My Road to Seminary

The Beginning
Sophomore year of high school I still remember sitting there on the last day of a huge Lifeteen retreat. I'm crammed in the back of a gym with 2000 others from all across the nation. We just finished Mass and at the end the presiding Priest asked any man who felt they may be called to the vocation of the priesthood to stand, come forward, and receive a blessing.

Slowly men around me all began to stand and walk forward. The crowd began to cheer and the room was filled with great joy at the Spirit leading these men to be open to such a radical call. Although I felt a great burning in my heart I was hesitant because I knew what it meant if I stood. It meant I would not be able to marry a woman. As I continued to watch men pour forward towards the stage my own desire to join eventually was to much to ignore. I stood, left my seat, tripped over my friends, and jogged up to meet about one hundred other men at the front of the stage to receive a blessing.

It only took a few days for that burning desire to subside and my own fears and desires about becoming a priest to take over. After the retreat it was rarely talked about amongst my friends. The adult leaders brought it up a few times saying that I would make a great priest one day, but I would push those thoughts to the side thinking "they have to say that...or yeah but God wants me to be happy, and I just don't see that being where he wants me to be."

A cycle of wanting to become a priest and not wanting to becoming a priest continued throughout high school and college. I told many of my friends at GCSU about it, and I would always get a lot of encouragement, but I never did anything about it. I was honestly too scared.

The Vocation Retreat
This past December I found myself at Mass the day before Christmas. The same Lifeteen program that brought me on that retreat was volunteering that day to decorate the Church. Being 6'5 I of course felt compelled to help!

It has now been over 4 years since I left the program so I did not know many of the students involved. I began to strike up a conversation with many of them, but one in particular I will never forget. A senior named Taylor told me he was heading on a vocations retreat for the Archdiocese of Atlanta the next week and he invited me to come along!

After Christmas I found myself on the phone with the vocations director and of course spots were still available. I called old roommate from college, Scott Samford and convinced him to come with me. Being a missionary himself, it wasn't very hard, and it was nice to have the company.

After the retreat was over I knew one thing, it was that I knew nothing. I was not certain at all about who I was or who God was calling me to be.


Lent in a Tent
This past lent I have been meditating on two quotes:

"In order to give oneself, one must first possess himself"

"Anyone who looks at another as a means to an end does violence to that very person." 


John Paul II

My teammates Steve and Anne Marie gave a talk the week before lent started on JPII's theology of the body. These quotes truly struck me, but of course being unprepared I did not write them down. Fortunately just a few days after lent began I found a piece of paper with them written on it. They were Steve's notes and he told me I should keep them. They didn't leave my pocket for an entire week, and when they finally did it was only because I had engraved them in my memory.

After 22 years of life I would have liked to think I had possessed myself, but I could not be farther from it. This quote turned my prayer from asking God to help me be more like others whom I admire, and asking Him to help me be more like the person He created me to be. The more time I spent in prayer, the more I felt the joy and the peace that one day he may be calling me to the priesthood.

The second quote has only confirmed my desire and calling to the priesthood as I know I am not looking at God the same way I have looked at all my relationships in the past. As I look back it's easy for me to see how much I looked to my past girlfriends to be the source of my happiness. I wanted to know someone could love me even if I didn't already love myself. I was looking at them to fulfill all I had been told I should desire and all I believed would make me happy...and by doing that I was not only doing violence to myself but more importantly I was doing violence to them. I am so sorry.

My call to the priesthood is a different kind of desire. I am not looking to God to fulfill my desires, but it is I who desire to give myself to God and His Church. I can't help but just smile at the thought of being able to lay down my life in this way. Today my prayer is no longer "God are you calling me to seminary?" but "God if you are not calling me to seminary let me know..because I am heading that way."