New Life

When I was in University I double majored in English and Religious Studies. My desire to study English was based on a dream of getting hired at my old high school and being able to encourage and tell the students of Oxon Hill High that God deeply loved them. My experience in high school had been one that my teachers never encouraged me, or really challenged me to discover my full potential. So as a University student I was gun-ho about using English as a camouflage of sorts to go spread the Gospel of Christ. As I look back at this I thank God He did not let me teach English. The student’s would have learned a lot about God’s love, but would have been pretty terrible at grammar and the English language.

I wasn’t quite sure why I took Religious Studies as a double major; I definitely did not need the extra classes or work, but something about it intrigued me. As I look back now I can recognize that God had plans I was not aware of yet, and sure enough, having a Religious Studies degree allowed me to get into Youth Ministry. In Youth Ministry I was able to tell young people about God without the camouflage and would not be held responsible for their poor English skills.

When I graduated University I immediately went looking for a job at Oxon Hill High and there was a vacant position in the English department—“it had to be God’s will!” I said. For the good fortune of those high school students, the Pastor at Good Shepherd Catholic Church, my home parish, called me to chat about Youth Ministry. I met with him and he asked me to apply for the job. As I sat there talking to him about Youth Ministry it occurred to me that this job was perfect for me. Youth Ministry was all about telling young people about God’s love for them. It had never occurred to me that this was a possible career.

What I thought I was going to do and what God actually wanted me to do were very different. For three years I had wanted to get involved in the public school system and I was trained scholastically for that, but God had different plans.

For the last six years or so I’ve had a call to the priesthood and for the last two years I have been exploring that vocation by actively discerning it as a seminarian. I recognized the Lord allowing me to do Youth Ministry as a preparation for seminary, and everything in my life had trained and pointed me towards priesthood. However, after two years of intense questioning, discerning and living the life of a seminarian it has been made clear to me that this is not where God wants me to be. It is hard to write these words, since in my heart I have longed to follow this path of priesthood. My 8 day Ignatian retreat was very clear in confirming what I had been feeling this whole year. I would like to share some of what I experienced in this retreat with you:

This past year was a trying one vocationally; questions that began to break the surface my first year at the Farm (where 1^st year guys go) rapidly reached full float in Toronto. Since my conversion in University, I have in one way or another, ended up center stage in different ministry’s giving talks, counseling, preaching and teaching about the Scriptures and the faith. This opportunity to proclaim God’s love and Word has, and will continue to be the deepest desire of my heart. Through this experience and many earlier ones from childhood I slowly began to feel a nudge from God towards considering the priesthood. Everybody and their mother encouraged me to go and join seminary and finally, after much prayer and discernment, not to mention the Lord was absolutely obnoxious in His pursuit—I did.

As I entered formation at the Farm the questions that arose in my heart were about ‘why’ the priesthood. Since my heart’s desire was to communicate God’s love and Word it was a logical conclusion that as a Catholic, priesthood, was the best venue for that. Still, I found myself wrestles with certain things. The preaching, teaching and counseling part of the priesthood I was sold on, but the sacramental aspect just didn’t do much for me. Now, let me clarify, I love the Sacraments, but me actually “making them happen” was not the main point for wanting to be a priest. Upon much discussion with my spiritual director, and the Farm priests, I was told not to worry about these questions for now and continue through, but to keep them in the back of my mind as something to come back to. So I did, yet these uncertainties continued to nag at me. One day I was asked by a seminarian, “What is something that’s particular to the priesthood that you are attracted to?” All of my answers were things not particular to the priesthood at all; in fact they were all common to lay and religious life. Celebrating the Eucharist, baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc. were not even in the picture for me when I thought of priesthood—it was all about preaching, teaching and counseling. As all of you know, the ministerial priesthood is more than just preaching, teaching and counseling, yet these were my only focus.

