No fewer than 82 men, 19 of them new, are undergoing priestly formation at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West as a new academic year begins.

Seminarians arrived last week at the Mount Washington campus to prepare for the start of classes.

On Friday, they took part in the annual Eucharistic Procession (left) down Beechmont Avenue in Mount Washington, bearing witness to the Real Presence during afternoon commuting hours on that busy road.

Then, over the weekend,  seminarians got their hands dirty with physical labor, performing various maintenance and improvement chores across the Athenaeum of Ohio’s 75-acre campus.

That effort marked this year’s first “work weekend” for seminarians, in line with Vice Rector Father Anthony Brausch’s dictum “No chalices without calluses.”

Mount St. Mary’s work crew included faculty members Father Brausch, Father Anthony Stephens (director of field education and pastoral internship year), and Father Ryan Ruiz (director of liturgy and assistant professor of liturgy and sacraments).

The Athenaeum, 6616 Beechmont Avenue in Mount Washington, will host a Holy Hour for Vocations on Saturday, Sept. 10, an opportunity to also offer thanksgiving for the seminarians we’ve all been sent.

May God bless our seminarians, their faculty, and all those who’ve prayed and sacrificed in support of vocations!

To read more about fostering vocations in our archdiocese, go here.

(Below: a photo by E.L Hubbard from the seminarians’ arrival. To see more photos from moving day, go here.)