Recently in Discernment Category

A priest, a seminarian, a bishop, a pope, a religious person, or a lay person of any sort, must always focus on being a son of God first. There is no distinction to be made between these different categories of persons in terms of holiness. All are called to be holy the way Christ is holy.

For one who is going to seminary, it is no good to try to be holy as a seminarian ought to be holy. Such an attitude introduces superfluous criteria into the person’s spiritual and moral life. All we need is to be holy as sons and daughters of God. If we can do that, then whatever our specific duties are will come with much greater ease.

Needless to say, this is not always immediately apparent to me. And I’m sure there are or have been other seminarians who feel like they actually have to meet a higher moral standard than other people. It is true that seminarians and priests and spiritual leaders are held to a higher moral standard by others. But objectively speaking the person sitting in the very back pew on Sunday has access to all the graces (via the sacraments) to which a priest or bishop or pope does, and thus can legitimately be expected to live just as virtuously as the Holy Father. If we laugh away such a notion, it is only because of cultural axioms which we have ceased to question.

The pope is not a very holy man because he is the pope. He is the pope because he is a very holy man. Being holy as a man, being holy as a woman, that comes first. Always.

Twenty-two days.

It is often said that one cannot go to seminary as a way of trying to do penance for the sins of his past. I agree with that and do not believe that that is why I am going to seminary and looking to become a priest. But the sins of one’s past certainly do lend a certain poignancy to the decision. Jesus says very plainly, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

I am certainly one of those latter. I have been thinking a lot lately about my past mistakes. The darker moments of my life. There are people in my life, even pretty close friends, who don’t know the extent of them, and may never know them. But I know them. They are in my memory forevermore. I don’t beat myself up about them, at least not anymore. But I do on occasion look back on them and marvel at what a good God He must be to be able to use such a scoundrel as myself to do the work to which he has called me. It is enough to move one to tears at times.

I am a sinner who deserves hell. But not only is God calling me home to him; He is calling me to bring the message of his love to other people. To go to the people who have suffered and sinned just as I have, and to tell them when they doubt that there is a God who loves them that he is and he does. And not only does he love them, but he is calling them by name to go and tell the rest of the world about that love, to bring glad tidings to the other spiritually starving people of the world.

That’s the crazy thing about Jesus. He doesn’t just go to individuals and make his relationship right with them. He then calls those individuals to go out and love other people the way he loved them. He makes us whole, but that’s just the beginning. He sends us forth. He gives us the gift of participating in his work. And we ask God, “Why me? Why have you chosen me for this? There are so many other people out there who could do this work. Better people. Holier people. Smarter people. Prettier people. Funnier people.”

God doesn’t buy that line. He made his Son ordinary, just like all the ordinary people who wondered in the desert for forty years and waited for a Messiah for centuries more. And when this ordinary flesh and blood man began to do extraordinary things, he chose other ordinary flesh and blood men and women to help him do so. Surely they must have asked themselves why he called them. But when the time came, they knew the voice of the shepherd, and they responded. I pray I can do the same.

I have decided to start writing more personal material via the Thinker, if for no other reason than because it just so happens that the most important thing happening in my life at the moment happens to pertain quite explicitly to the Gospel of Christ and the Church he founded.

In just under four weeks now, on August 20 between noon and 4 PM to be exact, I will be reporting to Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas, TX to begin training to become a priest for the Diocese of Austin. I am very much looking forward to that day. This is certainly a time of intense transition for me, I’ve been telling people that if my life was a movie, we’d be about to roll credits and getting ready to start filming the sequel. (Not that I think my life is worth making a movie out of…)

Tonight at Mass I got to read the first reading, which was from Jeremiah 23:1→6. It was a stark reminder of the responsibilities that come with being a “shepherd” of “the flock of his pasture” (cf. v 1). Failing to meet that responsibility meets with considerably undesirable consequences, as Jesus says also in Matthew 18. None of this makes me fearful really. But it does help me to take seriously what an important task it is to share in the one priesthood of the one priest who is Christ.

It is for that reason that I am entering seminary with pretty much an entirely open mind. I do believe that seven years from now I will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Austin. But I can be by no means certain.

The goal of seminary after all is not to make one a priest, but rather to help one to know as clearly as possible precisely what God is asking of him. If one goes to seminary and concludes that God is asking him to be the father of a nuclear family, then he should leave seminary and pursue that call. If God is asking him to be the father of a spiritual ecclesial family, then he should stay in seminary.

