Tom Gibbons, CSP, a Paulist Seminarian and all around great guy has been blogging for BustedHalo on his experience as a seminarian. Today's edition was quite good. A snip:
A friend of mine sent me an e-mail… and ex-girlfriend no less… about a new television show that was going to be on that weekend: God or the Girl. The show is a four part series about four young men going through the discernment process for the priesthood, and at the end of the series they would each come to a decision. Gerry, knowing that discerning had been a big part of my life a few years ago sent me a link to the web site with the subject line, “Are you going to watch?”
Discerning religious life had been a big part of my life for over ten years, but two years before I had finally come to the conclusion that it was not for me; the idea of not having a family was too hard for me, emotionally or intellectually, to comprehend. So when I looked at the web site for the show and read about the stories of the four guys on the show I thought, “Yeah, I remember when I was thinking about that… Man that really sucked.” I turned off my computer and headed upstairs for bed.
Except that I couldn’t get to sleep… all night. Thoughts about the priesthood kept rolling around my head, emotions I thought I had put aside two years ago started coming back, and realizations about my life suddenly pushed through my conscious. Half way through the night, despite whatever things I wanted to do in life, despite the fact that I was still in love with Marie, despite very real reservations I have about the current state of the Church, and despite the fact that this would be totally up-ending my life, God was telling me...
Get the rest of this story here and a hysterical take on wedding gifts and ordination gifts as well.
And pray for our seminarians while you're at it. As the year ends they are often fraught with a number of discerning questions.
1 comment:
Praying for you and your family. God bless you.
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