From left to right, Dcn. Joe Stefancin, Dan Tracy and Isaiah Schick pray the rosary together in a small chapel at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, St. Francis. They, along with the two new college seminarians, are making an open invitation to join them in spirit on Wednesday afternoons to pray the rosary for vocations in the Diocese of Superior. (Submitted photo)
The faithful of the Diocese of Superior have the opportunity to be spiritually united in prayers for vocations with the Diocese’s seminarians. Seminarians at both Saint Francis de Sales seminary, St. Francis, and Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary, Winona, Minnesota, have been praying the rosary together every Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m.
The seminarians at Saint Francis de Sales seminary have taken up the practice for about a year now and were glad to hear this fall that Wednesday afternoons also worked for the new college seminarians, Noah Roe and Ben Schmitt.
“It started with the realization near the end of my first year of seminary [April 2018] that I was asking so many people to pray the diocesan prayer for vocations but wasn’t actually praying it myself,” seminarian Dan Tracy said. “So, last year the three of us (Isaiah Schick, Dcn. Joe Stefancin, Tracy) got together and Wednesday afternoons seemed to most consistently work for our schedules.”
The seminarians offer the rosary specifically for Bishop James P. Powers, Fr. Tom Thompson, and the vocations team and for an increase in vocations to the priesthood, religious life, and diaconate in the Diocese of Superior. The seminarians also pray by name for all of the men currently in seminary and religious formation as well as those who have been on a seminary visit or have expressed interest in discerning a vocation to the priesthood.
In addition to these intentions, the seminarians add the recitation of the diocesan vocation prayer to the closing prayers said after the conclusion of the fifth mystery.
“We believe in the power of the rosary and that our Blessed Mother is interceding with her son to raise up more laborers for the harvest in northwest Wisconsin,” Tracy said.