I don’t know which of those I will hear God calling me to a year from now. But suffice to say the thought of lifelong ordained ministry and service to the Mystical Body of Christ excites me in a way that no other path that I can think of at this point does, But I’m confident that if I keep focused on God and keep in mind the blessings he has graced me with in life in spite of my unworthiness, he will show me clearly the way he wants me to go. I just have to be patient in the meantime.

This has been a good weekend in terms of discernment for me. A lot of issues that I have had on my mind lately have really come out.

The celibacy issue
I have begun reading The Courage to Be Chaste by Benedict J Groeschel, CFR. I like it so far. Here's one good passage from the book.

Perhaps one of the most persistent and obviously invalid assumptions of our civilization is that sexual behavior brings happiness. The media trumpet the message, "Sex brings happiness." If this were true, we would indeed live in an earthly paradise, and the world would be "Happy Valley."

I suppose that half the people you meet on the bus, or in a shopping center, or even at church on Sunday have had some genital sexual experience during the preceding few days. It is the observation of an old celibate from way back that they are not all so very happy. If sex brought happiness, the world would shine like the sun, at least half the time. Celibates need not try to convince themselves that chaste celibacy is the road to earthly bliss, but on the other hand they need not feel deprived of the key to happiness. If there is a single key to contentment, it cannot be sexual experience.

It's a good idea for me to be reading this book, especially at this juncture in my life, preparing to go into seminary and seriously consider a lifelong commitment to celibacy.

Fr Groeschel says that sexual experience can be ruled out as the single key to contentment. The single key to contentment, I would venture, is intimacy with Christ and to do his will. That is what I hope I will find at seminary.

My bishop on Catholic radio
As I was driving home from the parents today I was listening to Relevant Radio and was caught pleasantly by surprise to hear the voice of my bishop, Most Reverend Gregory Aymond of the Diocese of Austin, Texas. He was speaking along with Bishop Zubik of Green Bay on, precisely, vocations to the priesthood.

Bishop Aymond invited those listening to the program who were discerning the priesthood, in the words of John Paul II, to "Be Not Afraid" to be open to what they really desire. This ties in with what Fr Groeschel wrote about so aptly, for since the mantra of the media today is that sex brings happiness, it so goes that no sexual activity means no happiness. And that is indeed a frightening thing, if it's true. The battle of a seminarian and those discerning the possibility of a lifelong celibate vocation is to realize contrary to the cultural message that what really brings happiness is the will of God, whatever that may be.

I attended the University of Texas at Austin Commencement ceremony this past Saturday. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, full of all the pomp and pompousness that we Longhorns are so well-known for. One of my favorite parts of the evening was the commencement address delivered by keynote speaker Antonio O Garza Jr, US ambassador to Mexico. I think he is probably Catholic, for a several reasons, among them being the hints of Catholic theology and anthropology littered throughout his address.

At the beginning of his address he observed: “I have been asked to give you a little advice today for the road ahead. Frankly, I’m a little wary. After all, Socrates gave advice and they poisoned him.” That struck me as the academic equivalent of the I daresay more well-known story about Jesus, who gave advice and told the truth and opened minds and hearts, and was crucified. I suspect Ambassador Garza may well have had that in mind but had to tailor the message for a secular academic audience. But the point is the same: Telling the truth is risky business.

“You don’t choose your family”
In his address he gave the degree candidates four basic pieces of advice, all of which have a distinct Catholic bent to them. His first was: “Families are the backbone of our society.” As he put it: “The steadiest rock you will ever find in your life is your family – both the one you have now and the one you make for yourself in the future. Nothing else will ever come close.”

But what really got my attention along these lines was when he quoted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said, “You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.”

When I heard this, I could not help but think that yes, it is true that we do not choose our families, but it is also true that in modern society many of us wish we could. What does it mean after all to value “choice” more than life itself? Not just in the field of abortion but in areas of reproductive and genetic technologies, we are seeing examples of this desire coming more and more to fruition. Sperm banks feature samples that are categorized in terms of the desired traits in the newborn: seed from a Harvard grad for a childbearer who values intelligence; seed from a NCAA football star for one who values athletic prowess. Genetic manipulation and prenatal diagnosis of down syndrome all point to this desire not just to govern our own actions but to exercise power over circumstances that should be beyond our control. Modern society wants to choose its families. And thus this backbone of our society is growing weaker.

Real personal connections
His next point: “It is people – the real, human connections we make – that matter most.” As he puts it:

Globalization is revolutionizing the way we live. But something in danger of being trampled in the stampede to the future is the delicate thread that draws us together as human beings.

