Year of The Priests: Part 1 – How God works!!!

From time to time the Catholic Church takes time to set aside a whole year as a special time to focus on a particular aspect of our Catholic Faith. These special holy years usually does not start on January 1st and end on December 31st but rather they normally begin as on a day that commemorates a special spiritual event and then continues for the next 365 days. Pope Benedict XVI began the “Year of the Priest” in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Vianney. St. John Vianney is the patron saint of priests and the only diocesan priest to ever be canonized. He is also considered a true model of pastoral priestly ministry. I therefore thought it would be appropriate to share with all of you some of my own personal reflections on the priesthood.

The first thing that stands out in my mind in regards to my vocation story is that it is not very exciting or extraordinary. I did not see a burning bush like Moses, I was not awaken by a strange voice while napping in Church like Samuel, and no strange man ever got into my boat and after helping me catch a boat load of fish ask me to follow him like Peter, James and John. There were many times that I wished God would work that way and that my vocation story was as exciting as that of John the Baptist. As I grew in my faith and deeper in my relationship with God, I began to understand that those vocation stories were the exceptions to the way God normally worked and that most of the time God lets His will be known in much more subtle ways.

My vocation story began for me when I was in the fourth grade on the feast of St. Blasé. It is the custom of the Church to offer a special blessing for people on his feast day that contains a special focus on the person throat. My mother had told me that I needed to make every effort to get my throat blessed and so when the priest told our class that if we wanted our throat blessed that we needed to come down to the Church after school, I went. I was the only student that came down and from that moment on I was on the parish priests’ radar screen. Eventually, I was invited by my parish priest to attend a vocation summer camp and I absolutely loved it. In all honesty at that age I really did not have any idea what really meant to be a priest but I did really look up to the priests that I knew and really enjoyed the time I spent with the seminarians and the other kids my age who were exploring the idea of becoming priests. While my vocation story is in some ways really ordinary, I also believe that it is also quite extraordinary in the sense that God has guided me to this point in my life very quietly and subtly using other people and if it were not for the priests of my parish and the parishioners of St. Williams encouraging me and simply asking me to consider the priesthood, I would not be a priest today.

One of the saddest things about the Church during this current time is that people are not encouraging young people to consider priesthood or religious life. I once heard that the number one reason why men who are thinking about priesthood do not enter the seminary is because no one ever asked them to consider being a priest. Would there be having a “priest shortage” if these men would have simply been asked?

Why is that people are not asking young people to consider priesthood and religious life? I believe the first reason is that we personally do not trust in God enough ourselves. When my relationship with God is strong, I am certain that He wants what is best for me and therefore I am certain that He wants what is best for everyone else also. I am confident then in asking people to follow God’s will for them and to consider the option of becoming a priest or a religious. When my relationship with God is not as strong as it should be, then I begin to doubt that God wants what is best for me and therefore I clam up. Another way of looking at it, when I look at life as a battle between my will and God’s will to the point that if God gets His way then I lose as if God is in some sort of completion with me then I am less likely to talk to people about following God’s will for them by considering a way of life that the world sees as crazy and radical. However, when I see that God is not in competition with me but rather God wants what is best for me then I know what is best for God is best for me and what is best for God is best for the person that I am asking to consider to become a priest or religious.
I would like to take this moment at the end of this blog, to ask you to please think about a particular young man that you think would make a good priest and ask him to consider it and to pray about it.