Theological Field Education “Where the Rubber Meets the Road” in Ministry

By Travis E. Poling

With this issue, stories will be featured from Oblate School of Theology, a pastoral theological institute in San Antonio, TX own and operated by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate serving the Archdiocese of San Antonio, men and women religious, and various lay groups rooted in Christ.

Br. Benedict Nicolas, CSsR, had experience volunteering to help the poor and homeless on the streets of his home city of Toronto. When his calling came, joining the Redemptorists of the Canadian Province was a natural fit because of the order’s charism to bring the Good News to the poor and most abandoned.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit during his initial formation in Toronto and his novitiate in Mexico. He was unable to do work in the field and he felt he lacked clarity on what ministry among the people would look like as he pursued his academic path to priesthood.

Oblate School of Theology (OST) gave Nicolas that clarity he sought through the three-year Theological Field Education (TFE) program that prepares divinity students for an active ministry among the people they serve.

The TFE program was created in the mid-1970s after OST President Fr. Patrick Guidon, OMI, saw it at other seminaries and thought it would benefit students in the Master of Divinity program. While it has evolved over the last 50 years, students say it has given them a deeper understanding of what it means to serve in ministry, how to deal with difficult situations, and ways to serve others through a theological lens.

“Theological Field Education is where the rubber meets the road,” said Dr. Bonnie Abadie, director of the TFE program since 2017. “It helps students discover where they fit and gives them tools for the road ahead.”

There is a semester of classroom work for preparation followed by three semesters of supervised field work over the course of three years. The first year is serving in places ministering to the poor and homeless. The second year has seminarians focused on parish education programs from prepping children for First Communion, to working with adults preparing to join the Catholic Church through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA), formerly known as Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). The third year of field training is focused on campus ministry, learning chaplaincy skills, and ministering to special communities.

“The classroom training helps prepare us from a human perspective. It’s a time where you learn to be a better human, prepare for ministry, and learn how to do theological reflection to apply to real-world scenarios,” Nicolas said.

His first TFE assignment was helping the poor during Christ Episcopal Church’s weekly Sidewalk Saturday, just north of downtown San Antonio, where people can get a homemade breakfast taco, a cup of coffee, and a bag of groceries with their choice of fresh produce and bread. Haircuts, clothing, and household items are available along with individual prayers and worship service for all who attend.

Nicolas said it was a learning experience being the only Catholic among those involved in the ministry—which was made even more apparent by the distinctive black cassock, white linen collar, and 15-decade rosary that have made up the Redemptorist habit for three centuries. Standing out helped the homeless approach him to address spiritual issues and needs when they felt uncomfortable attending the communal worship service. He said he learned that beyond food and clothing, even if the people didn’t want to attend the service, “we will bring Christ to you.”

One goal of the TFE program is to combine service, theology, and the spiritual aspects of ministry. The formal written examination of challenging situations encountered in the field are called “process notes,” and sometimes require life-changing insights.

“Every student who writes a process note experiences some form of conversion,” Abadie said. They have to examine how they handled a tough situation, then take it to the spiritual level. “How did this bring you to your knees? How did you bring it to God in prayer?” she said of the exercise’s deep probing.

For Nicolas, it was a simple task of distributing a case of sodas to the people at a Sidewalk Saturday in 2023 that gave him cause to reflect. His instructions were to make sure each person just took one can of soda so there would be enough to go around. He was stumped by what to do when people started grabbing more than one and walking off.

That incident became his case study after consulting with his OST faculty mentor Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI. It allowed him to dig deeper into how he felt about the situation and apply theological reflection.

“I really enjoyed the process notes,” Nicolas said. “It offered me a very different perspective.”

In his second year of TFE, Nicolas helped educate adults preparing to join the Church through OCIA, then served as a greeter at Mass, and helped prepare children for First Communion.

His process notes reflected his feelings of uselessness during the month he spent greeting people at the door at Mass. “I had to analyze that useless feeling and realize there is a spiritual fruit to it,” Nicolas said. Through the repetition of the greeting, he unknowingly made a connection with a regular at Mass who confided in him about the trials of his wife dealing with cancer. “I learned more about being a pastor and a servant leader in a way.”

The power of ministry became evident to seminarian Joseph Duque when he attended the funeral of his childhood pastor in 2019. “I saw people come out in droves and it hit me for the first time in my life the impact that one person can have,” Duque said.

He left Baylor University after spending six years studying music to become an orchestra musician, and entered Assumption Seminary in the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

During his first semester of TFE, he helped prepare parish high schoolers for confirmation. The deep dive he had to do when reflecting on his experiences wasn’t something that came naturally.

He said he realized that it is often human nature to do one task after another without examining what we do and why.

He also spent a year at the Catholic Charities migrant center which not only challenged his non-fluent Spanish, but helped him see the humanity in each person he served. “That was a huge eye-opener for me,” Duque said. “To go there and spend time [with the migrants] gives you a very good perspective. They are people just like you and me with needs and desires.”

In Duque’s third semester of TFE, he sponsored a catechumen during Easter at St. Mark the Evangelist Church in San Antonio, gave a presentation on vocations to kids, and judged an All Saints’ Day costume contest where children dressed as their favorite saint.

“That was my favorite [TFE semester] because you are there immersed in the parish life,” Duque said. “You get to see what parish life is like. You never know what you’re going to encounter.”

“Taking each task and ministry to prayer along with the process notes helped me to listen not just with the ears, but with the heart and the mind. Part of the spirituality of diocesan priests is to meet the people where they are. Just journey with them,” Duque said.

Abadie said she hopes graduates are still doing some form of theological reflection in their broader ministry.

“I hear back from former students, sometimes out of the blue,” Abadie said. “One told me, ‘I’m so glad you taught us how to name our feelings.’”