My prolonged silence on this blog is for good reason. The past weeks I have engaged intensely in discernment and come to a decision for this point in my vocational journey. I am taking a year off from the formation program for the priesthood. This year offers me hope that I can discover increased clarity and purpose in how I am called to serve God's people. How did I arrive at this point?
For much of my two years at Mount Angel (and for much of my previous four years as a youth minister), I sensed a strong call to ministry in the Catholic Church, especially to parish ministry. I felt reassured that God would use me as a catechist, mentor, program director, relationship builder, and organizer in some ministerial capacity. Yet as a Catholic, this call did not answer a greater question: What is my primary vocation?
One of my vocations directors, Fr. Caleb, likes to frame discernment in layers, something akin to a wedding cake. The foundational layer is the universal call to holiness. Everyone has this call. Each individual is created uniquely to know, love, and serve the Lord. Simple enough. The next layer is how we live out that universal call, what we might call our career, job, or professional calling. This is how most people identify themselves in our culture today. When we meet someone, we inevitably ask them what they do. "I'm an engineer at Boeing." "I am a stay-at-home mom." "I own a small business." "I'm a high school English teacher." "I am a seminarian." Choosing our work is tremendously important. How we work is how we give to the world, and there is great dignity in work. However, our career is not the top layer. We will likely change jobs or careers many times. Our lives do not find deepest meaning in work. Our lives find deepest meaning in primary vocation. This is the top layer.
Primary vocation is being a spouse and parent. Primary vocation is being a vowed religious sister or brother. Primary vocation is being a committed single person when singleness is chosen in order to give one's life to others in a way that does not involve marriage. Primary vocation is priesthood. Primary vocation is the top layer of the cake, but it is foundational to everything we do, to every choice we make. If one is a husband and father, one might switch jobs and move to a new city but should do so because a career change is also best for one's wife and children. A single person may choose to be a missionary abroad, but their role as a single person may not mean they are a missionary their entire life. A priest preaches, cares, and shepherds, but he may do so at many parishes over the course of his working life and even into retirement. My mom has always been a nurse (her career), but she has changed jobs many times. Yet her primary vocation (wife and mother) never changed after she and my dad married. Every choice she made professionally grew from her primary vocation even if there were always multiple considerations in her decisions. Primary vocation is central. Our lives find deepest meaning in primary vocation.
The decision to take a year away comes from a desire to investigate interiorly my primary vocation. I have for some time wondered if my connection to pastoral ministry should be expressed as a lay person or as an ordained priest of Jesus Christ. The Catholic priest undergoes an ontological change when he is ordained, meaning that his soul is indelibly marked. Even if a priest leaves active ministry, his soul remains changed. Discerning the priesthood is therefore monumental and comprehensive. The priesthood would be my marriage, my work, my purpose, my life. With a decision of this magnitude, what is one more year in the process? I want to get this decision right. I want to fall more deeply in love with the Lord, to know Jesus Christ more intimately, to welcome the prompting of the Holy Spirit more readily. How will I do that?
I'm not sure yet. Honestly, I'm not sure what that means yet. This is a path of discovery. There are many opportunities in parish ministry, but there is also work outside of the church that would enable me to be active in ministry without making longer term commitments. Seattle and Boise are possibilities. Wherever I go, whatever I do, my discernment is not complete. This time is ideal for a break, a deep breath, and continued reflection. Prayer must be more vital in my life. It is my avenue to God's providence, not to convert God to my point of view but to enter into the eternal goodness the Lord has to offer. God will provide all I need to make a wise decision if I earnestly seek to know, to love, and to serve.
Will you pray for me? Conversion is a long process, a lifelong process, and I, like you, am striving to live authentically. Thank you for being part of my journey and for letting me be part of yours. Let us enter into the mystery of what God has in mind for you and me. Nothing less will fulfill us.