Thank you everyone at St. Kateri for such a wonderful welcome weekend! It was a joy to put names together with faces and be able to hear all the stories of your lives. I have felt welcomed and accepted since the first day I arrived, so it wasn’t a surprise to see all the smiling faces. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart. It was also very heartening to learn how the majority of everyone is accepting the change that is taking place. I truly believe the Holy Spirit is guiding us, and we are comfortably in the palms of Our Father’s Hands. We are being taken care of.
It happened to me all the time. Before becoming a priest, no matter where I was, people would ask me if I ever thought about the priesthood. Having worked in vocations for the last six years, this seems to happen a lot to young men. I thought it was because they saw a young man at church, but that was not necessarily the case, because I would even get told this at regular places like the grocery store. I would help a shorter lady get something off the top shelf and she would say, “Thank you Father.” I would walk away thinking I just imagined it. Yet, it seemed that people just knew there was something in me. The Church calls that the sense of the people in certain cases. This one time, I happened to be at my best friend’s wedding in California back in the day. When I went to Mass the next day, I sat and prayed after Mass. There was a nice lady in front of me that wanted to talk and she started to tell me all about her life. After about twenty minutes she looked at me and said, “You know what you should do?” And I thought, here it comes, she is going to tell me to be a priest. However, she triumphantly exclaimed, “You should join the Navy!” I smiled at this news and thanked her for her time and walked away chuckling to myself. Never in my life did I ever think about the Navy, I get sick on boats!
This might be a strange story, but I bring it up for a reason. A young man considering the priesthood needs to know that he is supported and encouraged. If you think your son, grandson, or nephew has a vocation to the priesthood, please tell him. Every year a report comes out that surveys the newly ordained priests and the support of the family is powerful. Not only that, but the highest predictor of a man going to seminary, is if he was an altar server or not. Usually, it is somewhere around 77% of men who served at the altar and were asked by their pastor end up being ordained. Parents and coaches that are supportive also have a higher percentages as well. So, we need to encourage and invite young men to consider the priesthood, especially from our families and Church. A lot of time I hear from parents, “I don’t want to push him in any direction”.
“Which is fine, but just like the lady who thought I should join the Navy, they are not going to listen to you if you are wrong. Your invite at least allows him to consider the possibility knowing that he is supported.This can start early too. We tend to ask children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Could we not also ask, “What do you think God wants you to be when you grow up?” It is subtle, but all of us have a purpose in life given to us by God. Don’t be afraid to say something, it may change a life. Do you have a future priest in the family?
