absolutely everything for the tenants: in particular, the tower was used, not only as a security lookout, but also a place for the workers to rest. This vineyard is entrusted to the tenants to work and produce fruits, and notice how the landowner trusts those tenants to get the job done. He doesn’t keep watch over them, or send spies: he trusts them entirely to do what they should be doing, and to cooperate with him in the task of making the land produce fruits.[1]
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The same is requested of us: each one of us has a certain task in the Lord’s vineyard. As we celebrate the feast of Saint Patrick today, we can reflect on the beautiful words of Pope Saint John Paul the Great when he visited Ireland in 1979. Speaking to seminarians, he said, ​

Fr. Christopher Etheridge, IVE
Originally preached for the Feast of the North American Martyrs

In a letter to Fr. Jerome Lalemant three years before his martyrdom, St. Isaac Jogues asks Lalemant to pray to God that He “may give me a generous constancy to persevere in his love and in his service. This is what I should like to have more than anything else.”[1]
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It’s important to see why Jogues longed for a generous constancy. 

Fr. Timothy van Zee, IVE
Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

An accusation often leveled against priests and seminarians is that we don’t do anything. There are not many, if any, tangible results that are easily seen by outsides. In the eyes of the world there is just not much to show for our eight years in the seminary or in our day to day lives. Sometimes it is hard for us even, as seminarians and priests, to remember the extremely important things that we do each day.

So I want to put a day in the seminary in its proper perspective.

You wake up and do spiritual reading. You learn the deepest truths of reality from the men who have dumbfounded the rest of the world. Many worldly people boast of their knowledge of science but their science still can’t explain the miracles these spiritual writers performed on a daily basis. Science and medicine still can’t explain Padre Pio’s stigmata, bilocation, healings, etc. and he did these things almost every day.

You pray the rosary and you go to adoration. Many worldly people brag about meeting important people. They will tell you all about working at the White House and the day the President passed by. Every day we have a conversation with the Queen of Heaven when we pray the rosary and afterward we meet with the King of the Universe for an hour, face to face.