We surf the internet in multiple languages, yet never speak to the person next door. Webcams show us deprivation in the far reaches of the globe, yet we never notice the poverty in our own backyard. What good is crystal clear reception on your Bluetooth if you can’t hear the voice of your own conscience or your neighbor asking for help?

In Catholic terms, Garza is observing the potential dangers that technology pose to our understanding of the dignity of the human person. It is certainly true that technology brings profound benefits such as the ability to communicate with greater efficiency (as evidenced by this blog for example). But it can also depersonalize human contact. Technology has removed the physical element from human contact, you might say it has Gnosticized human contact, making it something that takes place in an entirely nonphysical context, so that even letter-writing no longer produces anything physical, but rather an electronic transmission.

Again, there are advantages to this, namely efficiency and convenience and ease. But human contact was always meant to take time, and was always meant to require us to go at least a little bit out of our way, because people are worth that. But the value of efficiency elevated by technology has threatened our understanding of this. It has affected family life by saying that if a new birth or a certain lifestyle is not efficient or convenient or comfortable, it would as well be done away with. In interpersonal relationships, it has given way to a more functionalistic understanding of the person, appreciating persons only for what they can bring us—pleasure, notoriety etc—rather than who they are. This kind of functionalistic approach is what the Church has referred to as “exploitation.”

“Find your purpose”
His third point was one that spoke to me personally because it had directly to do with the subject of discernment: “Find your purpose and set the bar high, but don’t let success alone be your goal.”

This ran parallel to Sara Martinez Tucker’s point last year of “inspired ambition.” She quoted St Ignatius Loyola in saying that when ambition is inspired (by God) it is almost holy, but we have to guard from our ambitions becoming self-centered and “disloyal.” On Saturday, Garza invited the students to strive for success, because success is better than failure, especially if it’s something you really believe in, but to always “reach for the substance, not the shadow.” “[U]nderstand success for what it is -- and what it isn’t. Use it to make a real difference in the world around you,” he said.

He even pointed out that a key to being successful and really helping other people is to have a certain contemplative spirit:

[N]o matter how famous you get, how much money you earn, or how many scientific mysteries you unravel, they are nothing if you lose your sense of imagination and wonder.

I grew up along the border, and I remember if someone seemed a bit odd or colorful, folks would say: “es que tiene la música por dentro” – he’s got the music inside of him.

Looking back, some of the most successful and most satisfied people I’ve ever known are those with that “música por dentro.” And it’s because they took the time to stop and contemplate the world around them with awe and wonder.

How we treat “others”
Finally his fourth point: “Life will test you in ways you cannot imagine. And one of the ways it will test you – over and over -- is how you treat others who don’t look like you, talk like you or earn like you.”

I’ve heard it called the human tendency to “other-ize” categories of people, because of differences between these categories and the observer(s). He spoke most directly in terms of the recent ongoing immigration controversy between the United States and Mexico. But his message on this other-izing of peoples applies equally well to the forms of exploitation that we see in life issues. He made a couple of points that screamed the pro-life message to me.

First, he said, “[Y]ou and I know that our work is not done until the invisible are invisible no more. Until all hearts accept what no law can mandate – and that is to love one another.”

Now this made me sit up in my chair. Love one another? Not quite the language that you hear very often in a setting like this, but it’s straight from the mouth of Christ. In fact the readings from the Sunday following his address contained those exact three words from Jesus to his disciples. Coincidence? I’m inclined to think not.

Also his imagery of “making the invisible invisible no more” and changing people’s hearts to “accept what no law can mandate” got me thinking particularly about abortion. It is not that we should not work to change laws. Certainly we should work, and very hard. But the changing of a person’s heart is precisely what is needed to really make laws more just, since it is people who change the laws to begin with. We have to pray not just for laws to change but that all people can really be convinced that the mystery of each person mandates Christian love whether the law of the land mandates that or not.

His other point that I liked very much was his reference to what Martin Luther King called the “inescapable network of mutuality.” “What affects one citizen, affects all citizens.”

Now, there’s a dangerous premise for pro-choicers to accept. For the premise behind the value of “choice” is precisely that of “privacy.” It is the notion that an individual decision made by an individual person will in fact not affect anybody else for good or for ill, and therefore it ought not to be anyone else’s place to tell a lady what she may or may not do with her physical self. But if there is an inescapable network of mutuality, and what affects the woman who has the abortion affects in turn all others, then what of privacy then? And how does the abortion affect the woman? For good or for ill? If it is for ill, and more and more evidence is springing up that the affects of abortion are quite awful indeed, then might that single act of abortion permeate through the whole of society?

