How Parish Internship Changed Seminarian Jeremy Zou’s Life
“ONE OF THE GREATEST GIFTS FROM GOD IN SEMINARY FORMATION”
That’s how Seminarian Jeremy Zou describes the internship aspect of the formation program at St. Augustine’s Seminary, where Seminarians are placed in a parish to get first-hand experience in the daily life of a parish.
Seminarians typically enter their internship year after receiving formation in philosophy and halfway through the theology stage of their formation.
Zou was assigned to St Edward the Confessor Parish in Toronto for his internship, an experience he says changed his life and how he experienced his call to the priesthood.
“On internship, a new fire was ignited deep within to spend intimate time with the Lord in the early hours of each day because I saw how much the people in the parish yearned for His Love,” he says.
It was something he experienced day after day.
“Whether it was the children at the elementary schools, the teens at the Friday evening youth ministry, the seniors in the retirement residences, or the parishioners of both the daily and weekend Mass crowds, there was a burning thirst in the lives of these people for love, meaning, to be understood, comfort in sorrow, growth in holiness, reassurance in doubt, getting answers for the tough questions, mercy when in grave sin, etc.,” he says. “In other words, (they longed) to glimpse the Face of the Heavenly Father in every circumstance of their lives.”
Zou says everything he was learning at the Seminary during his formation up until his internship crystalized for him at that point.
“While studying at the Seminary, there were moments each year where I found myself losing sight of what priesthood is all about,” Zou admits. “All I cared for was getting through the next paper, assignment, or house event instead of remembering the call to priesthood is a call to deep transformation and union unto the Heart of Christ so that He can likewise transform and unite His children unto Him. At the Seminary, I knew this at an intellectual level; internship made it real.”
Zou, who was studying bio-chemistry at university with the goal of becoming a medical doctor before he felt the call to the priesthood, considers the internship aspect of the formation program at the Seminary crucial.
“Internship helped me realize the wonder and gift of the priesthood because it is through the love God has for His priest sons that He is able to let His thirst from eternity meet and satisfy the burning thirst of His people. And therefore, the priest and Seminarian need to take his formation and time spent with the Lord seriously, as it is through him that God gets to break into the world. That is what I learned from internship: it has finally opened my eyes to what formation was about all along.”