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Summer Program for Diocesan Seminarians

IPF’s Program for Seminarians, focusing on the heartfelt experience of God, includes:

  • Growth in holiness through daily prayer
  • Weekly one-on-one spiritual direction and an individually directed silent retreat
  • Interplay between theology and practical faith
  • Integration of sexuality with celibacy as a generative gift from God
  • Discernment for pastoral leadership
  • Summary of growth and blessings
  • Appreciation of the unique identity of diocesan priests
  • Contemplative leisure

Dates

The summer program of Spiritual Formation for Diocesan Seminarians begins on Sunday, May 26, 2024.
The summer program of Spiritual Formation for Diocesan Seminarians ends on Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 9:00 a.m..

Location

The IPF program is based at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. During the summer IPF shares Creighton’s facilities while conducting its own liturgical and residential life.

Cost

  • $4,000.00, tuition: $500.00 per credit hour (8 total credits). Creighton University is pleased to offer all IPF students the special tuition rate of $500.00 per credit hour, just half the regular tuition!
  • $203.00, registration/technology fee
  • $2,394.00, private, air-conditioned room, linens included, 9 weeks
  • $1,375.00, administrative fee
  • $210.00, educational materials and textbooks
  • $375.00, retreat fee
  • $450.00, weekly Spiritual Direction fee
  • $9,007.00, Total for housing, tuition and fees 
         Plus meal plan cost (options below)

 Meal Plan Options

  • $1,575.00 - 21 meals per week in dining hall 
  • $1,260.00 - Any 14 meals per week in dining hall 

 

Admission Requirements

  • Applicants should be part of a Roman Catholic seminary formation program.

Spiritual Formation Requirements

  • Daily Eucharist, Liturgy of the Hours and weekly Eucharistic Adoration
  • One hour of personal prayer per day
  • Weekly spiritual direction
  • 8-day individually directed silent retreat

Goals of the IPF Summer Program for Seminarians

  1. To awaken and deepen relational prayer with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, effecting a participation in Christ’s own pastoral charity.
  2. To foster the seminarian’s joy and delight as he is assisted to appropriate his identity as a “contemplative even in action” rooted in the call to be beloved son, chaste spouse, spiritual father, and spiritual physician.
  3. To guide the seminarian in a radical reorientation to Christ unleashing in him an affectively mature embrace of chaste celibacy leading to his sharing in Christ’s own self-donation to his Bride, the Church.
  4. To form future shepherds as teachers of prayer and discernment to serve the laity in their (own) call to holiness as transformers of culture.

Objectives of the IPF Summer Program for Seminarians

  1. To identify the interior voice of the Holy Spirit speaking in his heart while learning how to Acknowledge, Relate, Receive, and Respond to these communications in everyday faith.
  2. To practice receiving and being received in the Father’s love by way of a silent 8-day retreat and a daily hour of prayer.
  3. To grow in his ability to encounter Christ, the Healer, in the midst of everyday life through participation in apostolic service.
  4. To turn toward study as a way to encounter Christ, the Teacher, allowing him to deepen the seminarian’s own formation as one whose mind rests upon the heart of Christ.
  5. To deepen a heartfelt relationship with Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, strengthening his self-giving union with Jesus crucified and risen.
  6. Inspired by the wisdom of St. Joseph, to cultivate attitudes and behaviors appropriate to brothers, husbands, and fathers and to live them out in chaste relationships within the summer formation community and beyond.
  7. To identify his affective movements, thoughts, feelings, and desires, and to learn to apply St. Ignatius’ Rules for the Discernment of Spirits to those movements.
  8. To grow in his ability to draw his life from the Eucharistic Christ, especially through the union of his personal prayer with the liturgical life of the Church.

Growth and Blessings

  • At the conclusion of the summer program, each seminarian prepares a “Summary of Growth and Blessings.” This document is prepared in the following manner.
  • During the summer each seminarian keeps a journal.
  • By way of a prayerful process of journal reflection that pertains to each course and component of IPF’s summer program, the seminarian summarizes his interior experience of discerning God’s love.
  • This process of journal reflection is fostered in weekly spiritual direction.
  • Near the end of the summer, a copy of the “Summary of Growth and Blessings” is distributed to the seminarian, asking him to summarize, in a way appropriate to the external forum, the content of his journal pages.
  • A copy of the document is forwarded to the man’s Vocation Director or Director of Seminarians. It is suggested that the appropriate seminary personnel also receive a copy.
  • The document, then, provides not only a fitting conclusion to the IPF experience, but also builds a bridge between the seminarian’s summer experience and his diocesan and seminary life. It provides a foundation for fruitful spiritual conversation.

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