I say this because I think that if every church of 500 parishoners had 5 priests and 10 deacons, I may not pursue these vocations as someone else already was.
In this way I have differentiated diocesan vocations from the the monastic vocations. In a monastic or eremetical environment such as Mt Athos the quantity of vocations is I think less significant, essentially for them it’s the more the merrier. This is probably a setting that I’d be happier in as well because I think celibate life is less lonely when you are in a fraternal community of brothers and sisters on a daily basis with more evenly shared responsibility (you can see I have the impression that diocesan priests have too much responsibility and loneliness)
However at the same time I don’t think I would mind being a diocesan deacon or priest if I was ordained as a married man as this guarantees a familial environment and that I would be left with less responsibility as I would never have time to serve all the parishoners because my family would come first. It would serve as a permanent excuse to have a less active role. But while I say I would not mind being a married priest, I don’t know that I would pursue it if plenty of other people had the interest (which they don’t).
Have I a flawed understanding of the priesthood to view it as a position filled or unfilled? I’m aware that theres an indelible mark upon ones soul but lots of jobs leave such big marks on people, so thats not unsual, except that it is the soul.
