The minor seminary is the first stage of formation for all those who demonstrate a desire to devote themselves entirely to God at an early age. “The goal of the minor seminary is to help those adolescents who have manifested the seed of a vocation, to discern more easily and to be able to respond to it.”[1]

At the end of his studies at the minor seminary, the candidate, “having a clear conscience of the divine call… may have reached the human and spiritual maturity that permits him to make the decision to respond to the call with sufficient responsibility and freedom.”[2]

“As experience has long shown, a priestly vocation tends to manifest itself in the preadolescent years or in the earliest years of youth.  Even in those who decide to enter the seminary later, it is not uncommon to find that God’s call had been perceived much earlier.”[3]  In considering Jesus’ predilection for the apostle John, Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, “This gives us an understanding of how God loves in a special way those who give themselves to his service from an early age.”[4]