Category Archives: Vocations

I have finally done it. After 1 year of writing, procrastinating, putting it off, etc., I have completed writing my vocation story. To start from the beginning, here’s the introduction.

In many vocation stories, the story ends at this point. The one who discerned the vocation will say, “I entered the seminary, sure of my vocation, and became a priest. The End.” While I wish I could say that, I can’t. I entered the seminary not sure if it truly was my call, and not sure if I even wanted to answer that call if it was.

After sending in the application, I had to break the news to my employer that I would be resigning my employment with them. The response from the HR person that I spoke to was, “I can compete with any offer from another company, but how do you compete with God?” In the back of my mind, I was thinking the same thing. How do you compete with God?

I moved out of my apartment where I had been living for two years, and loaded everything I owned into a rental trailer hooked to the back of my truck. I was hoping for an uneventful move, which was not to be. The transmission on the truck went out, necessitating the change to a rental truck with my truck on a trailer. I got the truck and my stuff home, but the repair shop in my hometown did a poor job on the new transmission. The speedometer was thrown off (as a not-so-friendly Highway Patrolman demonstrated by issuing a speeding ticket), and a seal in the new transmission was messed up during the installation.

With all this frustration in the move, I was repeatedly asking myself, “What on Earth have I gotten myself into?” I had never been to Mount Angel Seminary. I had never been to Oregon. In fact, the only reason I chose Mount Angel over the Josephinum in Columbus, OH, was my desire to head the West Coast instead of staying in the Midwest.

Somehow, I was able to arrive at Mount Angel with little further difficulty, and got settled into my room. It was a major adjustment to go from a two-bedroom apartment to a dorm room smaller than my old bedroom. On top of that, the bathroom and shower were down the hall. Resigned to my fate, I set up the room so I could be comfortable and got down to business.

The first year at college seminary I spent doing the school work, going to the meetings I needed to attend, and checking the job search websites to see what kind of jobs were available in the “real world.” I wasn’t going to give up on that back door way out of the seminary. I wasn’t sure I needed to be there, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there, and definitely wasn’t going to waste my time or the diocese’s money.

By the end of the first year, however, I started to warm to the idea of a vocation to the priesthood. I still wasn’t sure, so I figured I’d give it another year at least. Besides, this was an easy way to take care of a lot of college credits that I needed to fill anyways. I still couldn’t quite see myself as a priest, but I was willing to continue the discernment process.

There were a couple of times during the second year that I thought about saying “forget it!” to the seminary, but I found that those were becoming more and more infrequent. I started developing a stronger prayer life. I was taking the formation process much more seriously. I even thought about discerning for the religious life with the Benedictine monks who lived in Mount Angel Abbey and ran the seminary, but that didn’t last too long.

One change that occurred during the second year is that I stopped being so secretive about my vocation. When I would meet people while riding the train to and from Montana, they would invariably ask what I did for a living. I would answer, “I’m a college student.” Next question: “Where at?” I’d say, “At a small college in Oregon.” Them: “Oh, really? Where?” My response: “Near Salem.” Them: “What town?” Me: “Mount Angel” Them: “I didn’t know there was a college there.” Me: “Yeah, it’s a Catholic seminary. I’m kinda thinking about being a priest.” By the end of the second year, I became far more confident in my vocation, and readily admitted that yes, I was discerning a call to the priesthood.

By the time I reached the end of my four years of college seminary, I was pretty much convinced that I was called to be a priest, and that I needed to complete the process. Graduating from Mount Angel, I was asked by my diocese to attend Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Admittedly, I wasn’t looking forward to spending four years in the middle of Chicago suburbs, but I figured this was as good an opportunity to practice obedience as ever.

While I didn’t really enjoy living in the suburbs as I expected, I did get a lot of great opportunities for discernment at Mundelein. Throughout my theology studies, I felt not only a willingness to accept the call to the priesthood, but a desire and appreciation for the vocation. Instead of being something I did because God willed it, it became something that I wanted as well.

Finally, after many years of discernment, I could finally say that I was sure of my vocation. I knew where God was calling my, and I knew that I wanted to answer that call. In 2008, after 10 years of discernment and 8 years of seminary study, I graduated from Mundelein Seminary, and on June 26, 2008, I was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, MT.

