Priest, Doctor, Police Officer; What to Do?

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In my opinion, one huge requirement for becoming a priest is having a great love for the Mass. I think people put too much focus on the preaching when the preaching is meant to help us us better appreciate the Eucharist. If you have such a great love, then even joining the seminary won’t be a loss. I have seen many seminarians find out that they weren’t meant to be priests, even after being a deacon for 2 years, but I haven’t heard of any of them regretting the time they spent in the seminary.

As for myself, I looked into my talents to figure out what I should do. I found that even though I go to Mass, I don’t have a large enough love for the Mass to be a priest. Being a deacon where the focus is on ministry later in life is still an option to consider, but I couldn’t be a priest. To be fair, I don’t think anyone can be a priest without God’s grace. Either way, if you feel a strong call to the seminary, then I guess that’s a valid route to go. However, I’d ask around the various orders as well rather than just diocesan.
 
Don’t think about it for a week and when you want to think about it pray. And then after one week see what idea comes into your head first thing in the morning (or after you drink your coffee if you are a coffee drinker).
🤩
 
Take your time. Don’t make an important decisions before you’ve had a really good chance to think about it.

A few boys I was at school with became policemen, some aged 18. Some knew they wanted to be doctors. In the UK, medicine is still normally studied as an undergraduate degree, so most people who become doctors have already decided on that career by 17/18. The same is also true for law, although graduate entry is more common than for medicine.

For most of us, we don’t really know what we want to do by our late teens, or even later! If that is the case, I think the important thing is to take things slowly. What you are doing now is not a waste of time. What can be a waste of time is rushing into something before you’ve had a chance to think it through. If you leave education right now to become a police officer that could turn out to be the best decision you ever make. On the other hand, if you end up not enjoying law enforcement and decide that you really would have liked to do something that requires a degree you may regret it.

Think carefully about your calling to be a priest, especially as you mention the possibility of dating. When I was an undergraduate our chaplain would never encourage somebody who was in a relationship to end that relationship solely in order to go forward with the process for becoming a priest. If a young man became single for other reasons that was a different matter, but he didn’t believe that God calls young couples in love to break up so that one of them can become a priest. It sounds like you are not quite at that stage yet, but you do say that you would like to date somebody, and I wonder whether that is something that you need to give a chance to flourish before committing yourself to celibacy at what is still quite a young age. As you acknowledge, marriage/parenting are also vocations, and ones that the Church encourages.

Four friends of mine from my undergraduate studies discerned vocations; none of them are now priests. One is now a barrister, openly gay, atheist, and strongly liberal (having been a very conservative Catholic). Another does development work in education/arts. Another became an academic and politician, and is married with many children. Another is a highly distinguished international lawyer and legal scholar.

I think that unless you are really serious about the cross-country running I wouldn’t allow that to be the decisive factor in your choice. When I was choosing which college to apply to at Oxford one of the main factors I took into account was what opportunities there would be for me to sing in a chapel choir. As things turned out, I never sang in a chapel choir at all, but I did join the rowing team. I would never have believed that I would give up singing and take up rowing! Looking back, had I realised that I would give up singing, I would have chosen a different college, and things probably have turned out better in some respects than they did. I appreciate that running is probably very important to you right now, but I’d caution somebody against determining the entire future course of his life on the basis of whether or not he’ll be able to carry on running at college.
 
One, to be a priest, is a vocation that must be discerned. Contact the Vocations Director with your Diocese.

In some Dioceses, young men enter a discernment house right out of high school and complete all of their education through the Diocese. Talk to your Director.
 
One of the former priests at my parish had been a police officer for 10-20 years before he enrolled in seminary.

One seminarian I know spent a year or two as an EMT before he went into seminary.

re: the expensive university, one way to cut costs is to take your basics at a local community college, and then transfer them. But make sure they’re basics for your degree, not core classes for your major. So, if you need 8 hours of a foreign language, and 4 hours of inorganic chemistry, and 4 hours of organic chemistry, and you’re not majoring in language or chemistry, then, poof! That’s 16 hours of your degree that you managed to earn at a fraction of the cost, and that’s 16 hours’ worth of hard classes that have been taken care of that free up your focus for other difficult subjects. So you can juggle work and summer classes over the summer, and get ahead that way, or it could be a summer plus the fall.

Staying home and studying/working might also free you up to be more flexible with getting some life experience and see if you have an actual taste for a certain career path-- like, say, working as a dispatcher, or having a part-time job in a lab, or whatever. Then, if you find, “It was cool in my imagination, but the reality is stressful/boring/whatever,” then it won’t distract you anymore, and allow you to focus elsewhere.
 
