This year, 12 candidates from across the United States and Canada are spending the summer at the Legionaries of Christ Novitiate and College of Humanities in Cheshire, Connecticut, discerning God’s call to become Legionary priests. During the two-month candidacy program, they’ll live like a Legionary, following a disciplined lifestyle and schedule, engaging in community life, participating in courses, sports, and apostolate, and strengthening their prayer and sacramental life as a band of brothers seeking to follow God’s will.
This year’s candidates come from:
- Georgia
- Massachusetts
- Wisconsin
- Florida
- Louisiana
- Nevada
- Idaho
- Ontario
- Alberta
- Nova Scotia
Candidacy is a summer program lived in the seminary in Cheshire, where the young men discern and prepare for entrance into the novitiate in the fall. It is the first formal step into formation for Legionary life, which, after approximately 10–12 years, culminates in the profession of perpetual vows and thereafter finishing theology and priestly ordination.
The candidacy begins with an orientation week, followed by a hiking and camping trip to strengthen the sense of brotherhood and charity among the candidates. Each week, the candidates have courses on discernment, Regnum Christi, theology of the body, apostolate work as Legionaries, and the formation principles that will help them throughout their preparation for Legionary life. There is daily meditation, Mass, examen time, rosary, adoration, and spiritual reading.
And the candidates also have plenty of time for sports and hiking, along with daily work assignments, and a “tech detox” to round out the experience of authentic manhood. They are accompanied and guided by a team of brothers and priests who are with them every step of the way as they experience religious family life.
Fr. Joseph Brickner, LC, candidacy director at the novitiate, shares that because community is so essential in the life of a Legionary priest, it is important that the candidates have that same experience of community during this time of discernment.