Did my vocational discernment end on June 26th? So far as I felt called to be a priest it did, but now the discernment is how I live my vocation to the priesthood. That’s another story yet to be written, and may not be written this side of Heaven.

I often say that I can be very hard-headed. There are all too many times where it’s taken a long time for something to sink in, especially if I’m set against it. The idea of discerning a call to the priesthood is one of those things that took a long time to sink in.

With all the involvement in the parish and all my reading and independent studying, the idea of living my faith become more and more important. I wanted to structure my daily life around the practice of the faith. I wanted to avoid sin and grow in holiness. I wanted to develop a fervent prayer life. In short, I wanted to be 100% Catholic, no reservations, no excuses.

When studying the teachings of the Church, it’s not long before you’re confronted with the concept of submission to God’s will. The more I would read and pray, the more I would hear that word: submission. Submit your will to God’s will. Discern how God wants you to live your live instead of floundering around on your own.

It sounded good to me, but I also was leery. I started to get an idea of where this might lead. Those little whispers in the back of my mind were still there, and I was still resisting them. I wanted to do God’s will, so long as it didn’t involve the priesthood.

I discovered very quickly, however, that if you give God a crack in the door, He’ll open it all the way. I began to pray for understanding of God’s will, and those whispers became more insistent.

Through all this, I was doing a job I enjoyed, but was feeling like it might be a dead-end. As a computer geek, being responsible for multi-millions of dollars worth of servers is a big deal, but I didn’t see any way beyond that. I knew I didn’t want to be a supervisor, and I wasn’t sure remaining an server administrator was what I wanted either. I also felt a tug on my heart that made me think, “Is this it? There has to be more for my life.”

One day I finally broke down and asked, “God, what do you want? I want to do your will, and not mine.” I feel that God responded to me, not so much in a voice as an echo in my mind, “I want you to be a priest.” This is when I often say that God hit me upside the head with a 2×4. The subtle hints didn’t work with me, so He had to go with the direct route. In response, I said, “OK, OK, I’ll look into it.”

I wasn’t going to make a commitment at that time. In fact, the first thing I did was search the Internet for vocations websites, and found quite a few. Several diocese had a series of questions as a kind of “quick quiz” on whether or not you might have a vocation. Much to my surprise, and despite my continued denials, many of the questions on those quizzes could be answered in the affirmative.

What were the questions? Things like, “Have you ever found yourself regularly thinking about the priesthood?” and, “Are you reluctant to tell friends and family that you’re having these thoughts?” The more I read these vocation discernment web pages and thought about the questions that they were raising, the more the idea became possible.

One of the steps which many of the vocation discernment sites encouraged was to speak to a priest in your parish about the priesthood. I still wasn’t ready to come out in the open just yet, so I didn’t to mention anything to Fr. Jim. One Sunday, Fr. Jim was on vacation and had a fill-in priest from the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. This priest, a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who ran the shrine and housed their headquarters there, was a total stranger, therefore “safe”. He didn’t know me, I didn’t know him, so I figured he’d be a good “first contact”.

I caught this priest, Fr. Tony, at the end of Mass, after the usual handshakes and greetings had been exchanged with the Mass attendees. I was very nervous, but Fr. Tony politely listened to my stammered, “I’m thinking about the priesthood.” He spoke with me for about 5-10 minutes before he had to return to the sacristy to get ready for the next Mass. His main advice, which I probably should have expected, was that I needed to visit with to Fr. Jim and contact the diocesan vocation director.

It took me a couple of months to muster the courage to follow up on his advice, but after more reading, thinking and praying, I finally got up the courage to ask Fr. Jim about the priesthood. He was very pleased that I was discerning a call to the priesthood, and was more than willing to meet over lunch at the local Chinese restaurant. (As an aside, what is it about priests and Chinese food? I’ve come to know a lot of priests who would live on Chinese if they could.)

We had a great lunch, with a good conversation about the priesthood. Fr. Jim was able to answer some of my questions and allay some of my concerns. I did wonder what I was getting into when he laughed after I asked him about a typical day in the priesthood. Of course, now I know why that was such an ironic question: there is no typical day in the priesthood. Every day is unique, for better or worse.

