Any other teenagers feeling a call to the priesthood?

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Hello everyone,

Do any of you feel a call to the priesthood when you graduate from High School? If so, would you enter an order, or the diocesan priesthood?

Pietro
 
I can’t speak for myself, mostly 'cuz I’m a girl, but my brother has felt a call to the priesthood since he was about three. (Disclaimer; I know it takes some people different amounts of time to discern; don’t panic if you haven’t “heard the call” yet!) I don’t know how he plans to pursue it, though. We have a seminary about an hour away from us, so he’ll probably go there. Personally, I may become Consecrated, but I can’t tell God’s will yet. I’m just waiting for His word! What about you?
 
One of our teens (first year college) has applied to the Convectual Franciscans. He’s super excited…I personally feel he does have a calling. He’s a great person, and very spiritual for his age.
Please pray for his discernment. 👍
 
After a few emotional events that occurred in my life, I felt like I may have been called to be a priest. I think this was because a priest was always there for me and I really admired that. I got a lot closer to God as well. But now I feel like I am being called to be a teacher. But I want to stay open to the idea just to make sure. Just pray about it everyday
 
I think about being near every profession, including priest. Though I’m probably going to be an engineer.
 
I did at 17, though that was a long time ago. I journeyed a long and windy road since then. I will encourage you to pursue your desire and investigate the option of living a dedicated life for Christ in whatever vocation you find yourself. A common characteristic I have heard many called to Holy Orders or Consecrated life speak about is, like you, a feeling of being called early in life. A second factor is that the gentle prompting does not go away, it can be intentionally ignored, but does not go away.

An interesting story. Last week I at the bedside of a Catholic Priest who was dying. He had been a Priest for more than 60 years, both in parish life and academia. Though confused due to his decline, he mentioned several times how fulfilling his life of a Priest had been. It was really quite comforting to be with someone who lived their calling to the end. (He was in an Order-btw).

Good luck in your journey!
 
I’m surprised no one has suggested this yet, but talk to your vocational director. At this point, a spiritual director (almost every declared saint had one) is not necessary, but a vocational director is. Each diocese has one or even two, and he who is one will be very glad to talk to you.
I myself am discerning my vocation, and I’m seeing it in either the diocesan priesthood, or the Order of St. Camillus (because I’m a nursing student). I talked to my vocational director, and I was surprised he helped me so much in one hour than I tried to do so myself in a month.
My advice to you is to do the following.
  1. Talk to God. He will lead you to your vocation.
  2. Mary will be there too, so pray to her too. I’d advice you to start dedicating some time to talk to her each day to perhaps pray the rosary, or the Perpetual Help Novena (which I would gladly send you an online copy of if you message me).
  3. Talk to your vocational director. He will clear some confusions in your heart (I know when I first started to discern, my heart was often pumping hard and fast as if I overdosed on coffee, and I often felt another voice in my head telling me to be a priest, etc.)
  4. Ask for the book, To Save a Thousand Souls from your vocational director. It’s a good read. If he doesn’t have a copy, just go to gopriest.com and they will send you a 100% free copy. I always had it in my bag, and I got it out when I had time to read. It tells you a whole lot about the diocesan priesthood and the route getting there.
  5. Don’t just let others know your plans of becoming a priest or religious. It’s good to tell people when you’re fully convinced you’re going to seminary, but if you are not, some people won’t be very pleased to know, and some people will be too pleased that they already expect you to be a priest (which will hinder you from discerning most accurately). Take my word from it because I made that mistake.
  6. Read the Bible. That’s God’s love letter to you. Learn to love it. Plainly read it for now, and get to know it more each day. I’d invest in a Sunday Missal as well, but you don’t have to (I use it to read the readings before the Mass, and also to follow along the readings during Mass; and it’s probably my best friend on Sundays).
  7. As Fr. Josh Waltz said, don’t stop going to Sunday Mass, and never stop going to weekly confession.
Discerning, as you can tell already, is a lot of work, and it sometimes can bog you down. Nevertheless, I salute you for joining the battle with me. I’ll include you in my prayers. Do talk to priests and seminarians around you and ask their advice. I’ll also be here for you (just message me if you have any questions that I can answer).
 
Awesome! I’ve actually felt a calling since I entered high school (to a diocesan priesthood). It was very strong during that year and I got more involved into my religion in the process. I went through a bit of a hardship mostly involving school, but it was so great that I had this religion that I could just learn more about.
What I find the most amazing is helping others, especially issuing their Last Rites. I would love to have a comforting priest as I’m nearing death.

