A little light goes a long way. Especially when that light is well...God. See I have sort of been lying to myself and others. I never actually wanted to be a priest nor did I want to be a dad. See if you have never met my dad then it will be sorta hard to understand this blog, but to put it simply he sucks as a father. He has never been there, he kidnapped me and left me with a woman who murdered her daughter and then shot herself. He never lifted a finger to help when I was sick, and he manipulated my mother. Now the problem is if you were to put my dad and I side by side you would instantly be able to tell I am his son. I know I inherited a lot of his traits. I hate sometimes how much we share i do everything in my power to not be like him. My biggest fear is that I am gonna end up like him. I don't want to be that type of father I dont want to be like him but I know that he is a part of me.
When I became Catholic I found a way out, the Priesthood, a bit drastic sure but it was a sure fire way to make sure I didn't end up well a terrible dad. But again I hit a snag, the fact that I would have to live pretty much alone my entire life. Sure I'd have serve people but the thing is I never have had a problem with that in fact I love helping people, I love teaching and bringing people closer to Christ. But I am not really the holiest person in the world, that and I fell in love with someone, like fell really hard. So this entire time i have been avoiding being a father because I dont want to be horrible, and i have been fighting the priesthood because I dont want to be alone and well unrequited love makes discernment difficult...very difficult.
Now this whole thing has put me in a terrible spot, because I really have no idea what I want now. During this past weekend God did something he shed some light in my heart and made me realized that my sperm donor was never my dad, somebody else was, and its taken me this long to realize it. I also realized that for me one of the most amazing things for me was watching teens go to confession, and actually talking one through her first one, I helped her overcome her fear of the confessional and because of that it was her first confession in 7 years. I also get excited at the thought of hearing confessions and celebrating Mass.
Before this conference I was doing things out of fear, I was trying to use two sacraments as a means of running away. But now I feel like for the first time I am actually legitimately ready to discern my vocation.
Think about your struggle in relation to others who have gone before you. Many discerners would love to have what could be a clear "signpost" in the form of unrequited love. But no, they are stuck with requited love which, you may imagine, could make discernment an order of magnitude more difficult.
ReplyDeleteAlso, don't oversell yourself on the notion of loneliness. A certain priest who is a mutual friend of ours once told me, and I don't think you were there, that the thing he liked least about being a priest was lack of privacy. I.e., people wouldn't leave him alone! Lack of sex does not equal loneliness.
You don't have to decide what you want right now. Deciding to go to the seminary is not a life-long commitment. If anything, it should be a life-changing experience no matter what you ultimately decide to do.
It seems that you are in great need of the knowledge you will find there and will benefit greatly from it if you can stay the course for one more year.