Every Catholic male ponders the question at one point or another: "Should I become a priest?"
I don't know what God is. I don't know what God is not. Putting him in the category of "knowing" and "being" are not even justice to His existence.
The sacrament of being called to the priesthood comes through Holy Orders. If I don't know God or how he really talks to me, then how would I know that I am being called? Priests, parishioners, friends, family--they all say "you have to listen! you have to be ready and able to hear God's call" Okay...
What does that even mean? Do I feel it? Do I stay my path until one day I find myself either with a wife and kids or at the pulpit? Something in me fights the idea of being a priest. I don't know what it is or where it comes from. Is that God? Is that me? If it's me, is it selfish preservation of the freedoms of a layperson? I'd hate to be called to be a priest and miss it because I wasn't listening...
Then again, if it was in His will, I'm sure it would happen. Right? I've never really been on the fence with the idea, as I said I do not wish to become one. To make the idea even more inappropriate, the advantages of being a priest are what I think of when contemplating the calling:
I don't know what God is. I don't know what God is not. Putting him in the category of "knowing" and "being" are not even justice to His existence.
The sacrament of being called to the priesthood comes through Holy Orders. If I don't know God or how he really talks to me, then how would I know that I am being called? Priests, parishioners, friends, family--they all say "you have to listen! you have to be ready and able to hear God's call" Okay...
What does that even mean? Do I feel it? Do I stay my path until one day I find myself either with a wife and kids or at the pulpit? Something in me fights the idea of being a priest. I don't know what it is or where it comes from. Is that God? Is that me? If it's me, is it selfish preservation of the freedoms of a layperson? I'd hate to be called to be a priest and miss it because I wasn't listening...
Then again, if it was in His will, I'm sure it would happen. Right? I've never really been on the fence with the idea, as I said I do not wish to become one. To make the idea even more inappropriate, the advantages of being a priest are what I think of when contemplating the calling:
- Part of a sacred brotherhood that has lasted for centuries
- No financial worries
- Pride in duty/position
- Trips to Rome and the Holy Land
- Admiration of many people
- Closeness to God and more time to contemplate faith
I don't think that "perks" should be weight to tip the scale in wanting to be a priest. I feel as though it should be something deeper and spiritual. I've asked priests why they went through the seminary and ordination, and surprisingly, I met quite a few who spoke of it as being without "a calling", but instead that it "made sense" or "seemed like the right thing to do". Boy that complicates things.
I have never been able to see myself in the future. Even as a kid, I couldn't picture myself in my 20s. Now in my 20s I can't see myself in my 30s or even as an old man. I want to get married and have children of my own, but I can't see it. I can't see myself alone and yet I can't see myself aging with another person. All my life I assumed that this meant I would die young or something. But maybe it's just like that for everyone. People say they can "see it" because they can imagine it. I have done too many things for reasons that I don't know that I don't bother imagining. I don't even know how or why I did them. Will becoming a priest one day just happen like that also? Or will finding a wife and making a family just happen?