An analogy for following God’s will is following a path that He has laid out for us, and every so often the markers for that path become completely and totally obvious. During our conversation, I found that God had given me a connection of which I was unaware. Fr. Jim asked me where I was thinking about being a priest, diocesan or religious. I told him that I was leaning towards the diocesan, likely back home in Eastern Montana, the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings. At this point, Fr. Jim said, “I know the vocation director there.” I was stunned. How could Fr. Jim, a priest from the Diocese of Belleville, 1200 miles from Montana, know the vocation director in Montana? It turns out that Fr. Jim and the vocation director, Fr. Dale, were classmates at Mundelein Seminary.

This was too much of a coincidence. It was obviously a very clear sign that I was on the right track. What are the odds that I would pick the parish whose pastor is a classmate of the vocation director of the diocese I was discerning towards? Fr. Jim did try to convince me to consider remaining in the Diocese of Belleville, but I really felt pulled back to Montana. If I was going to become a priest, I was going to do it at home, and Montana was home.

Following the dinner conversation, I sent off an email to the vocation director expressing my interest in discerning the priesthood for the diocese. This began an email conversation in which I introduced myself and told some of my discernment up to that point, and led to meeting with Fr. Dale in Billings a couple days after Christmas when I was able to be home for a couple of weeks.

Before I got to meet Fr. Dale, I figured now would be a good time to let my parents in on the news. If I was going to drive to Billings, using one of their cars, I should probably let them know in advance what it’s going to be about. Here’s how I introduced the topic to them: “I’m kinda, possibly, thinking about considering looking into (etc., etc., etc. I think I added about 2 minutes worth of disclaimers.) going into the priesthood.” Yeah, I wasn’t going to make a firm commitment to my parents. Not yet.

Well, my dad laughed and my mom said, “We were wondering when you were going to tell us.” Wait? When I was going to tell you? I just figured it out for myself, and you already knew? Why didn’t you tell me? They had pretty much figured it out with my becoming active in the Church, and thought that it was just a matter of time.

With that load of my shoulders, I began to wait impatiently for Christmas vacation, which finally arrived. During the meeting with Fr. Dale, he gave me the paperwork for applying to both the diocese and Mount Angel Seminary. I also took the psychological exams required while in Billings, so this was getting serious. I was on the way to entering the seminary, and I thought it might even be that coming fall, the Fall of 2000.

At this point, my procrastination and reluctance started kicking in. I had the paperwork, I knew what I needed to do to get into the seminary, and I was unwilling to do it. When I arrived back in Illinois, I threw the paperwork on a counter in my apartment and let it sit. I wasn’t going to rush into things, besides I still had 6 months to fill it out.

Shortly after my Christmas vacation, I found out through the Scott AFB base chapel, where I was still attending daily Mass, that the Archdiocese for the Military Services was sponsoring a discernment retreat in Washington, DC, at the Theological College of the Catholic University of America. The chaplain, knowing that I was in the discernment process, encouraged me to consider attending., and I agreed. I figured that if nothing else, I would get a nice weekend in Washington, DC, and get to see the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

I did get to see the National Shrine, and fell in love with it, but it also turned out to be a great opportunity for prayer and reflection on the priesthood, and gave me much to think about in my discernment. It also introduced me to the Liturgy of the Hours for the first time, something which has become a vital part of my prayer life.

I’d like to say that the retreat gave me a shot of excitement about my vocation, and that I filled out my paperwork immediately upon returning, but that wasn’t the case. I did get some of it filled out, and got a good start on collecting the paperwork I needed. Unfortunately, the excitement wained as I returned to my usual routines of daily life, and the paperwork collected dust once again.

That dust remained pretty much undisturbed, except for the occasional cleaning, until June. One Saturday in early June, I got a call from Fr. Dale: “I haven’t heard from you in a while. Are you still thinking about going this Fall?” I hemmed and hawed, and came up with every excuse, “I have loans, I need to think about this more,” and so on. Before we finished, Fr. Dale encouraged me to think and pray about it more. I promised I would and got off the phone.

