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Taking a Closer Look at Vocations
Students Visit a Seminary and a Convent

Story by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

In an effort to raise vocation awareness among young people in the diocese, the Serra Club of St. Clair County began a student vocation program three years ago to take Catholic grade school (seventh- and eighth-graders) and high school students on a field trip.

Young men spend the morning at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis and young women go to St. Agnes Convent, also in St. Louis.

While the seminary trains young men for the priesthood, and some of our priests have studied theology there, St. Agnes Convent is home to one particular order of sisters, the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus.

The field trip sponsored by the Serrans includes a morning in St. Louis and then a lunch in the undercroft of the cathedral and a tour there before returning to school.

To date, more than 1,500 students have participated in the program, Serran John Raney said.

The program is designed to give students “a better understanding of priestly and religious vocations,” Raney said.
Dec. 6, 2010, students from Gibault Catholic High School in Waterloo went on tours and learned about the priesthood and religious life.

Young women met Sister Mary Michael and toured the facility that also includes a nursing home and day care center.
Young men met seminarians and toured Kenrick-Glennon.
Gibault principal, Russ Hart, described the experience as “our faith in action.”

Students said they appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the lives of the sisters and the seminarians.
“Hopefully, the program brings to the minds of each young person the question of whether he or she might be called to a life as a priest or religious,” Raney said.