“Aquarium”

Microcosm is anything regarded as being the universe in miniature. It is a small representation of a larger reality. Aquarium, for instance, is a concrete example of a microcosm. It is a miniature that represents the vastness of the sea. Every time I stayed in my room, I cannot helped myself spending most of my time looking at the fishes swimming freely under the beautiful aquarium. It made me amused with their different colors that vividly seen with the reflection of the light. Their unique physical appearance that defines them of what kind of species they are. They live differently; everything that they need for survival seems to be provided, food, fresh water, oxygen. This man made environment prompted me to imagine and appreciate the beauty of the world under the water because I only focus my gaze in perceiving the surroundings forgetting that there is also a world which is unique and hidden under the surface of the water.


Seminary life can also be equated with the nature or the aquarium. They are both microcosm a representation of a bigger reality. Seminary as a microcosm because it has its own world. A mall world different from the ordinary setting but not contrary to the real world, instead, it is a world that gives light and life to the actual world. The people in the actual world were living in a busy and noisy place but the seminary preserves the value of silence. During noon time, most probably people from all walks of life were rushing, people where so active during this time. Offices, institutions, streets were very much crowed with busy people searching for living. In the seminary, its different, it is a time to stop. Stopping does not mean wasting time but rather using the most active time for prayer and meditation; a time of thanksgiving and re-collecting the past experiences for the past hours of the day. If people were craving for high technology gadgets, in the seminary, technology has its limitation for good. If television sets were installed in most household as a means of entertainment and information, the seminary provides daily newspaper to somehow connect our lives in the outside world of this microcosm called seminary.


Practically, when a person reaches its maturity and able to handle bigger responsibility it follows that he will look for a partner for him to settle down. Married life is the next step to maturity. But seminarians go beyond of what is conventional. I suppose everybody wanted to get married, to raise children and to live with a happy family. Even seminarians, priests and nuns are not exempted for this longing. I enter the seminary not because I hate woman and I don’t like children. I do like to have my own family but I still enter the seminary because I have this strong desire to become a priest more than entering into married life. I still choose to enter the seminary even to the extent of letting go of the things I like because of the strong passion to follow the way of Jesus – the call to Priesthood. If people were rushing to look for food, seminarians are like fishes inside the aquarium waiting for food. Seminarians do not need to work just to fill their empty stomach as long as the bell continues to ring, food is not a problem.


We came from different places, family backgrounds and even culture but we were living in one community and tried to live life in harmony with one another just like the fishes inside the aquarium. We have different personalities but we are united. We became united because we are different because if we are the same then we are one. Being united is different from being one. I personally experienced this unity during the recent alumni homecoming. I felt the oozing desire to continue this journey because I actually witnessed the happiness and the unity among priests. The joy that they felt as I observed them is more than the struggles they are facing in their respective ministries.



All these things that I experienced in my seminary life are the defining moments of my faith in God. My experiences inside the seminary were my central experience of faith that made me strong to continue and an opportunity to affirm and to convince myself that I have the vocation just like the Resurrection of Jesus, the central experience of faith, that made the early Christians more zealous in proclaiming God’s kingdom even amidst threads of persecution and death Through the course of my journey I was once conquered and defeated but here I am still standing hoping to gain victory not so much of my own effort but by the grace of God working in me. I have been through of different experiences which I considered part of the puzzle of life. These experiences create and gradually made me whole just the same with the writings in the Bible, it contains different books with different genre but it sustains the wholeness and completion of the entire Bible.

Seminary – unique, different, and exceptional but I found the central experience of faith in this microcosm†