With the beginning of October, the House of Providence hosts two young seminarians, who chose Moldova as destination for the pastoral year. Who are they, where do they come from and what are their expectations? To these and many other questions they will answer us hereafter. We have nothing else to do but to say “Welcome to our family!”
My name is Farcaş Leonard, seminarian of the Theological Roman-Catholic Institute „St. Josef”, I am in the 5th pastoral year, from neighbourhood of this country, Romania. In order to specify where I am from, I will remind about my native place where I grew up and where I left my childhood remembrances. I come from Pildeşti village, situated on the left side of Moldova river, Neamţ district. I have a lot of reasons to be proud of this village. First of all, here I have learnt the importance of the community life, its fruit being the beautiful church which was sanctified last year.
We know that family is the first society’s cell. I would like to remind about the family which supported me and continues to do it at present. I come from a Christian family, where I’ve learnt the most important thing for each person to remain in relation with people and with the One who cares about them. I’ve got a sister and a brother, both younger than me.
Definitely, somebody is wondering what am I doing here at the House of Providence. My wish for this pastoral year, which I am going to spend here in Chişinău, as a seminarian, has two big objectives. The first is to strengthen and mature my vocation, in order to be more conscientious of the step I am going to do soon. And the second is to increasingly discover the beauty of serving others. I want to discover happiness in small things I can do to those who are waiting for my young zeal. For those who don’t know what is to be a seminarian, I should like to tell that for me it is nothing else but to be a holy priest.
A motto which guides me a lot in my life for a successful conclusion of my mission is that of Baden Powell, the founder of scouts: Leave this world a little bit better than you found it. I consider this motto should motivate each of us. First of all to understand the plan we have in this world and putting it into the service of others we will succeed to make this world better than we found it.
The last point I should like to touch is related to the initiative of the Reverend Father the Pope, the Honoured Benedict the XVI, to propose a 2012-2013 Year of Faith for all Catholic Church. And because we approach to the end of this year, I want to share my thoughts with regard to this big gift. It is truly a blessed period when I can meditate more than anytime to this theological virtue. Which I found out about this big gift of faith is that it must be nourished and the main nutrition product is the constant dialogue with God. I don’t want a faith that moves mountains, but I wand a faith that can move me from the bad way to the good one.
I want to remain on the good way, trusting in the divine providence, especially in this pastoral year. Trusting in the plan that God has for me, I want to say like Mother Theresa of Calcutta, that I want to be a pencil in God’s hand writing a letter of love to people. And when I’ll become vanish and try to write for myself on curved lines, I ask you to help me correct.
Praise Jesus Christ! My name is Ciobanu Valerică, I come from Romania, Focuri commune, the district of Iaşi. I am a seminarian in the “5th Pastoral” year at the Theological Roman-Catholic Institute of Iaşi and I answered positively to the seniors’ desire to continue my formation way for one year in Republic of Moldova.
It is for the first time when I am here and I am glad to discover new people which can offer me numerous life experiences to enrich myself and consolidate on my way to the Holy Priesthood. At the same time, I also want to share with people the joy of following Jesus Christ. And how to follow Him but through servicing your neighbour?! So, my life guiding-word is “service”. And the motto I follow in my life is “serve and you’ll get a reward!”.
Taking into consideration that we are at the end of the “Faith Year”, I should like to share some deep thoughts in this year. Primarily, faith, the gift obtained at Baptism, should be continuously nourished through prayer, participation in sacraments, reading of Holy Scripture and meditation. At the same time, we shouldn’t keep this faith only for us, it should be shared with people around us, to make it grow within us and bring fruits. Faith is the gift of God and we should be grateful for it, contributing to its growth in every moment of our life.
In this pastoral year, I want to collaborate as more as possible with the personnel of the Social-Pastoral Centre “House of Providence”, in order to testify about Christ’s love and offer a reason for joy to people around me.