The next morning happened to be Pentecost Sunday, as Easter was late in the year 2000, and I got up and went to Mass as had become my custom. It was a beautiful late Spring day, just slightly warm, and the church was full as usual. During Mass, I felt that I had a Pentecost moment. No, not speaking in tongues or flames descending on my head, but I felt the Holy Spirit move me to get going on everything I needed for the seminary now. Not next year, not next week, now. I still had time to apply to the seminary, and I needed to enter that Fall.

Before I even got back to my apartment, I called Fr. Dale and left a message that I was going to finish up the paperwork. I told him through the message that the seminary would receive it by the end of the week, even if I had to pay for it to be sent overnight.

If you’ve ever seen the applications for many diocese and seminaries, they’re not small, quick applications. The diocesan application was only 4 pages long, but required a number of longer essays. The seminary application was much longer, closer to 30 pages, and required even more essays, not to mention supporting documentation like a copy of the baptismal record. Yet, with all the paperwork needed, I was able to complete the applications and get them in the mail in time for the application deadline.

Fr. Dale had assured me that I was going to get in, but it was still nerve wracking waiting for word back from the seminary. Finally, after a couple of weeks, a large envelope from Mount Angel Seminary arrived in the mail. The envelope contained an acceptance letter stating that I had been accepted for the 2000-2001 college freshmen class. It also contained preparation instructions as well as where and when to arrive. I was going to seminary, 2000 miles away and a whole new way of life.

Continue to Part 5 – Seminary Discernment

As I left Scott AFB for what I thought was my last time, I had a lot of uncertainty in my life. I didn’t know when I’d get a job. I didn’t know where I would be living. Everything that I owned was under a tarp in the box of my truck. This truly was the closest I’ve ever come to being homeless, and in fact was technically homeless for a couple of weeks.

Through a series of connections and the grace of God, my time as a homeless person didn’t last long. One friend offered to let me stay at his house until the job situation was sorted out. Another friend had a connection to a landlord who had recently remodeled a couple of duplexes that were available to rent. My resume which I had posted on an Internet job search site had finally gotten a strong prospect. In short order, after only a couple of weeks, I had a job and a place to live, so I thought things were going well.

During this time, I was making Sunday Mass attendance a priority. Unlike previous moves, I wasn’t going to wait a couple of weeks, or even months, to get to Mass. Instead, I went back to St. Clare Parish in O’Fallon, which happened to be only about 5 miles from my new apartment, and formally registered as a member of the parish. I also introduced myself to Fr. Jim, the pastor. We had met briefly when I was “church shopping” before the end of my enlistment, but it was pretty brief, just a quick handshake at the end of Mass.

My new job was on the other side of St. Louis, in the western suburbs, so I began to experience the joys of commuting that so many other Americans trudge through every day. For two hours each day, one hour each way, I had nothing better to do than sit in my truck, drive, and listen to the radio. At first, I would listen to the typical music on the radio, but shortly after I began working, a friend introduced me to WRYT 1080 AM, a Catholic radio station. Catholic radio? There’s such a thing? I knew about EWTN, even though I never had the opportunity to watch it, but had not heard of Catholic radio. I started listening and was hooked. More good information, and I could learn as I drove to and from work. This was great!

I had learned a lot from the Catholic Answers website, so I was excited to hear that they also had a radio program, Catholic Answers Live. Oh, boy, more good stuff! There was no end to the amount of material that I could learn about the faith, whether apologetics, Church teachings, history, you name it.
Of course, Catholic Answers Live wasn’t the end of the great programs that I was able to listen to. Because WRYT used EWTN for much of its source material, I also got to hear Mother Angelica, the Journey Home, Life on the Rock, and much more. This was an information fire hose, and I just had to turn on the radio!

The more I learned about the faith through the radio and Internet, the more involved I wanted to be. I started to get more active in the parish, volunteering to be a Lector and Eucharistic Minister – now more accurately called an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. I was also getting involved in communal prayer, such as the Rosary, and was starting to meet new people through my involvement.

It was about this time that I met a couple who has been a strong supporter of my vocation, even throughout our respective moves. I don’t remember if I first met Mike and Denise at Mass or as part of a communal prayer, but we quickly became friends. Having met and worked with a lot of people my age who were barely Catholic at best, it was exciting to meet a young couple, a little older than me, who were as excited about the Faith as I was.

