CV NEWS FEED // Seminarians from Seward, Nebraska recently competed in an annual invitational basketball tournament sponsored by St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Fr. Brian Kane, rector at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, wrote that the seminary invited 13 basketball teams from across the country, which included more than 200 seminarians and priests.
“To anyone watching, it looked like a group of college students from any university playing basketball. To someone with eyes of faith, it was clearly much more than that,” he wrote in an article for the Southern Nebraska Register, the Diocese of Lincoln’s newspaper:
Referees in any other similar basketball setting probably would have braced themselves for a challenging weekend of disputed calls and crowds expressing their collective displeasure. Instead, they watched young men compete in a way that others should learn from and in an atmosphere of intense competition, a desire to win—and a joy in being together.
“It was moving to watch, and even more hopeful to realize that every player, on the court and on the bench, was discerning a call to the priesthood,” Kane added.
Kane said that it was moving to watch the young men play, and more moving to realize that they truly prioritized their faith life over everything else.
“I walked into the chapel at 5:45 a.m. to find it full—200 young men kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, making a holy hour before Mass,” Kane wrote. “No one required them to be there, but they knew what was most important.”
Kane concluded by saying that watching the tournament gave him hope for the future of the Church.
“It was a weekend to see strong, convicted young men gather together to pray, compete and be encouraged by each other,” he said. “It is a sign of hope for the Church in the United States—increasing numbers of men considering a call to the priesthood and who desire to be disciples of Jesus.”
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