D
DL82
Guest
My Spiritual Director has recently taken to telling me that God has given me complete freedom with regard to vocation, freedom to choose. This is largely because I don’t feel a strong sense of a calling to the priesthood, but I can still see the good I could do as a priest.
Freedom feels awesome. I’ve spent most of my life running away from the things that were good for me, deliberately wrecking my own life, because that way I at least felt like it couldn’t get worse (I suffer from anxiety disorder, this is quite a common approach - expect the worst, that way no nasty surprises). In the last 2 or 3 years, to make matters worse, I’ve been using the Catholic faith as an excuse for wrecking my life. I became so scrupulous that I’ve developed a nervous tick - I can’t see a woman’s body or other things that arouse me, or think of any thoughts about my past without getting this tick, and then notching up another venial sin to confess. I get the feeling if I continued this way I’d end up staring at my shoes for fear of looking at anyone, frantically praying the rosary over and over for fear of letting a bad thought into my head - repressing these thoughts has got so bad that it’s started to be a cause of sexual perversions - that’s not who I want to be, and it’s not who I feel God is calling me to be. Up until recently, I’ve viewed a vocation as something that you can’t get out of, and it’s made me miserable.
If I were to continue to live in the joy of this freedom, I know the path it would lead me, and I can see how God could use me in that path. I can see how I’d be a good husband and a good dad, I can see it and I want it, I can see how my children would be raised to value service and purity in a way I never was. I can see how my talents as an academic in the policy field would be of use in the lay world, helping to build a better world, not just retreating into the bubble of Church life. I can see how my work in the Legion of Mary does good, spreading the faith. I can see how I’d be energised to go out and change the world with an incredibly powerful love, and that forward-looking would help me forget about sin. I can even see the possibility of the permanent Diaconate in the future. All this seems awesome, yet when recently at confession a priest with a religious order I’ve been spending time with suggested, on hearing about my sexual temptations and difficulty resisting, that I might be happier in married life, it felt like I was a failure, damaged goods.
At the same time, I know every time I saw a priest I’d feel inadequate, every time I saw a church without a priest I’d feel guilty, every time I heard a liberal priest preaching a heretical homily I’d feel like I couldn’t challenge him - at least he’s giving his people the Sacraments, what am I doing? I know these aren’t good reasons, they are judgmentalism, and I’m trying to take responsibility for God’s Church onto my own shoulders, which He never asked of me.
I can’t see how my talents would be much use in the priesthood. Even if I could do as the Eastern Churches do and be married AND a priest, I still wouldn’t feel called to the priesthood. Yet I can’t deny that the Church needs priests, and I can’t deny that I might be at least an average, adequate one. I’ve lived with this mask of self-denial (not the good self denial that’s about controlling the flesh, I mean denying who I am, refusing to live my life or embrace challenges or enjoy the gifts I’ve been given) for 20 years or more, if God needs me to, I can continue to live that way for the rest of my life. In a way, it would have been better never to have realised that I’m free to choose (anyone who’s read Flowers for Algernon knows what I’m talking about). I know that for God all things are possible, and if I give up everything for Him, He will be even more generous (though I also bear in mind today’s reading from Evening Prayer - we can’t really give anything to God because it’s His already, we can’t make a trade off with Him). Maybe there is a way that God will show me a still greater freedom, and a still greater use of my talents in the priesthood, but I just don’t see it. All I see in the modern priesthood is an endless, lonely life running multiple parishes, and a lonely death in a retirement home. I know, objectively, that the priesthood is a higher calling, I know that it is a permanent character in the soul, I know that ministering the Sacraments has an infinite value, far outweighing my own academic and parental and missionary talents, and this motivates me with a great love for priests, to pray for vocations, to tell others about it, even to want my own children to be priests. It doesn’t motivate me to be one though. Am I a hypocrite? In any other age of the Church’s history, I wouldn’t even consider the priesthood, but I know the Church needs priests right now, and as much as it hurts, I’m willing to say ‘here I am’. I know, objectively, that it’s a life that has purpose, but I just don’t see myself in it, it’s a darkened room, I can’t see how God will use me in it.
