Can anyone offer some advice?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ironman62292
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I

ironman62292

Guest
Hi everyone. I have quite a dilemma and I was sort of wondering if anyone could offer some sort of advice. Here’s my problem. I feel that God is calling me to the priesthood, but I feel a strong attraction to married life.

You see I met this girl who goes to our church. Her name is Crystal. At our festival I had an opportunity to talk with her. I’ve talked with her before and I find her very appealing. You see, she is extremly beautiful, and I don’t physically. She is very beautiful physically, but she is even more beautiful interiorly. When I speak to her I find no fault within her. I’m not sure how but I can tell she has a pure heart. She is unlike the girls you normally find in this corrupt society, she has been preserved from such corruption.

She loves God and her personality is amazing. Her characteristics are exactly the kind I look for in a girl. She meets my criteria perfectly, which is centered on God. And unlike other girls I feel sort of relaxed and comfortable around her, not all tense and nervous as I usually do. But you see, there’s something more. We were talking and she told me how she may be leaving to Texas with her brother, to live there. At the time I was happy for her to be moving to such a beautiful place. But now I don’t want her to go. She’s my friend, I have so few of them and I don’t want to lose any more of them.

Everyday I ask God what he wants me to do, what his will is. I am divided. I know the priesthood could always be an option for me, but Crystal may not always be around. I did forget to mention that she is 3 years older than me, but if you look at her you can’t tell her age, she looks my age almost.

You see, it’s not an easy choice to be a priest or not. It will easily be the most difficult dicision of my life. I love God, I want to serve God, but I like girls, a lot. You can’t imagine the inner turmoil I feel. It makes me wonder if I’m being tested, or if this is something from within myself. What do you think? Thanks a lot, I will greatly appreciate any comment from anyone.
 
ironman62292 said:
Hi everyone. I have quite a dilemma and I was sort of wondering if anyone could offer some sort of advice. Here’s my problem. I feel that God is calling me to the priesthood, but I feel a strong attraction to married life.

You see I met this girl who goes to our church. Her name is Crystal. At our festival I had an opportunity to talk with her. I’ve talked with her before and I find her very appealing. You see, she is extremly beautiful, and I don’t physically. She is very beautiful physically, but she is even more beautiful interiorly. When I speak to her I find no fault within her. I’m not sure how but I can tell she has a pure heart. She is unlike the girls you normally find in this corrupt society, she has been preserved from such corruption.

She loves God and her personality is amazing. Her characteristics are exactly the kind I look for in a girl. She meets my criteria perfectly, which is centered on God. And unlike other girls I feel sort of relaxed and comfortable around her, not all tense and nervous as I usually do. But you see, there’s something more. We were talking and she told me how she may be leaving to Texas with her brother, to live there. At the time I was happy for her to be moving to such a beautiful place. But now I don’t want her to go. She’s my friend, I have so few of them and I don’t want to lose any more of them.

Everyday I ask God what he wants me to do, what his will is. I am divided. I know the priesthood could always be an option for me, but Crystal may not always be around. I did forget to mention that she is 3 years older than me, but if you look at her you can’t tell her age, she looks my age almost.

You see, it’s not an easy choice to be a priest or not. It will easily be the most difficult dicision of my life. I love God, I want to serve God, but I like girls, a lot. You can’t imagine the inner turmoil I feel. It makes me wonder if I’m being tested, or if this is something from within myself. What do you think? Thanks a lot, I will greatly appreciate any comment from anyone.
Click to expand...
Go for the girl.
 
Do a 30 day Novena to St.Joseph and ask him to guide you in this choice.
 
You should read 1 Corinthians 7. It is a chapter about marriage. St. Paul says that it is better for a man to be married than be on fire with passion. If you have the self-control to be single, than choose the priesthood. However, if you cannot control your passions, choose marriage. Don’t feel bad if you think you cannot control your passions. Most people today fall in this category and that is why most people are married. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the responses. I appreciate it. No offense eyeod but I have to get the girl first. Please if there is anyone else willing to help me out I’d greatly appreciate it. Also If it makes any difference I’m 16 and I think she’s 19. Thanks everyone
 
ironman62292 said:
Thanks for the responses. I appreciate it. No offense eyeod but I have to get the girl first. Please if there is anyone else willing to help me out I’d greatly appreciate it. Also If it makes any difference I’m 16 and I think she’s 19. Thanks everyone
Click to expand...
At 16 you need to think about school.

