{"id":8706,"date":"2017-10-27T16:43:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T21:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/satodayscatholic.org\/?p=8706"},"modified":"2017-10-27T16:43:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T21:43:03","slug":"st-johns-class-67-reflect-seminary-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/satodayscatholic.org\/st-johns-class-67-reflect-seminary-years\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John\u2019s class of \u201967 reflect on their seminary years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY CAROL BAASS SOWA | TODAY\u2019S CATHOLIC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SAN ANTONIO \u2022 St. John\u2019s Seminary class of 1967, which has met every five years for a class reunion, celebrated the 50th anniversary of their high school graduation Oct. 3-4. Eighteen of the 26-member class, including the four ordained to the priesthood, were present, with two classmates having passed away. During their busy schedule of events and catching up on each other\u2019s news, they paused to reflect on the impact of St. John\u2019s seminary on their lives. Here is what some of them shared:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Father David Garcia:<\/strong> <\/em>The day our parents brought us here, we didn\u2019t know what we were doing. We didn\u2019t know what we were getting into. But there was some attraction. There was some call. We thought, &#8220;I\u2019m not going to go to a regular high school like all my friends. I\u2019m going to go to St. John\u2019s Seminary. And I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m going there exactly, but I think I\u2019m going to figure it out.&#8221; The commitment was there. And there was something about that brotherhood that we formed here. I think God has blessed us incredibly.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Mike Burns:<\/strong><\/em> It was great formation years and it taught me a real sense of brotherhood and friendship. After 50 years, we still get together. When we met last night, it was like we saw each other yesterday instead of five years ago. And some we haven\u2019t seen for 40 or 50 years.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>James Bartosh:<\/strong><\/em> To me, it was a great influence. I don\u2019t think I could have gotten a better education than I got. And these guys \u2014 we definitely touched each other\u2019s lives, and I think we have a very, very special bond that none of the other classes had in the seminary.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Jim Sprague:<\/strong> <\/em>It made me look at the world a different way than I think most people do, more of a caring, loving way.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Daniel Cernoch:<\/strong><\/em> What kind of influence? The Christian way of life.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Roger Rodriguez:<\/strong><\/em> It gave me a sense of brotherhood.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Father Robert Crisp:<\/strong><\/em> I was born and raised in Dallas, started studying in Dallas and started in 1963, here in the seminary, through 1967. We started in ninth grade, so we went through 12 years of seminary. To me, as a history major \u2014 I have a history degree \u2014 it was a very fun and interesting time, but a very difficult time, with changes in the church. Society was changing in the mid-60s \u2014 the politics, politics of Vietnam. But there was some kind of holiness. We just gelled as a class. We\u2019re like a brotherhood. We\u2019re like brothers. And the guys who chose to leave after a certain amount of time in the seminary, we are still connected with in our hearts \u2014 the guys who were in the priesthood, walking these 50 years with them in our friendship, connectedness, memories. It (St. John\u2019s) touched all of us in some way or another in our hearts.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Msgr. John Bell:<\/strong> <\/em>I\u2019m one of the latecomers. I came here in my sophomore year because they closed down the minor seminary that I had been in my freshman year. So, it was a change of pace in the sense of going from a seminary that had maybe 40 students in it to \u2014 at that time, I think we (St. John\u2019s) had 180. So it was overwhelming in that sense of the word, just names and faces and routine. But I enjoyed my years here. And our class had somewhat of a unique chemistry. A part of it had to do with I came in the same year that Father Tom Grace came in as prefect of students. The Second Vatican Council was still going on, so it was a bit of a period of change, liturgically, administratively and, of course, vocation-wise, so that may have been the reason why we tended to bond together. You hold onto something that remains solid or dependable and that\u2019s your fellow classmates.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Msgr. John Peters:<\/strong><\/em> I cannot imagine what my life would be without what I experienced at the seminary. I have great memories. And I learned so many things that have really been put to good use. We\u2019re the only class that\u2019s done it (a reunion) every five years for 50 years, and this is our biggest gathering we have had since our first one.<\/p>\n<p>Msgr. Peters added that he had a special story to share. Now vicar general and vicar of clergy for the Diocese of Victoria, he is also pastor at Sacred Heart Parish in Hallettsville and related that one of his parishioners there, a subscriber to Today\u2019s Catholic, had excitedly brought him a copy of the May 12 issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019ve got to show you this,&#8221; she told him, pointing to the paper\u2019s monthly &#8220;In Retrospect&#8221; column, which features excerpts of past stories from the newspaper\u2019s archives. There, in the &#8220;Fifty Years Ago&#8221; section for 1967, was Weimar, Msgr. Peter\u2019s hometown.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It talked about our senior class taking a trip from the seminary to Weimar to introduce the new folk music,&#8221; said the monsignor. In his introduction at that long ago folk Mass at St. Michael\u2019s Church, he was quoted saying, &#8220;These Masses are mainly to reach out to the youth of today and bring them to a greater interest and participation in the Mass,&#8221; but that &#8220;one does not have to be very young to be young at heart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I showed it to the guys last night,&#8221; said Msgr. Peters, referring to his young at heart seminary classmates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY CAROL BAASS SOWA | TODAY\u2019S CATHOLIC SAN ANTONIO \u2022 St. John\u2019s Seminary class of 1967, which has met every five years for a class reunion, celebrated the 50th anniversary of their high school graduation Oct. 3-4. Eighteen of the 26-member class, including the four ordained to the priesthood, were present, with two classmates having [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>St. John\u2019s class of \u201967 reflect on their seminary years -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"#iamTodaysCatholic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/satodayscatholic.org\/st-johns-class-67-reflect-seminary-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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