Patience and Seminary

[Angus]

Is it normal when applying to seminary to have doubts about whether right now is the right time to enter? I am ready for this next step, and have been in the application process for a month now, but there is a small part of me that questions if right now is the right time… Whether I should wait a year to build patience and greater understanding of what life is truly like. My vocations director feels as though I am ready, as does my spiritual director. I feel as though I am called to go to seminary to further my discernment, I think about it all the time. Maybe I am caught up in my past sins and my one recent slip up that pester my thoughts… I do not want to be like the hare, quick and agile, but unable to finish the race. I want to be the tortoise, steady and determined.

 

[Gertabelle]

Go with the direction of you vocations director and spiritual director. Be at peace.

 

[JHFamily]

If the vocation director and the spiritual director feel that you are ready, that is a sign that you, indeed, are.

 

[InThePew]

It’s common for applicants to have doubts about the right time to enter - after all, the act of entering is itself a significant step. We can never be absolutely certain whether the time is or isn’t right and it’s tempting to keep kicking the can down the road, because there’s always more experience we can can, more things we can do to improve our CV. Ultimately though, there comes a point at which you just have to close your eyes (so to speak) and take a leap of faith into the unknown - scary though it may be. Otherwise, as someone once put it to me, you risk end up joining the order for perpetual discernment!

 

[Angus]

The biggest hindrance to me is just my past sins. I have confessed and received absolution, but it hasn’t been a long time since I committed these sins. However, my life has completely changed. I fell once recently but I know we all make mistakes. I guess I am just fearful of them saying “not yet.”

 

[InThePew]

They may well say that… or they may not but, at the risk of stating the obvious, there’s only one way to find out! If you are asked to wait remember that, painful though it will be and difficult to accept, everything happens in God’s time. As far as your past is concerned, if anything you’re probably a better person for the experience and this in turn will (God willing) help make you a better priest - after all, God chooses those who most need His help!