Kathy
 
Kathy’s right of course.

But of course you will be thinking of the future. You don’t have to make the decision yet. Make arrangements with Crystal to keep in touch by letter or email and see how it goes, but someone who was sure his vocation is priesthood might consider that God removed the girl to take away the distraction.

A lifetime is a long time. A lifetime as a priest is a long time, just as to be married is.
Don’t imagine that there isn’t a priest who might at some time or other yearn for married life. Don’t imagine that at some time or other he won’t secretly be in love with someone good and pure and exceptional…in fact that’s probably precisely the type of person who tests his vocation at sometime during his life, or more than once…and it really isn’t surprising. If you were called to be a priest and you hadn’t yet met some angel of a girl, you will sooner or later.

I don’t know how much it is the ‘controlling the passions’ thing eyeod mentions, rightly pointing to Corinthians. That’s one half of the question. The other half is the companionship issue. There is companionship in belonging to a Religious Community as a priest or Religious, but that doesn’t really answer all of the companionship question.

Even so, marriage doesn’t guarantee companionship, happiness, or love, as every priest knows, and as everyone who frequents the forums knows. I once saved a priest’s vocation precisely because I wrote him a six page letter about the pain and disillusion of mariage…and though commonsense could have informed him that some marriages are happy, because (I realised but ignored it) he had grown fond of me in the months I tried to re-kindle his vocation, he was shocked into an immediate turn-around. He wasn’t to be married. There wasn’t anyone, he just wanted marriage after several years as a priest. He had told me that no one else had defended his vocation as I had and even his fellow priests had told him to leave if priesthood was making him ill; but immediately after he got my letter he revived and was as committed, but wiser, than he had ever been, according to what he said. I encounterd him by chance him twice, years apart, and he was flourishing as a priest, almost unrecognisable to the priest I first met.He returned to the wonderful vitality that was his nature.
I first encountered him at his most depressed. He was extremely good-looking and quite charming, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was to give him back to God and see him flourishing in his vocation again.

It’s the reality of life that no priest can leave his nature behind. He deals with it. In marriage you also just have to deal with it if you meet someone who inspires you more than anyone ever did, and clearly but silently adores you. You have to look away from that too. Not even appear to notice, but be careful not to inflame or seek it out, and make distance where you can.

Keep in touch with your girl and see what happens. Keep praying, keep discerning, but trust God to lead you quietly. Protect your faith and your gospel living, be faithful to the Sacraments. I you are to be married by God’s wish, let it be so. If a priest, let God make that so, in His time and way.

Best wishes, and my prayers, Trishie
 
Throughout life, our feelings will come and go. At 16–I can remember ‘feeling’ like I was going to marry my then boyfriend of a few months. We were going to rent a helicopter and fly away to our wedding…:rolleyes: Not to say what you are feeling is not real, please know, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that at 16, you have a lot of life to live. Being friends with this girl who sounds terrific, is a great start–and praying to God to open your heart to whatever is His will, is a way to make sure that you are not eliminating the potential of becoming a priest. Not many people hear God calling them to become a priest–the fact that you have heard that calling, that you seem drawn to it, is worth keeping an open mind and heart to. All doors should be kept open–but most importantly…keep your ears open to that still, small voice from God.

He will guide you. Take each day at a time, and remember…feelings are fleeting, but God’s will never is.

I will keep you in my prayers that you’ll always follow God’s will for your life. God bless!
 
Give yourself some time, give yourself a break. You honestly should not be considering life long commitments such as either the priesthood or marriage at your age. You should be developing yourself as a person, as an adult, as a part of society and figuring out exactly what your place in society is. This takes time, which at the age of 16 you really do have plenty of time. Don’t believe life is short. I’m 36, and at this point I don’t feel that life’s been all that short, it’s been a lot of work so far, and a whole lot of decisions.