If one accepts that simple observation from the ambassador, that what affects the one affects the whole, then abortion becomes the business of everyone, especially when the object of its exploitation—namely the child—becomes invisible no more.

These are all the tangents off to which my mind flew as I was listening to the ambassador's great speech. Quite entertaining and thought-provoking.

This morning I drove to a Catholic school in the rural Central Texas to talk to third, fourth and fifth graders about the possibility of becoming of a priest or entering religious life. I talked about my background and how when I was their age I never once thought about becoming a priest.

At one point in the talk one of the fourth graders raised his hand and asked me: "What are you gonna do if you become the pope? Are you gonna try to change the world and be like John Paul II?"

I kind of chuckled. In response I said:

Well, I do not think that I am going to become the pope. But if I did then sure I would try to change the world and be like John Paul II. But it's important to remember that, you don't have to be the pope to change the world. All of you here in this room can change the world just by growing up and getting married and raising four or five or however many good kids. You can change the world just by being a priest or by being a sister like Mother Teresa, and serving people that way. That's how I wanta change the world, is by encouraging the people that I serve to be saints, which just means imitating Christ and spreading his love around. If you can be a saint, then you guys can change the world.

I've just recently begun preparing myself for the rhythm of seminary life. At the seminary there will be morning prayer every day at 630 a.m. followed by daily Mass, followed by breakfast. Therefore, I have just begun getting up every morning at 530 p.m. and driving to St Mary's Cathedral in downtown Austin for daily Mass.

I recall that Peter Kreeft suggested in one of his books that rather than go to bed at midnight and wake up at 7 a.m., one ought to try going to bed at 10 and waking up at 5. I find in anticipation of seminary that I am beginning to approach or at least try on this daily routine. It definitely has its benefits. For one, you get up before the sun is out, thus giving yourself the opportunity to enjoy the sunrise. You are not immediately bombarded with all the input of an already bustling day. It's quiet. And while I can't really handle quiet all day long, it's nice to be in a quiet place before the bustle starts so I can hear the voice of God. And when one hears the voice of God in the stillness, and the bustle gradually escalates, that voice of God somehow always stays near, whereas waking up to the bustle one can forget to listen for His voice in the first place.

Beginning the day with the real presence of Christ is an awesome gift. At least for people who take the concept of fitness or proper disposition seriously, it creates a heightened state of alertness to avoid temptation and occasions of sin. When one has constant daily contact with the Lord, one wants to always do what is right in his eyes, in the same way that when one has daily contact with a close friend, one is less tempted to do anything to injure his trust. Contact breeds loyalty.

And walking out of Mass at 7 a.m. and into the streets of downtown Austin, when the streets are still calm, you can see the sun rising. God says good morning from within the walls of the chapel, and then from without. An added bonus is that you start your tasks of the day earlier than before. You're not hurried or stressed out. You're just doing what you have to do. And as the day progresses you feel a greater sense of accomplishment, and peace, for you know that Christ really is present in you. And you're allowing him, although it is sometimes quite a challenge, to guide you.

Sin is nothing more than an illegitimate response to a legitimate desire. Behind every sinful inclination is the desire for something real and good. Behind the temptation to wrath is the desire to correct an injustice. Behind the temptation to lust is the desire to be truly intimate with another person. Behind the temptation to laziness is the desire to "be still and know that He is God" (Psalm 46). Every deep-seated desire of the human person has a counterfeit, a perversion. And that perversion turns out in fact to be the antithesis of the real human desire which burns within us. For the last thing wrath achieves is justice, and the last thing lust achieves is intimacy, and the last thing laziness achieves is real stillness.

This clarity can be helpful in dealing with temptation. It means that refusing to do evil does not entail the suppression of the desire. On the contrary, it is giving in to the evil that really entails the abandonment of satisfaction and surrender to something less than true abundance. It ultimately means the loss of hope, loss of the hope of ever satisfying the real human need for justice, intimacy, and peace. It is compromise.

On the other hand, refusing to do evil is the prerequisite for real personal fulfillment. We often hear about how the commandments are too negative, "thou shalt not" this or that. But it's imminently reasonable. If any of us is going to have a shot at real fullness of life, we have to decisively refuse to do evil. And we have to decisively choose to do what is right.

