What would you do?

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Cruikshank_s

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Here’s the deal:

I’ve felt for many years that I’m called to the priesthood. However, through family distaste and my own foolish actions it’s become a much harder discernment process than expected. I’m 21 and a junior in college. When I was a senior in High School, I told my parents I was thinking of becoming a priest. They reluctantly agreed to allow me to speak with the vocations director. I had been very active in the Church through youth ministry and altar serving. Through it all (about 2 years) My parents would use my desire to be a priest against me. For example: My room was left a mess: “How can you expect to be a priest when you live like this!” I would smart mouth my mom or dad: “How dare you treat me like that! And you think you’re all holy wanting to be a priest! You should be ashamed of yourself!” etc etc etc over and over again.

I know I’m not worthy. I know I’m a miserable sinner. I know I’m a bad son sometimes. I know I probably wouldn’t be the best priest. I know I can have a temper. I know I can be messy. But what I couldn’t seem to explain was that I felt deep inside me that I was meant to be a priest despite all of that.

I got extremely depressed because of it all, and one night when my mom was picking at it, I went off. I just blew up. I told my parents that I hated the priests who would bug me about a vocation. I told them I didn’t want anything to do with the priesthood. I told them a lot of things. I just hated the fact that my vocation was constantly being used as a way to increase my already unhealthy sense of unworthiness. All it ever did was support my being put down.

I changed my major to health science in the hopes of being a surgical nurse. I pretended to enjoy it, I pretended to forget my vocation. all the while I was seeing a spiritual director and talking about God’s will for me in secret. I planned on getting my degree and holding a job for at least a year. Then once I was out of the house and financially stable I would do what I really wanted to do and join the seminary. That way I could find out once and for all weather or not I was truly meant to be a priest.

This semester I quit my health classes and took 12 units of stuff I actually enjoy. Photography, spanish, psychology, and a fitness class. I haven’t yet told my parents. I want now, more than ever to follow my heart and try out this seminary thing and apply for the fall of next year. How would you, put in my situation explain this to your parents? I’m planning on telling them this week.
 
I can kind of imagine the pain you are going through right now. I didn’t tell my mom I was discerning until I was in the 6th month of my discernment. I couldn’t do it. But, unlike you, I was able to give her the benefit of the doubt, and go ahead and tell her thinking that it would be fine, and she would actually be happy for me. It didn’t go quite as planned. She was very skeptical about my discernment and thought for sure that like everything else in my life (I have adult ADD; I just found out about 2 or 3 years ago), I would think about it for a little while, and then give up. But it didn’t happen the way she planned. She kept trying to talk to me about marriage and children, but I knew in my heart that that was not to be. One day, I got fed up with it, and I told her that I did not appreciate the marriage talk when I was considering the Sisterhood seriously. She and I got into a fight because we were both too stubborn to admit we were wrong. But about a week later, she was asking me questions about the Sisterhood and took an active interest. She knows that I am serious about this because I show her by attending Church regularly, participating in ministries in the Church, attend Adoration and Reconciliation regularly, etc. I have even asked her if she wanted to attend Church with me on a Saturday (daily Mass) and then go to Adoration (she’s never been) and pray the Rosary with me and the community. She was actually bothered by the fact that we ended up having to miss it. It has really helped me to see that my mother supports my vocation all because I stood up for it. If you are sure about your vocation, you must do the same.

I’ve never had my mother or father use my vocation against me, but I’ve often wondered if anyone has had this happen. I’m sorry to hear that it has happened to you. But Jesus permitted this trial for a reason. He wants you to trust in Him alone! You MUST oblige Him if you are serious about becoming a priest. You can’t back down any longer. You are an adult and, while you are still your mother and father’s child, you are your own person, and most importantly, you are God’s child. If they don’t understand you, it’s because they don’t understand what a tremendous and beautiful gift has been given to their family!

I would suggest that you speak to your spiritual director and ask him what you should say. He knows you better than I, but no one knows you better than God. Keep praying about it and attending Mass regularly.

My advice about the exterior life is that, if you are still living in your parents’ house, make an active effort to show them how serious you are as an adult. Keep a clean room, keep your temper, do your share in the household, etc. Some of this might be easier said than done, but hopefully your parents will notice your interest.

God bless you and please know that I am praying daily for all vocations! You are God’s own, and that makes you really special! 😃 :crossrc:
 
I also forgot to mention that no one is perfect. EVERYONE makes mistakes. Just because you have imperfections does not mean God is not calling you to the priesthood. The fact that this call remains in spite of what your parents have said means that you are showing a genuine vocation–one that you must act on! Remember what Jesus said:

“I came to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

👍
 
I’ll keep you in all my Masses and prayers.

And people must really be fed up by now by my posting prayers from my journal, in fact I cringe myself, but I was never really sure if I wrote the prayers just for me or for others too, so though I cring at how sick people must get of them, they do say what comes from who I really am…and particular ones come to mind when faced with a thread’s issues sometimes. This one says that okay, you’re not perfect, but any priest has his reality that in some way includes personal faults and limitations.
The following I wrote in prayer on behalf of priests, for whom I’ve felt called to daily pray since Lent 1980

Vulnerable human reality

Jesus, You chose Your priests from amongst Your people, yet in the sacramental ‘laying of hands’ You do not perfect us. Like those we serve, we need pardon, healing, prayer and faith as we seek grace to become humble, genuine witnesses of Christ.

Through Sacrament and intercession, teaching and act, we encourage and instruct Your people as You call us in our personal human history and reality, to be instruments of Your grace for others.

By your honest expression of rightly directed human emotion, intelligence and personality, You witnessed the wholeness of our nature when creatively lived in God’s love. In Your authenticity as a vital human, **You revealed that each person’s salvation is projected around reality, not around some ideal self. Wholeness is found in one’s actual situation with its limitations and advantages. It is offered within one’s true personality in its abilities and handicaps. **

Allow us to recognise Your unique expression of love in each other person. Give us the gift of revealing to everyone we meet and serve—the image within him of the glorious, loving beauty of You amid his human frailties and strengths. We thus encourage his trust and affirm his hope in Your patient lifelong moulding of him in the overwhelming love of Your personal plan for him.

In us, therefore—who are no less human than any other person—is manifest the wise charity and the gentle humility of Christ, to each person who comes before You in contrition, thankfulness, faith and joy. We thank and praise You Jesus, who shared all weakness of our nature except sin.

Help us to respect and encourage everyone, pardoning those who offend or inconvenience us. In liberty of spirit born of obedience, faith, and of freedom from undue attachments—we allow Your grace and witness to flow through us to others. We trust that You accomplish this even where there is no evidence of Your action.

Please sustain us as generous, inspired instruments of grace for Your continuing mission, as we alert others to the light of the Spirit in their lives. **We glorify You, as we daily accept this joyful cross of our priestly ministry, while managing the challenges of our own vulnerable humanity! Thank You Jesus, Who throughout the ages lovingly uses Your imperfect creatures as instruments of love, service, and glory! **1982
 
Keep in mind that God is most wonderously glorified by working through the greatest of sinners. The more we mess up and the more insignificant we are the more obvious it is that everything “we” do is actually done by Him. If God can take anti-Christian murderers, prostitutes, and loose men and women of all stripes and turn them into saints, then surely he can overcome our imperfections…if we allow Him!

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
Lord, I am not worthy…

In Christ’s Peace, Love, and everlasting Grace.
Stephen
 
Oh, and since I didn’t say it, that first paragraph was supposed to be the gist of what you can say to your parents. Just a little inspiration. 🙂
 
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