One day, Mike invited me to an evening of reflection at the Opus Dei center in St. Louis. He explained that it involved a couple of spiritual conferences, exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and reception of the Sacrament of Confession. I had heard of Opus Dei through my research, and was interested in what this evening of reflection was all about, so I agreed to go. It was incredible! Two powerful conferences with lots of silent time for adoration. Following the conferences, there was time for socializing, and it was amazing to meet more Catholic men who were on fire for the Catholic Faith. They loved the Church, they loved her teachings, and they weren’t afraid to say so. It was a powerful experience for me, and one I had the privilege to repeat many times over. I even began to look forward to these evenings of reflection, especially as the job and commute became more intolerable.

By the end of the first year out of the Air Force, I’d felt like I’d had enough of the job I was doing. It wasn’t a bad job, just wasn’t what I expected when I was first hired. My experience from the Air Force was that of a computer administrator, keeping servers and networks up and running so that users can get to them 24 hours a day. The job I was doing was more data manipulation, working with a database to set up reports for customers. Not my interest, so my performance at that job suffered. A weakness that I am still working on is my extreme procrastination towards tasks I find unpleasant, and much of this job fell into that category.

My Knights of Columbus connection came through about this time. One of the members of the Scott AFB council was working for a military contractor which specialized in computer programming. They were looking for a computer administrator who knew UNIX, which I happened to know. It was 6 months on base at the main server facility, with the potential to continue with the company for further contracts. This was the job I was looking for. I really thought God was looking out for me.

Well, it turns out He was, just not the way I expected. The main server facility was next to one of the headquarters buildings on base, and had a small restaurant where I would go for lunch. It was also where my friend Mike worked as part of his job, as he was an officer in the Air Force. One day, around noon, I was walking over to the restaurant and ran into Mike. He was heading to daily Mass, and invited me to join him. He had been encouraging me to consider trying to get to daily Mass, and I had plenty of excuses why I couldn’t. On this day, the excuses ran out, and I walked with him to the base chapel. From that day on, I would regularly go to daily Mass before grabbing a quick lunch.

It was at daily Mass at the chapel that I first performed the role of altar server, having not done it as a child. I think that this was the turning point in my discernment process, as I started to get a better appreciation for the Mass and how important it needed to be in my life. Instead of just going to Mass once a week to get it “done with”, I was daily present at the Sacrifice on Calvary and receiving Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

About this time, I found out that my friend Matt, who had given me a place to stay when I was between the Air Force and my first job, was not baptized. I had seen him at Mass, and never seen him receive communion. One day I asked him why, and after hearing that he wasn’t baptized, asked him if he had ever considered going through baptism. He said that he had, and was considering going through RCIA at the parish.

A couple of weeks later, Matt asked me if I would be willing to be his sponsor through RCIA. I agreed, and for the next year, Matt and I caused trouble during the RCIA classes (in a good way, of course). I was learning a lot about the Faith, but Matt was a voracious reader. He even read the Catechism of the Catholic Church all the way through! (Something I’ve never done, admittedly.) We never directly contradicted the instructors, but we did ask some questions that they had no idea how to answer. After he completed the RCIA process, and received the Sacraments at the Easter Vigil, I turned to ask him how he felt following the reception of three Sacraments at once. I didn’t have to. The tears of joy said it all.

With all this going on, the defenses were starting to go down. I found that I was actually willing to consider a vocation to the priesthood, although I wasn’t going to make any commitments at that time. It would still take another year and a half before I finally submitted my will to God’s divine will.

Continue to Part 4 – God’s 2×4

As I was undergoing the preparation for Confirmation, I said that my plan included going to college and getting a degree right after high school. That plan changed fairly quickly as I started getting the recruiting packages from colleges and universities throughout the country. I became overwhelmed with the different schools that I could choose from and the different majors that were available to me.

While that was bad enough, I also started looking at the costs associated with these schools and became even more overwhelmed. You see, I wasn’t what one would call the most dedicated student in the world. I pulled fairly decent grades, but I was not applying myself for anything. A few subjects I enjoyed, like Math, Science, Band and Choir, and was rewarded with good grades in those classes. Other classes, such as English, weren’t my favorites and the grades suffered accordingly.