Temptation then is an opportunity, for a person to find out more about himself. He can say, "Because I am tempted, I know that there is something in my life that I desire greatly. What do I desire?" And when that desire is pinpointed, it is not a matter of asking oneself, "Am I giving in to my desire?" But rather, "Am I giving my desires enough credit? Am I taking my desires seriously enough to do something that will really satisfy them? Or am I settling for something less?"

And perhaps most important of all, we may ask ourselves, when we are in that place of temptation, "What do I hope to gain from this that I was not given freely at baptism?" Justice? The price for all the evil that has been and is now being and ever will be perpetrated on this earth was eternally paid on the Cross on Good Friday. When we are baptized, we are baptized into the death of that Man who paid that price for us--and his resurrection. Wrath has no power to add to such perfection. Intimacy? We are the sons and daughters of God the Father, maker of heaven and earth. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. This God is greater than our hearts, he reads us, he knows every intimate detail about us. Above all, he loves us, and wants us to love each other as he does. The anonymity of lust has no power to really love. Peace? The peace of Christ is a peace that breathes in the world and contemplates it, sees the fingerprints of God in it, and thanks Him for it. Sloth fears the world, shuts itself in from it. It has no power to be thankful.

The goodness of God is precisely the power that fulfills the life of a person, sets men and women in motion to truly love each other and do His will. Temptations are the crossroads at which we need only remember that what we really desire is that goodness, and absolutely nothing less.

Lord, when I am tempted,
give me the clarity to know
that only by following You
may I ever find
what it is I really seek

"How's your relationship with God?"
I got asked this question earlier today, when meeting with Bishop Aymond to discuss my vocational discernment. The question really caught me off guard. Have you ever been asked a really simple question and to your surprise found yourself completely befuddled as to what the answer is? That was me, tongue-tied by the simplest question.

I could look at all the reasons this is the case, but at the moment it seems more pertinent to simply ask myself, how is my relationship with God? Being the doctrinal and theological enthusiast that I am, the way I'm inclined to describe my relationship is in entirely objective terms. So basically, I'm not under mortal sin which means I am currently receiving sanctifying grace from the Lord. But that really says nothing about the state of our relationship. That's just the simplest way to describe my spiritual state at the moment.

So how is my relationship with him? Have I listened to him in a while? I suppose I have, but I always hesitate to listen as if I'm expecting to hear actual words from him. Cuz that doesn't usually happen. Do I really ask for his wisdom in my day-to-day problems? I'm really not sure. Am I a friend of God? Objectively, yes, but do I treat him so? Am I comfortable with dropping everything and making time for him?

Ultimately I realized after Bishop Aymond asked me this question that knowing God is not the same as knowing about God. You can know a whole lot about him and still not really know him, the same way you can read a person's resume and autobiography but still have very little tangible understanding of who they are as a person.

So who is God as a person? And how do I interact with him? Questions to ponder.

How not to handle fear
Again, straight from the bishop. When you enter into a new chapter in your life, into a great unknown, fear will be a fact of life. Don't run from the fear. Don't even ask God to take it away. Invite God into the fear. Remember that there were times in the Gospel where Jesus experienced intense fear. When that happened, he invited God into it. In that sense, he refused to be afraid of his fear. He acknowledged it. He stared it down. He invited God into it. That's how he was able to have courage.

So if you're afraid, just allow that fear to be there. Don't try to conquer it yourself. Invite God into it. Where God is, love is also, and perfect love drives out fear (I John 4:18).

I've been thinking a lot about my decision lately. One thing you learn by going through a discernment process like this, is that every priest leaves something behind so he can become a priest. Maybe a good career, or a romance. Every priest has a past, something that is in his heart that only he knows about. And maybe at night when he's by himself he thinks about it, he goes back to the time in his life before his name started with "Father." It's the part of himself that he has to let go of because now his life is the mission. Now he's out there for everyone else. He's the servant.

Yesterday morning I had a dentist appointment. It was probably the most successful dentist appointment I have ever had. No cavities, strong gums, and minimal discomfort. But the lady who was cleaning my teeth, God bless her, it was the second time I've had her and we basically had the same conversation as last time. The topic: the possibility of married priests.

I was once complained to that "all the good guys go to seminary." What makes them such "good guys" is that they have an understanding of what it means to be selfless enough to really sacrifice one's own desires. Too many men today go into romantic relationships hoping to "get what they want." Indeed this is the source of much female cynicism: that men "only have one thing on their minds." It is obvious that men who go into seminary to discern a lifelong celibate vocation in service to the community do not fit that mold.