It’s a simple choice - do what only I can do, live out my life in joy in the healthy free use of my talents in God’s service - or do what no-one else seems willing to do, join the priesthood, even though I can’t give a single good reason why.
(continued)
Freedom feels awesome. I’ve spent most of my life running away from the things that were good for me, deliberately wrecking my own life, because that way I at least felt like it couldn’t get worse (I suffer from anxiety disorder, this is quite a common approach - expect the worst, that way no nasty surprises). In the last 2 or 3 years, to make matters worse, I’ve been using the Catholic faith as an excuse for wrecking my life. I became so scrupulous that I’ve developed a nervous tick - I can’t see a woman’s body or other things that arouse me, or think of any thoughts about my past without getting this tick, and then notching up another venial sin to confess. I get the feeling if I continued this way I’d end up staring at my shoes for fear of looking at anyone, frantically praying the rosary over and over for fear of letting a bad thought into my head - repressing these thoughts has got so bad that it’s started to be a cause of sexual perversions - that’s not who I want to be, and it’s not who I feel God is calling me to be. Up until recently, I’ve viewed a vocation as something that you can’t get out of, and it’s made me miserable.
If I were to continue to live in the joy of this freedom, I know the path it would lead me, and I can see how God could use me in that path. I can see how I’d be a good husband and a good dad, I can see it and I want it, I can see how my children would be raised to value service and purity in a way I never was. I can see how my talents as an academic in the policy field would be of use in the lay world, helping to build a better world, not just retreating into the bubble of Church life. I can see how my work in the Legion of Mary does good, spreading the faith. I can see how I’d be energised to go out and change the world with an incredibly powerful love, and that forward-looking would help me forget about sin. I can even see the possibility of the permanent Diaconate in the future. All this seems awesome, yet when recently at confession a priest with a religious order I’ve been spending time with suggested, on hearing about my sexual temptations and difficulty resisting, that I might be happier in married life, it felt like I was a failure, damaged goods.
At the same time, I know every time I saw a priest I’d feel inadequate, every time I saw a church without a priest I’d feel guilty, every time I heard a liberal priest preaching a heretical homily I’d feel like I couldn’t challenge him - at least he’s giving his people the Sacraments, what am I doing? I know these aren’t good reasons, they are judgmentalism, and I’m trying to take responsibility for God’s Church onto my own shoulders, which He never asked of me.
I can’t see how my talents would be much use in the priesthood. Even if I could do as the Eastern Churches do and be married AND a priest, I still wouldn’t feel called to the priesthood. Yet I can’t deny that the Church needs priests, and I can’t deny that I might be at least an average, adequate one. I’ve lived with this mask of self-denial (not the good self denial that’s about controlling the flesh, I mean denying who I am, refusing to live my life or embrace challenges or enjoy the gifts I’ve been given) for 20 years or more, if God needs me to, I can continue to live that way for the rest of my life. In a way, it would have been better never to have realised that I’m free to choose (anyone who’s read Flowers for Algernon knows what I’m talking about). I know that for God all things are possible, and if I give up everything for Him, He will be even more generous (though I also bear in mind today’s reading from Evening Prayer - we can’t really give anything to God because it’s His already, we can’t make a trade off with Him). Maybe there is a way that God will show me a still greater freedom, and a still greater use of my talents in the priesthood, but I just don’t see it. All I see in the modern priesthood is an endless, lonely life running multiple parishes, and a lonely death in a retirement home. I know, objectively, that the priesthood is a higher calling, I know that it is a permanent character in the soul, I know that ministering the Sacraments has an infinite value, far outweighing my own academic and parental and missionary talents, and this motivates me with a great love for priests, to pray for vocations, to tell others about it, even to want my own children to be priests. It doesn’t motivate me to be one though. Am I a hypocrite? In any other age of the Church’s history, I wouldn’t even consider the priesthood, but I know the Church needs priests right now, and as much as it hurts, I’m willing to say ‘here I am’. I know, objectively, that it’s a life that has purpose, but I just don’t see myself in it, it’s a darkened room, I can’t see how God will use me in it.
It’s a simple choice - do what only I can do, live out my life in joy in the healthy free use of my talents in God’s service - or do what no-one else seems willing to do, join the priesthood, even though I can’t give a single good reason why.
(continued)
