A seminary is very first step to becoming a priest. To understand the history is the seminary development in Singapore is to show how we have developed our early priests before 1900 and subsequently however we set up ourselves in Punngol, and close to Catholic Spirituality Centre under Father Erbin Fernandez. This is interesting piece of Singapore church history as visibly there was no seminary in Singapore though we had set up other Catholic institutions such as schools for boys and girls. It was said that many of early priests had been trained in St Peter and Paul church though their seminary formation was probably in Penang. It was also the foreign trained MEPs that came and their training was directly from France. It was beautiful that we had the first local born priest in Father Michael Seet that served in St Peter and Paul church in the 1930s.
The article in Catholic News is instructive in understanding the summary of early Catholic Church history and our magnificent founders.
We will append it in the book as part of reference with its entirety as it sums up the history of Singapore church history concisely.
Our understanding is more on formation. Interestingly, to encapsulate this, a picture of the daily routine in one more seminary house along the punggol 24th avenue is instructive. It states the timing of how the priests live their daily schedule in a life of prayer, meditation, contemplation and worship including bible knowledge and sharing. In summary their only off day is Sunday. And everyday they wake up at 530 am and rest by 9pm.
Since much work and research had been done on the early singapore church history, it is important to breather more life into this with respect to the early Catholic community and their devotions.
In this regard we have a parishioner from the church of St Peter and Paul who was one of the earliest Redemptorists Father in Singapore, notably the first, Father Paul Pang. In the article he wrote in a chapter in this book is how his grandmother whose ashes are interred in the columbarium of St Peter and Paul had been converted through the prayers of a kindly elderly lady whom related the story to Father Pang. The devotion to the rosary therefore must be efficacious. And this in the early church carries on till present day. Even to the history of modernSingapore church history, when the current Archbishop His Grace William Goh, had frequently exhorted parishioners to pray often, and a hallmark of this life of prayer for him culminated in bouquet of "flowers" each time for his birthday. This bouquet is a bouquet of prayers which parishioners pray for him, and it has been linked to the time where rosary when artifacts were unearthed 150 years ago till now in what pope john calls a rosary of mediation is a rhythm of life itself, and this thy hum of the rosary devotion blessing our church, and our fellow peoples, continues.
In the period of the early history of St Peter and Paul Church, pope Leo XIII also known as the rosary pope reigned. This could also explain in terms of history of devotion the strong devotion to the rosary during this specific period of history. His call to the prayer of rosary resulted in his encyclical in 1895 during around the time that St Peter and Paul was built. The encyclical will be featured as part of the chapter in this book to show the development of the devotion of rosary amongst our early Catholic forefathers. Undoubtedly in its entirety it is a worthy document, from a Pope Leo XIII which states that the "rosary is the most excellent prayer " to the Virgin Mary, "God's mother and our Mother. "
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