One reason you should really take it easy is that physically you are still developing, your brain included. Your brain is not an adult brain. You have a better ability to learn than I do, but my extra 20 years has given me a better ability to look at the big picture. You really can’t make life long decisions without seeing the big picture. Basically, your brain is not as well connected as someone ten years older than you. You’re speeding into the future because that’s what your brain is designed to do right now, speed into experience. But you don’t want to speed into life long decisions, especially decisions which will impact other people such as marriage or the priesthood. That’s not to say you can’t think about these things, but you can’t put pressure on yourself at this point to make a decision like either marriage or the priesthood with any certainty.

The specific part of your brain which has not completed development is the frontal lobe. Research this fact, and then give yourself a breather. Here’s a short article that details what’s going on with your brain right now:
The teenage brain is a late-childhood brain. It’s not yet a fully mature adult brain. They’re at the end of a childhood pattern of brain physiology and have emerging adult patterns. So they’re at the crossroads of these two points in development. And as you know, children can learn very quickly, they go through what we cal a “critical period” (synaptic plasticity): Early in childhood, children can learn two or three languages flawlessly, whereas adults struggle to learn a second language with even getting a mild accent under control. So teenagers are still at that peak learning; they’re coming down to adult levels but they are still more able to pick things up, memorize and imprint on things than perhaps later in life. Now, the thing is though they also haven’t acquired a really important feature of the adult brain, which is how the different brain areas really connect to each other. As we get older, we develop better, stronger connections between our different regions of the brain. And it actually develops from the back of your brain to the front. And, big surprise, the last place to develop and connect is the frontal lobe. This process is called myelination, which is actually a wrapping of the connections to make them conduct signal faster. It’s probably how adults compensate for not having the brilliant learning that children have. So the last place to connect is the frontal lobe. Now we know that the frontal lobe has some very special properties. It’s what controls insight, judgment, blocks you from too much risk taking behavior - and these are all issues with the teenage brain and teenagers are notorious for risk taking, poor judgment, not really thinking through things properly, yet they can be very sharp at the same time and can be memorizing all these things for the SATs and be whizzing through material. Yet they’re not showing judgment. So that’s the paradox: they are very, very sharp on the one hand with respect to their ability to learn and their physiology that underlies learning but the connectivity is lagging.
Click to expand...
[source](http://www.childrenshospital.org/patientsfamilies/Site1393/ma(name removed by moderator)ageS1393P316sublevel357.html)

Definitely keep touch with this girl. Another ten years from now, you’ll both be in a better position to be making life long decisions.
 
Trishie said:
A lifetime is a long time.
Click to expand...
We don’t always get a lifetime. If you care about someone…say it. No matter how young or healthy you are, the ones you love can be taken away in an instant.

To OP:
Concentrate on school, but don’t ignore the rest of your life. You can have a healthy relationship during school, if you can be disciplined and organized.

Tell her how you feel, and talk about this with her. Listen to what she has to say, and take it to heart.
 
I know a lot of people are telling you you are too young at 16, but I wouldn’t necessarily agree. Of course, the girl being 19, she is going to be at a very different place than you are, too. I was ready to get married and have children by 19- it is what broke up my relationship before I met my husband, because they guy I was with didn’t want children. I went from a “childhood” relationship to being ready for marriage, so I had to move on. 16 is young, so I certainly wouldn’t say get married tomorrow, but that’s not to say you can’t figure out your vocation at this age. I think it’s also important to figure out what she is looking for, too, before making any decision.
That being said, I heard it said by a priest guest on CAL (can’t remember whom) that if you have even the slightest calling towards the priesthood, you should head to the seminary because that is where you figure those things out. So since this girl is going to be moving, I would consider perhaps getting into the seminary and seeing where the Lord leads you. He will let you know. My husband is a former seminarian. 😉
 
Just by reading your post, and all the accolades heaped on Crystal, I’d say you don’t really wanna be priest.

I’d pursue Crystal if I were you, and if it didn’t work out, I’d take that as a message.

The seminary isn’t goin anywhere, but Crystal is a different matter, I don’t imagine a girl like you described is gonna be available very long.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top