Dear Seminarians, Sisters and Priests，

We thank God for providing us such an opportunity and a place of coming together, living together, knowing each other, and becoming friends. We are able to be together is because of the calling of God; to be able to study, pray and live together is a plan of God’s will. Being here, we carry out and experience the invitation of Lord Jesus, “come, and follow me”.

      The Holy Catholic Church entrusted a sacred mission to the National Seminary of Catholic Church in China, that is, “in major seminaries the whole training of the students should have as its object to make them true shepherds of souls after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, teacher, priest and shepherd…Seminarians should be trained to undertake the ministry of the shepherd, that they may know how to represent Christ to men, Christ who “did not come to have service done to him, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for the lives of many” (Mk 10:45) [Decree on the Training of Priests, pa 4] We, all priests, seminarians, religious sisters, and staff, who are working in the Seminary, praying with God’s grace, strive to accomplish this sacred mission, to make the entire Seminary in creating an environment, that is, “all the elements of training, spiritual, intellectual, disciplinary, are to be ordered with concerted effort towards this pastoral end in view” [Decree on the Training of Priests, ibid].

      As your rector and big brother, especially to seminarians, I sincerely speak to you: “You are the essence of the Seminary life. Without you, there is no reason for the Seminary to exist; without your active participations, the so-called “spiritual, peaceful, and mutual-loving” will become pale and powerless. Therefore, I invite every seminarian brothers make effort to be prayerful, earnestly study, and enthusiastically as well as whole-heartedly participate in building up our seminary home. Let us “work hard, prayer, self-dedication and sacrifice” in our daily life and let it be carried out in our actions.  

 Fr. John Chen