Before you read this you might want to use the bathroom or make yourself a cup of coffee, 'cause, as blog posts go, it's a long one.
This past Sunday we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. Because the Sacrament of Baptism is so closely tied to the concept of vocation our Bishops have established this as National Vocations Awareness Week. This was also the Sunday when I shared my story with the students at our youth group. We started out by talking about the fact that while Jesus did not need to be baptized, we needed him to be. That led into a discussion of what baptism is, and how when we are baptized we are adopted into the body of Christ and receive a share in his mission – our vocation.
This is how I explained what has been going on in my life when it comes to my vocation.
Throughout my life I have found myself looking for proof that God exists. When I’ve found it more often than not it was only visible looking backward. By that I mean that there have been more than a few times in my life when I could see how a certain series of events had lined up in just the right way for me to learn something important, or so that I would be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. Some people call this a coincidence, but I choose to believe that God has a hand in those situations.
Regardless of how they come about, I almost never have the privilege of recognizing them for what they are while they are happening. Tonight, though, is one instance where I can see it happening in real time.
You see, I have something I have wanted to talk to you about for a while now, but I had to wait until a bunch of things were taken care of before I could share it with you. The way it worked out, tonight is the first youth night where I am able to talk with you about something that has been going on in my life. When I went to plan my outline for tonight I realized that this was also the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, and it literally sent a shiver down my spine.
Here’s the deal…
When I was a little kid I always wanted to be a police officer. It was my favorite game to play in my neighborhood or at recess, and I loved the idea of wearing a badge and carrying a radio. In middle school, though, I decided that when I got done with school I was going to be a doctor. I really liked biology and everything that went with it. I took classes and became an EMT before I graduated high school, and I applied to the best pre-med colleges in Iowa.
But while I was in high school people started telling me that they thought I would make a good priest. I would always smile and nod politely, but I knew for certain that that was something I didn't want any part of. The priests I knew never seemed all that happy, and while I didn't know much about their lifestyle, I knew it did not include some of the things that I, as a teenage boy, was most looking forward to about being an adult.
One week I got a letter in the mail from my parish. It seems they were running a program encouraging people to send in the name of a person they thought would make a good priest, and someone had “turned me in.” My family and I got a good laugh out of the letter, though, because for one thing they knew me too well; and for another, I had my future all mapped out, and that idea wasn't a part of my plan. I figured the main reason I got that letter was because I was one of three guys who was actually involved in the youth group in my small town.
When I went to college I declared as a Pre-Med major my first semester. I took all the right classes and got a job working at a summer camp right after freshman year as a health supervisor (a job I thought would look good on a med-school application).
When I came back to school my sophomore year I realized that while I wanted to be a doctor, God had other plans for me. It was then that I began to realize that I was being called to be a youth minister. When I was discerning whether or not to change my major I thought back to all the times people had told me I should be a priest and I asked myself whether or not this was my way of dodging that call…. “No God, I’m not gonna be a priest, but I’ll be a youth minister instead.” I prayed about that a lot, and I know in my heart that that wasn’t what was going on. I really do feel like my calling for these past twelve years has been youth ministry.
Even still, people have been telling me off and on since I graduated that I should consider the priesthood. And, to be honest, I thought about it at different times, but it never stuck. I enjoy what I do and I felt like I was where God wanted me to be.
Last Spring, though, that started to change. One of the things I do as a youth minister is to make an annual retreat for myself. The idea is that I can’t expect to be able to lead you closer to Christ if I don’t take care of my own spiritual life, so each spring I go away for a few days of prayer and reflection.
This time during my retreat I began to get the idea that God was calling me to think about what all those people had been saying, that maybe it might be time to think about the priesthood. I tried to ignore it. I tried HARD to ignore it, and for a lot of reasons. For one, I really like what I’m doing now. I enjoy working with all of you. I enjoy the camps and trips and retreats I get to do. For another, we just built this brand new building with an awesome youth room. This is the first time in twelve years of being a youth minister that I have a youth room like this. But not just that, I love the people I get to be around and I love the fact that you let me be a part of your lives.
On top of that, there are a lot of things about being a priest that really freak me out. Top of the list would be the part about not having a wife or kids. That's always how I saw my life playing out, and becoming a priest would mean sacrificing that desire. Number two on that list would be that I would have to give up some control over my life, since a priest makes a promise to respect his bishop’s wishes when it comes to where he serves and what kind of ministry he does. You probably already know this about me, but I don't enjoy giving up control.
So, when the retreat was over I tried really hard to forget what I had been feeling and go back to business as usual. But the feeling wouldn’t go away. More and more I began to realize that this was God’s way of telling me that he had a different plan for me than I had for myself.
At that point I had a pretty big decision to make. Here’s the thing – just because God asks us to do something, we don’t have to do it. He has given us free will, and so I had to decide whether I was going to say yes, or say no.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was not something to which I could say no. For one, I have spent the last twelve years of my life explaining to students in my youth groups that the most important thing we do as a Christian is to say yes to God – so I honestly don’t think I could face you if I were to say no to him myself. For another, I know in my heart that if this is God’s plan for me I won’t ever be truly happy unless I’m doing what he wants me to be doing.
So, I decided to put in an application, and last month Bishop Amos accepted me as a seminarian for the Diocese of Davenport. That means that in August I will be heading back to school full time.
It’s really exciting for me, but it’s also been really tough. The worst part of the whole thing is that there’s no way I can be a seminarian full time and still be the youth minister here in Muscatine, so that means that this will be my last school year here. The idea of leaving you is incredibly hard for me, and I want you to know that if it were anybody other than God asking me to do it the answer would have been no.
But, on the other hand, I know that God has a plan for each of us, and I know that if we stick to that plan things will work out better than we could ever imagine on our own, and I know that he is going to provide for this program. The more I think about it, God has been getting me and all of us ready for this for a while now.
First - just so we're clear, you’re not going to be rid of me for at least six months.
But beyond that, we are stronger as a program than we’ve ever been. We have a great youth leader team that is dedicated and committed. We have the most people signed up for NCYC that we’ve had since I’ve been here. And we have awesome people who are committed to making this work. We are in a really good place right now, and I know that even though I have to leave this summer, this program is going to keep going. I’ve already talked to Fr. Jason, and in the next month or so we will be starting the process to look for someone to take over for me, and he wants you to be a part of that.
One last thought I want to share before I'm done.... It's great that we've been able to build a strong program, but your faith has to be about more than youth group. If the only thing you do for your faith is show up here on Sunday nights than that faith isn’t going to last you very long. And if the reason you’re showing up at youth group is because of me or someone else in the room and not because you want to get closer to God, then you have a serious problem. Youth ministry is about creating a safe place for you to learn and ask questions, to go deeper in your faith, so that when the time comes and you feel like God is asking you to do something, you’ll be in a place where you can say yes.
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