Apostles of Jesus Philosophicum
P. O. Box 30589 Nairobi 00100 GPO – Kenya.
The Apostles of Jesus Philsophicum is located 10 kilometers, in the west of Nairobi City centre in Kenya. The Seminary belongs to the Religious Missionary Institute of the Apostles of Jesus, whose primary object is to train future religious missionary priests who will serve in Africa without excluding any other part of the world. The supreme authority of the Institute is the Superior General who works closely with his General Council.
Vision
An ideal house of formation for nurturing vocations of future members of the Institute of the Apostles of Jesus by providing a suitable environment for a holistic growth and development. The seminary ideally provides a desirable environment for theological, spiritual, pastoral and human formation that is clearly seen in leadership skills.
Mission
To provide a holistic formation of future religious missionary priests and brothers of the Apostles of Jesus, who are confident leaders, equipped with sound theological, pastoral, academic, socio-religious, and practical skills to pass on the Good News of the Kingdom of God as they sustain the Catholic heritage through their daily practice of a religious missionary life through which they care for the faithful.
Core Values
The core values of the Philosophicum are encapsulated in the Motto: Prayer, Study and Work.
Prayer:Spiritual Formation centered in the life of prayer and meditation on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Good Shepherd;
Study:Intellectual Formation in the studies of Philosophy
Work:Productivity and Self-reliance: including gardening, management of livestock, carpentry, tailoring.
Core purpose
To prepare the students of philosophy for the practical life of ministry as priests who will address an array of many socio-spiritual, psychological and faith-related needs of the people they will be entrusted to serve in many parts of rural and urban Africa, and other parts of the world.
Administration and Formation Team
Prayer Life
The life prayer in the Philosophicum is dictated by our constitutions and living traditions as directed by our Guide to Prayer. We have a regular time table that provides for community prayers that start with Lauds, Meditation, Holy Mass in the morning and conclude with Night prayers. These acts of community prayer punctuate our time table according to our rule of life.
The time table provides the postulants with time to do privately certain common prayers: such night prayers, and occasionally the morning meditation may not be included on a day’s programme.
Personal prayer is an essential ingredient of our spiritual activities; postulants choose to do their personal prayers in the main church. Of course, personal prayers serve as good preparation for community prayer, and vice versa.
The celebration of the Holy Eucharist is central to our prayer life, the formators have a weekly rota they follow for the Week day Masses, as well as a semester rota for the Sunday Masses.
Occasionally, we also have a preached meditation, following a traditional practiced that was encouraged by our co-Founder, Fr. John Marengoni;
Spiritual Conferences: whose themes are designed to meet the seminarians in their different stages of formation include themes for inducting the newly professed members into religious life as lived in the philosophicum and after; they also address the integration of religious formation and discuss pastoral realities for those who are preparing to go for pastoral experiences, and those who have come back from the pastoral fields. We have packages for those who are about to complete their states of seminary formation.
Weekend Apostolate
We encourage our scholastics to explore their spiritual life in the various areas of practical pastoral involvement in the various areas of their week end apostolate: as Choir masters, teachers of catechism, and in their involvement in youth, deaf and hospital ministries. We believe that our prayer life (spiritual life) bears fruit when it is extended to the outside.
Academics
PROJECTS
The formation program and the rule of life of the seminarians as encapsulated in the Motto Prayer, Study and Work entails that seminarians demonstrate and live the spirit of work is in the different self-help projects.
These projects include; the Poultry, Cows, Piggery, Rabbits and Gardening. Apart from the direct benefits that the seminarians get from these projects, they are formative. These projects are designed to train the future Priests in Management Skills and Stewardship for the temporal goods of the church, and above all to train the seminarians in the spirit of self reliance.
The following are the different projects in some brief details.