In Toronto, through my philosophy and theology classes, and continual discernment, I began to recognize that these questions and uncertainties were not just my own constructs from fear of commitment to religious life (which wasn’t an issue, but I thought it might have been). It became clearer and clearer that the Lord was asking me to not be a priest. For the last 6 years or so I have thought that the Lord wanted me to be His priest, and when I joined the Companions of the Cross (CC’s) it was a “glove in hand” experience. The CC’s spirituality and mission was deeply rooted in my heart—it is my spirituality and mission as well! By February it was almost certain that I would be leaving, but I wanted to confirm this with the Ignatian retreat that all second year seminarians are required to go on. The retreat not only confirmed this, but also revealed to me that I have guilt issues.

When ever I had considered not going to seminary, or possibly leaving it I felt guilty. During one of the meditations at the retreat I asked Jesus, through a colloquy prayer (a kind of prayer you pretend you are in a scripture passage talking to the characters, or taking their place in the story), “If I leave seminary, will this please You?” His response was, “Yes.” I immediately felt joy run through my body and then, slowly, guilt creped in. I took this to the retreat director and she recognized that this was not from the Lord and to make a long story short the guilt issues came from my own brokenness, and family issues. In my family there have been many instances where when I didn’t do something according to their standards I was told so in a way that brought about feelings of guilt within me. Being the oldest and the only one (so far) to graduate from University brought about much expectations to “make it” in the world. Especially as an immigrant family, making it A.K.A being successful was/is a parents dream for their children, especially after all the parents have to sacrifice in leaving their homeland for the betterment of their children. Parents have their own expectations of what their kids should do, they dream about it as they hold them as infants, and sometimes when those two points of view clash the kids tend to feel that they are in the wrong, even if everything within them tells them otherwise.  I was translating my guilt issues with my family on to God. Even though the Lord had made it perfectly clear this past year that I would not go on towards the priesthood, I allowed the guilt that my relationship with my family caused, to be placed on my relationship with God, hence the guilt whenever “leaving seminary” popped into my mind.

After recognizing the guilt issues, and being able to call them out, I was able to recognize how the Lord had been working in these last two years. My guilt was exactly that, mine; my family couldn’t make me feel anything, it was all me. As the retreat continued it was a no brainer—the Lord wanted me to leave seminary.

I am very much at peace, and have been with the whole thing even though guilt and doubt were and continue to be present at times. Even though sadness is present in my heart, for leaving the CC’s, I am also excited at the new opportunity that I have to go and proclaim God’s love and Word in however that will particularize in my life. Actually, after spending these two years in seminary, especially this last one working with the students at York University, my call to working with young people has been strengthened. I recognize that Youth Ministry is the way that the Lord has asked me to tell people about God’s love.

As I look at this experience I am tempted to say as I began this blog, “what I thought I was going to do and what God actually wanted me to do were very different,” yet I know that all that I have journey was not an accident. God clearly and intentionally has lead me through every single step of this journey and even when I took side trips, He made the best of it and brought me back on track. Our journey’s in life are not just a matter of figuring out what we are to do and then doing that forever. Most of us will journey one way for many years, and then begin a new one that they never could have imagine themselves embarking on. I love the fact that God allowed me to give myself completely away to Him in the possibility of becoming a priest. The freedom, trust and joy that abandoning myself to His divine will has brought has made me trust God so much more. The “control freak” Leo has/is being replaced by the “I’ll do Your will” Leo.

As I am sure you can imagine, I am still in a mourning process of sorts. Leaving seminary after two years is kind of like being engaged to someone and discerning that you should not get married. It is a good thing to discover that, but it still sucks, especially after such intimacy, friendship and time spent with that person. I will move on after this mourning process, and the new life that has already started to come from this death of sorts will be beautiful. The disciples mourned Jesus death, but through that death new life came and it was a whole heck of a lot better! So I wait for my new life to come with expectation and excitement—resurrection is so much fun!