I’ve been reflecting on this dilemma a little more.

I’m not saying that any of this necessarily applies to you personally. But there’s this horrible rumor that started in my generation (Gen X) and has pervaded into Millennial territory. It’s the rumor that there’s such thing as a Dream Job.

There is no such thing as a Dream Job, a Dream Home, or Dream Spouse/Soulmate/The One. Something will drive you nuts about everything. Our consumerist culture has fed us the lie that we can go shopping for everything in our lives and expect perfection. Please recognize that whatever vocational decision you make will come with trade-offs, good days and bad, joy and regret. Life got a lot easier for me once I came to this place of acceptance and peace.
 
blackforest said:
I’ve been reflecting on this dilemma a little more.

I’m not saying that any of this necessarily applies to you personally. But there’s this horrible rumor that started in my generation (Gen X) and has pervaded into Millennial territory. It’s the rumor that there’s such thing as a Dream Job.

There is no such thing as a Dream Job, a Dream Home, or Dream Spouse/Soulmate/The One. Something will drive you nuts about everything. Our consumerist culture has fed us the lie that we can go shopping for everything in our lives and expect perfection. Please recognize that whatever vocational decision you make will come with trade-offs, good days and bad, joy and regret. Life got a lot easier for me once I came to this place of acceptance and peace.
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As a note, a 19yo is not a millennial, they are gen Z.

It’s way more pervasive in this generation, there was always an idea (at least from the middle ages) that one could be (and really, should be) completely satisfied with vocatiaon.
 
Point well taken about his age, but the saying is that we all complain about the younger generation as though we had nothing to do in forming it.

I’m not sure what generation you belong to, but we can all play our part in righting a wrong - in this case, disabusing the myth of the Dream Job.

Even my favorite jobs had something about them that drove me crazy. Loving the work and seeing the Bigger Picture of my vocation helped me get through it all.
 
RunMan said:
Either way, I know that my community, the Church, our nation, and the world as a whole need good, Catholic priests, doctors, police officers, fathers, and any other professions or vocations. I have a spiritual advisor by the way who I consult often. I always have had an issue with decision making in my life and I just want to make a decision and need all the (name removed by moderator)ut, advice, and suggestions I can get. Thank you for your time
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Priest SAVE Souls

Police protect bodies

Dr’s can save bodies

WHICH MY FRIEND IS THE GREATER CALLING AND HAS THE GREATER NEED?

PRAY and ask GOD what HE wants you to do and be:thinking:😀

Christ Easter Blessings
Patrick
 
I would finish school and then decide, theres nothing worse than trying something out then changing your mind with nothing to fall back on.
 
“I can, I am allowed and I want to” all have to be there in your decision. Whatever you end up choosing you will learn a lot from that. If you later change job/work all your previous experience is going to help you in your future. Call it “the wisdom of the older people”.

An example is someone choosing between teaching and nursing. Both are equally good, the person would do great at both and has the pre requisites for both. Let’s say he/she chooses nursing over teaching as nursing sticks out a little bit more. 25 years later that person could teach nursing to students going into the nursing field.

Go on a retreat preferably the Ignatian one as suggested above or an Individually Guided Retreat, IGR, where you speak with a spiritual director/retreat guide about what comes up during prayer, how to move forward and what to go deeper into. Let the retreat house or monastery know that you are standing at a cross road regarding your future so that they can make sure you get a spiritual director that can walk with you. The Jesuits are the experts on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola but there are other religious orders who organise them as well or retreats.
 
Lots of good advice here. I hope you will speak to a vocations director.
One thing that sticks out for me is that you are inspired to help wherever help is needed: hence you are considering police work.

I admire the police immensely, but also know that they tend to see the seamy side of people. Some say they tend to divide people into “us” and “them=criminals.” They have a higher than normal incidence of PTSD, depression, and other stress-related ills.

We know there is a severe shortage of priests. I would suggest you continue with your studies and talk to a vocations director. A year in seminary has been beneficial to many young men.
 
Doctors - they do - prescribe poor souls - unneeded medications -
And it’s about the money. Many are in the profession for it. ( health insurance racket companies too )

Police. Now your - looking for action.
What a thankless job cops have now.
You better hope for a quiet town. Even then…though…

As a side note, to lighten things up…
( joke ) this plumber fixes this rich guys house…
Charges him 300 an hour -
The house owner says, “ I don’t even make that - as a lawyer “
“ neither did I “ says the now plumber 😛
 
I know I’m a bit late to this party, but I think I may provide a unique perspective.

I am a seminarian applicant. I anticipate entry into seminary this fall.

