TILLING THE GROUND ON SOMASCAN NOVITIATE'S VEGETABLE GARDEN

The Somascan Novitiate House as seen from the midst of the vegetable garden. The houses on the right does not belong to the Somascan Fathers; they are summer residences of the nearby village.

When I posted yesterday about our Annual Retreat our readers must have noticed that I didn't focus the camera on the facilities and places around the Somascan Major Seminary because they have been presented in the previous posts. That is why i focused on people, places and activities.

The banana trees and the pineapples

But there are still some areas in our Somascan Major Seminary that I was not able to concentrate on previously. That is the vegetable garden of the Novitiate House.

That is why I have posted these pictures. To give our readers a closer look on our religious life. Our seminarians are not living like princes in our houses of formations but they are working with their own hands. They are tilling the ground, touching the soil, enriching them so that they can live by the fruit of their hands.

On the far end of the vegetable garden overlooking the village on the other side

Our seminaries are beautiful because our religious and seminarians were and are still working hard. Some are already administrators or educators but we all started from the scratch and we know how it is to live in a life of simplicity and hardwork. And we are still doing so today away from the prying eyes of the public.

One of our Indonesian novices working in the garden. This is one of the wonderful things we used to do during work time as seminarians, novices and young religious... gardening.

Beautiful banana tree with fruit

The old trunk we used to play with during our novitiate is still standing and alive The pineapples beautifully growing on the fields... fruit of our hands

High trees beyond which is the rooftop of our Basketball Gym

The pineapples again. On the other side lies the houses of the original residents of Tagaytay's Brgy. Kaybaga.