Over a dozen Mundelein seminarians and a few staff members spent the last five days of their Christmas break at the SEEK conference in Indianapolis. The event is sponsored by FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), a Catholic outreach ministry whose mission is to share the gospel with the world. This conference was attended by 17,000 college students, religious brothers and sisters, priests, Catholic laity, and seminarians from all over.
Our seminarians led small groups for the Lifelong Mission Track, teaching adults out of college how to evangelize and grow in their own faith, focusing on cultivating a lifetime of Christ-centered evangelization, discipleship and friendships. They also served at the Masses and spoke to young men discerning their call to the priesthood. We sponsored a Mundelein Seminary booth, where seminarians were visible beacons of hope for the future of the church. Our future priests shared about life at the seminary and their own vocation stories, interacting with and inspiring hundreds of faithful lay people.
The most exciting thing to share is that, thanks to our staff at the event, each of our 200 seminarians’ names were written on multiple slips of paper. More than 4,000 papers with those names were handed out at the booth with the message, “Please pray for Mundelein seminarian NAME who will become a priest for the people of DIOCESE.” Thousands of people visited the Mundelein Seminary booth, chatted with our seminarians, and took a prayer request. We are thankful to now have 4,000 more people praying for our men!
Many #mundalum priests also attended and participated in SEEK. They concelebrated Mass with hundreds of other priest, for a procession that stretched the length of the meeting hall. Alumni Fr. Connor Danstrom (Chicago, ’14), Fr. Rob Johnson (Springfield, ’18), and Fr. Mike Metz (Atlanta, ’18) recorded a live taping of their podcast “Three Dogs North,” which they started as seminarians in the same cam. Additionally, our priests were available to pray with anyone and hear confessions – on Saturday night alone, 5,000 confessions were heard. We are very proud of our alumni, current seminarians, and staff who participated during their break.
You can see a short video of seminarian Mike Mehringer’s experience at SEEK on the Mundelein Facebook page:, and another video on Instagram. There are also plenty of photos from the event on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
The sheer number of Catholics who spent a long weekend investing in their faith at SEEK was inspiring to our seminarians. The added bonus of meeting people who will pray for them on their path to priesthood was a highlight for many.