As mentioned, I suggest you:
  • Talk to your vocational director. Look for his number then set up a meeting.
  • Definitely read “To Save A Thousand Souls”. I enjoyed reading it (even though I dislike reading at school). Ask your vocation director for one if he doesn’t provide it for you (or order it for free from GoPriest (you’ll be asked for your diocese + you’ll fill out a form).
  • Set up a prayer schedule. E.g. daily rosary with meditation at night, 3 Hail Marys upon waking up, etc.
  • Read about all the saints. Look into your favorite one, and perhaps you’ll be even more inspired. I love reading about San Padre Pio!
  • Join a religious group and/or get involved in some way with your church. There is a discerning group of men near me!
  • DON’T tell anybody who doesn’t need to know the fact that you’re discerning. In my experience, it will put people’s hopes up. I very much understand that their opinions shouldn’t affect this, but it’ll be easier without this sort of pressure. It doesn’t affect me much, but you’ll have to see what works for you.
I’ll be honest, it’s bit just a few years and I feel that I’m discerning less and the possibility of me attending a seminary is decreasing. I plan on going to a community college post high school, so I have some time to think about this.

God bless.
 
Luckily for me, mr spiritual director also happens to be one of the diocese vocations director, so I’m very blessed about that!
 
pietrocontolini said:
Luckily for me, mr spiritual director also happens to be one of the diocese vocations director, so I’m very blessed about that!
Click to expand...
Good! That’s so exciting! Just in case you don’t know how to bring the topic up to him, you can always ask if he has a copy of To Save a Thousand Souls with him. And surely he will bring up the topic for you.

As mentioned, definitely get into a prayer schedule and stick to it. Don’t go overboard like I did. I was praying the Liturgy of the Hours, and the Rosary, and the Divine Mercy chaplet, reading the Bible, praying other prayers, writing a journal, etc. all in one day. While all of those are awesome, after a week, I strayed from the schedule and eventually stopped doing all of them. Start with something simple, like, “Rosary 0700-0720, Bible reading 1930-2030.”
One thing I forgot to mention is to frequent a Eucharistic Adoration. It is really awesome to get to talk to Jesus where He is literally face-to-face with you. I’m blessed to have a parish thatcalled Confession and Eucharistic Adoration at the same most-convenient time. If you don’t have that, perhaps suggest that to your parish priest. That saved me from a lot of things, and I definitely recommend it.
Definitely read about Padre Pioneer. I assume that you don’t have a time to read a whole book about him, but there is one out there called Padre Pio: The True Story by a guy named Ruffian. I haven’t finished the book yet, but it seems like an easy read. My patron saints are St. Padre Pio and St. Anthony of Padua. Both of them are priests.
 
pietrocontolini said:
Luckily for me, mr spiritual director also happens to be one of the diocese vocations director, so I’m very blessed about that!
Click to expand...
Actually, you might want to get a separate spiritual director for mor personal discussions if your current spiritual director is a vocational director. This is because the vocational director responds to the bishop, so it will make it harder for him to tell the bishop that you’re a good candidate when all this time you have been confessing all your sins to him, and getting really deep and serious advice from him. You’ll find out more when you read the To Save a Thousand Souls
 
Do you think you could tell me where to find To save a Thousand Souls?
 
I’m 15 and from Ireland. I often feel that way that you describe in the title that maybe no one else around my age is thinking about becoming a priest, so it is encouraging to have a forum like this. I have been thinking about being a priest seriously for about two years now. I was a cultural Catholic and I did go to mass every week but then I stopped because at the age of 12, if you’re not instilled in the faith, waking up early on a Sunday to go off to this cold, sterile building seems pointless to you (Although, they’ve since gotten underfloor heating so we’re good on that regard) I always kept some element of faith during that time, I just wasn’t again in any way catechized but anyway long story short after a huge fight in school that I got involved in and then after basically losing all my friends because of it at the time and having to move school, the faith just really came to me and I felt huge, unexplainable desires to become a priest and read voraciously about the faith and to go back to mass, even when I hadn’t been to mass in a year maybe. It just came as a sudden interest, but it felt more passionate then some exercise like supporting a football team or collecting stamps. I’m sure some of you might relate to that feeling perhaps. In this message, I could talk forever about how my call feels - I could be here all day but it sure is an unexplainable burning desire to say the least but it is a patient burning desire, it’s not frenzied in any sense, which is very hard to explain in written words. I am now formally discerning a vocation to priesthood with the Capuchin Franciscans. I love their way of life and the way they really live the faith in such a simple way, it’s absolutely incredible. They see themselves as monastics in action, which I really value. They have a great element of prayer and then they combine that with being surrounded by the most marginalized and living as St. Francis did and I must say they act in those situations so charitably. They are such pious men and their clear love of the faith is evident, which is enveloping.

Enough of that now, I’ll leave that there as again I could go on forever. I’d love to hear back from you all here and I’ll look forward to reading more of your stories. God bless!
 
I’ve been discerning for a while now. I feel like there’s nothing else I’d rather do than be a priest, but, of course, there are always doubts. I think I’m being called more so to the FSSP/ICKSP, to throw a little curveball into this thread 😃

Oremus pro invicem!
 
Really. I was thinking the same about the fssp and institute of Christ the King sovereign priest
 
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