Seminary has new home just in time for annual fundraiser

Eight young men studying at Redemptoris Mater Seminary “are offering their lives for a mission,” Father Davide Lanzani told more than 300 attendees at a recent fundraising event for the Vancouver seminary.

The seminarians have the same mission that Jesus had, Father Lanzani said: “To open the doors of eternal life, an eternal life that we can already live and experience here, in the daily routine of our life.”

The April 21 gala was held not only to raise money for Redemptoris Mater but also to celebrate the seminarians.

“We want to assure all of you that you are supporting vital work,” Father Lanzani said of the attendees’ support for the seminarians. “Each of them has left their country, their families, and their comforts to let themselves be formed in a new land, a new culture. They have decided to let themselves be moulded by the Lord to serve in places and situations previously unknown to them.”

In a secularized world “the question arises spontaneously: ‘why?’” Father Lanzani said. “This is possible because they have experienced that God does not disappoint … that it is God who fills their lives.”

Deacons Patrick Le and Medard Kamanzi will be ordained to the priesthood on July 1 at Holy Rosary Cathedral.

Redemptoris Mater Seminary was opened in 2013 and had a temporary formation house near Blessed Sacrament Church in Vancouver. It moved into a new home at St. Jude’s Church in Vancouver last August.

The seminary operates under the auspices of the Neocatechumenal Way, a spiritual renewal movement founded in the 1960s to facilitate faith formation within small, parish-based groups.

There are currently Neocatechumenal communities in five Archdiocese of Vancouver parishes.

For more information about Redemptoris Mater Seminary visit rmsvancouver.ca.

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