stas.org/en – Go behind the scenes at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Dillwyn, Virginia.
St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary (STAS) is a house of studies of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), established in the United States in 1973, for the formation of Roman Catholic priests according to the traditional teaching of the Church. St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary draws from the greatest riches of the 2,000 year history of the Church in the formation of her priests. The formation that the seminarians receive is traditional in every aspect: doctrine, liturgy, retreats, daily schedule, etc. The core of the seminarians’ study is the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, while moderate proficiency in Latin is required before ordination. A typical day in the life of the seminarian contains three hours of prayer, three hours of classes, four hours of study, and a hour and a half of recreation. Seminarians are expected to attain the holiness required of a priest, through the means provided at the Seminary: daily Mass, meditation, Rosary, and hours of the Divine Office, as well as Benediction, Ignatian retreats, monthly recollections, and weekly confession and spiritual direction.
Transcript ––
(Bells ringing) Welcome to St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary here in Dillwyn, Virginia. My name is Samuel Fabula and I’m a Deacon here at the seminary. I’m here today to give you a tour. Behind me is the Administrative Building. In the Administrative Building will be done all the secretarial work for the seminary, as well as the parish functions. In between the Administrative Building and the main body of the seminary will one day be the Church. Here, we have the first three bells of the seminary. The first bell is dedicated to St. Vincent de Paul, the second to Mary and Joseph, and the third one to St. Thomas Aquinas. If you’ll follow me, we’ll go inside for the tour now.
This is the temporary chapel where the seminary comes to meet for the Divine Office throughout the day – and Mass in the morning. (Singing) This is the Cloister of St. Joseph. This way to the refectory. This is the refectory. Up at the front, we have the head table where all the professors sit, and the seminarians take all their meals here. During half of the meal, a reading is done from the podium. (Reading by lector) We’ll now go over to the Library.
Here we are on the second floor of the Library. All of the trim and the bookshelves were made by the seminarians, brothers, and faithful. We’ll now go upstairs to the dormitories. We’re now in the cloistered section of the seminary. No one is normally allowed up here. We’ll go over now and see one of the cells. Now we’ll go downstairs and see one of the classrooms. This is the Theologians classroom – they’re having Dogma Class right now. (Professor talking) We have one more thing.
Just to wrap up the tour, we have here the icon of St. Joseph. All the woodwork was handmade by one of our parishioners. Thank you for joining us for the tour of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary. We look forward to seeing you here for Ordinations. (Bells ringing)
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