From the Pastor’s Desk:

On May the eighth the Church celebrates Mother’s Day and World Day of Prayer for Vocations. I’m not sure why the church placed Vocations Day on this particular Sunday, so I am going to write my letter for this weekend on vocations, a look at discerning the priesthood. There are two areas or things that I hear from young guys thinking about the priesthood; lifelong commitment and celibacy. Our world and society offers so many choices to young people in the area of jobs. So many people change jobs or careers after only a few years, due to money or simply, “I don’t like it.” How can a young person make a lifelong commitment to be a priest or religious? In my almost 41 years of priesthood. I do not get bored, I simply move to a different ministry that day or week. When a young man enters the seminary, he is not saying “I’m going to be a priest, but rather, “I’m going to study what it means to be a priest.” It is also extremely important to understand that entering a seminary does not erase the desire for marriage. Through years of study and a process of formation, the church invites men to freely choose the gift of celibacy, not as a burdensome obligation, but happily, as a pathway to conforming their lives to Christ. After years of study and discernment a seminarian must have discovered a “celibate heart,” a joy of serving the Lord above all else, leaving behind the beauty of family life for an even greater spiritual good. There as long been a debate on the Church’s teaching that her priests be unmarried, that they have the Church as their spouse. St Paul wrote in I Cor. Chapter 7, “An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.” It is important to understand that the choice between priesthood and marriage is not a choice between sacrifice and bliss. In celibacy the joys of family life is a true sacrifice, but family life also brings many burdens and crosses. As a person feels an intense natural desire for love, sex and family, these require a substantial sacrifice and a dying to self for the good of the marriage. A good marriage takes a great amount of sacrifice and work. The main point is that both marriage and priesthood have their own unique joys and require their own unique sacrifices.