There will always be those lingering doubts. That is just a fact. I have heard from several priests that they even had doubts about their true path the night before they were to be ordained a deacon! When I started the application process, I also started experiencing more doubts. Doubts come and go. They are a fact of life.

Unfortunately, I think you are too late to enter seminary this fall, if your diocese is like mine. My application process started in January, and is almost done already. However, get in contact with your vocations director anyway. Tell him your basic background, and talk to him about your dilemma. He won’t lead you astray; they don’t want you to be a priest if you are not called. Also, don’t think that entering seminary makes it a done deal. You have at least seven years until you are ordained (Any man younger than 26 is not eligible to be ordained to the priesthood.), all of which are filled with discernment and prayer. You can leave the seminary at any time.

Continue to pray. Continue to discern. Contact your vocations director. That’s my two cents.
 
OP
RunMan said:
Hello all. I am an 19 year old male with one semester of college (out of state) done. I have been discerning a vocation to the priesthood for a while now and almost went to College Seminary out of high school but decided to give “normal” college a try. I ran on the cross country team, was part of some clubs, Knights of Columbus, went on a few mission trips, and volunteered. Overall, it was a good experience.

Now that I am home for the summer, I am wondering what to do next year. The University I go to recently increased fees and it may be financially unfeasible for me and my family for me to continue to go to school there. I still feel very drawn to the priesthood at this time, and the call is stronger than it has ever been. I always thought that I would be a medical professional one way or another, but now I’m not so sure. Also, for some reason, I have recently also felt called to pursue a career in law enforcement in my own town as there has been a huge spike in crime and too few officers to handle this. However, there also has been a huge spike in liberalism and a falling away from the Faith in my diocese and too few priests to handle it, if you know what I mean.

I feel torn between what to do. My options right now seem to be: go back to the University I went to this year, contact my diocese’s vocation director and look into next steps for the priesthood, or look into becoming a police officer in my town (which you can do at the age of 18). I have spent many, many hours in prayer and Eucharistic Adoration considering this decision and still am torn in all directions.

I want to be able to make a decision soon so that I can plan the rest of my summer off of it; ie if I was going to do something in the medical field would need to do clinical work, volunteer, research, etc. or if I was going to do law enforcement, study for the tests and look for classes. I want to at least try dating someone this summer if I am not going to be going into the priesthood.

Either way, I know that my community, the Church, our nation, and the world as a whole need good, Catholic priests, doctors, police officers, fathers, and any other professions or vocations. I have a spiritual advisor by the way who I consult often. I always have had an issue with decision making in my life and I just want to make a decision and need all the (name removed by moderator)ut, advice, and suggestions I can get. Thank you for your time!
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My son is a young ordained Priest of the Diocese of Sacramento for two years and counting. I see similarities of his journey to the Priesthood with your struggles to choose a vocation.
We will pray for you.
Read the link of his vocation story published by Catholic Herald Magazine:
http://www.faithdigital.org/Sacramento/CH0717/mobile/index.html?doc=1C3B9660D3B6A7B157A0A6C5F2CCBB7C
 
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Seagull said:
Doctors - they do - prescribe poor souls - unneeded medications -

And it’s about the money. Many are in the profession for it. ( health insurance racket companies too )
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I’m sorry, but it gets really old hearing/reading how doctors are in it for the money and all they do is prescribe unneeded meds and procedures to get more of it.

Scum is everywhere - including police forces. Doesn’t mean I go around talking about how I hate cops - although that seems to be pretty in vogue for a lot of people.
 
I don’t talk bad about cops -
their job is one of the toughest - and dangerous.
And always under the closest scrutiny.
Especially when punk rioters with ski masks - get in their faces.
 
I once was in a similar place as you are. I wanted to be a priest but was called to marriage so that solved that issue (but still plan to explore being a deacon when I am old enough)

I was also interested in medicine but couldn’t afford the schooling. I went to college to be a history teacher, but then the recession hit and now I have been in Law Enforcement for 5 years now.

I will tell you this, it is not easy. The environment is very challenging and the shift schedules are horrible. The job is extremely hard on families as well. You really have to feel a calling to it. Whatever fun you may have is coupled with hours and hours or paper work and routine. Nevertheless it is a good job to have and you will learn a lot. Depending on where you live you don’t have to have a degree to start the job, but usually its encouraged that you get one at some point. So maybe try it out for a couple years and see what you think? You can always leave it and do something else and will have some great experience on your resume. Be forewarned though the job will challenge your faith in humanity as 90+% of the time you are dealing with the criminal element who hates you and projects all their failings you. Let me know if you have any further questions on this. Good luck
 
People don’t “try” the seminary. Seminarians have to be sponsored by their diocese or religious order. Discernment is never a one-way street.
 
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