In case you’re wondering how’s my day goes in the seminary, well, here’s a little crash course on a day-to-day life in the seminary. Our day starts around 5:30am or earlier to prepare ourselves for the community, BEC or personal morning prayer or the Holy Mass which usually starts at 6:00am then followed by breakfast at 7am. After breakfast, we prepare ourselves for academic activities by going to our theological school, which is Loyola School of Theology. A 5-minute walk from San Jose Seminary which is both located inside the campus of Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City.
Our studies run from 2 to 3 hours which has 15-minute break interval. Depending on our class schedule, there were days that we have free time in the morning or afternoon which does not mean to say that you are free from obligation to study, well…it’s really a self-discipline habit to develop: either you study or get flank. The choice is really ours. After class hours, we go back to our seminary for lunch at 12nn and before taking lunch, we have to say our Angelus.
There are schedules in the afternoon for studies, or siesta or personal activities, again, it depends upon the schedule of the seminary. Sometimes, we have community sports in the afternoon, either you play basketball or volleyball or badminton. We have a huge covered court which homed these sports. If we do have free time in the afternoon, we could go out from the seminary and run some errands for our needs, or visiting a benefactor or emergency appointment which needs to attend.
At 5pm, quiet begins then silence and preparation for Community Mass begins. The Community Mass gathers the theology and philosophy department as well as our formators. Then at 7pm, we eat our dinner together, afterwards, we do some recreation at 7:20pm and by 8pm, if there are meetings and conferences we proceed to our multi-purpose hall underneath the St. Ignatius Building. At 9pm, we do our studies and 10pm…if we want, lights off follows.
On weekends, we have apostolate of each BECs to our respective apostolate areas. Our BEC apostolate area is in Libis, Quezon City. We sleep there on Saturday night and return to the seminary the following day, Sunday.
That’s how our day-to-day life in the seminary works.