As I started to look at the costs of colleges and universities, I realized that full-ride scholarships probably weren’t in my future. I just didn’t have the grades, and it was all but impossible to be in the top ten percent of your class when you were one of only 31 members. I started to look for other options, and found it at a college fair in a neighboring town.

I think most people are familiar with the concept of a college fair. All the colleges that are trying to recruit high school seniors gather in a school gymnasium and give out free pens, brochures and other goodies to try sign up as many potential students on their mailing lists as possible. My school was too small to hold its own college fair, and instead joined several other small towns in Sidney, MT, for a larger fair.

I was walking around this fair, talking with representatives from both major Montana universities and looking at the smaller colleges that were there, when I came to a booth that had been placed underneath the basketball hoop at one end of the gym. It was the United States Air Force, an option I hadn’t considered, and a well-dressed military recruiter was visiting with a couple of other high schoolers. I went over and started looking at the all the information he had available. The other students left, and he started talking with me for a few minutes. My interest was peaked, especially over the college money available through the Air Force, and gave him my contact information.

Over the next couple of months, I met with him a couple of times when he would make his rounds through the northeast corner of Montana. The more we talked, the more interested I became in the Air Force. My parents were concerned, as I think most parents are when their children start talking about joining the military, but were supportive. I eventually decided that this was what I needed to do after high school, and began the paperwork and physicals. Little did I know the effect this would have on how I would grow in my faith.

The rest of my Senior year continued as expected. People around town were surprised that I would consider the Air Force, as I wasn’t the most athletic person in the world (I’m still not). The recruiter kept in touch throughout the time of waiting for graduation and my date to ship out for Basic Training. It was a time of anticipation both for the end of high school and start of a new life, and the Faith still wasn’t an important aspect in my life. It was there, just not very important.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, graduation came and went, and my date for Basic Training arrived. I went off to Basic Training, with the expected tears from Mom, and the world changed. Anyone who has ever been through one of the training programs when entering the military can tell horror stories about their time at Boot, Basic, or whatever the military branch calls it.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and it may be true, but there are also no atheists at Basic Training. On Sunday morning, we were given the option to go to services or clean the barracks. What do you think most of us chose? My Mass attendance at Basic was exemplary, didn’t miss once in the six weeks of training. All the Catholics were given a cheap Rosary during Chapel orientation, and I actually carried it with me throughout the entire training. I don’t remember praying it once, but I did carry it.

Following Basic, I went to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS, for the technical training for my Air Force job, computer programmer. While I was there, learning a bunch of great stuff about programming computers, I started to wane slightly on Mass attendance. It wasn’t as crucial that I be out of the barracks on Sunday morning, and could even start to sleep in on weekends after a couple of weeks. I’ve always liked my sleep-in time, and I could get away with it a couple of days a week, so Mass suffered. Besides, the base chapel was a pretty good walk from the training dorms, a walk I really didn’t want to make too badly on some Sundays, so sometimes I didn’t go to Mass.

I completed my technical training more or less without incident on Thanksgiving Day, and flew home to visit my parents before heading off to my first duty station, Scott AFB in southern Illinois. I’d like to say I wanted to go to Mass when I was home visiting because of my desire to receive the Eucharist in my home parish, but mostly I wanted to go in order to show off the uniform. There’s not much that’ll get more respect in most small towns in America than coming back dressed in a military uniform. Yep, I had earned the uniform, and Mass was the perfect reason to show it off. The priest even welcomed me back at the beginning. Definitely not the most pious and spiritual reason to go, I admit.

Following my short leave, I reported to my unit at Scott, and began to settle into my dorm room. After a couple of weeks, I decided that I should walk over to the chapel and check it out, especially since it was only two or three blocks away. Looking around the vestibule, I found the Catholic section of the pamphlet rack. Much to my surprise, I found out that they have a Knights of Columbus council on base. Taking some of the information in the rack, I thought, “Hey, I know the Knights. My Dad joined them when we moved to Culbertson, and seems to enjoy doing things with them. I’ll join the Knights here, and that’ll give me something to do on my time off.”

As I continued to look around, I noticed a copy of the Catholic community bulletin sitting on a table. In the back of my mind I figured that if I was going to join a Catholic group, I should at least act like a Catholic by going to Mass once in a while, so I grabbed a bulletin to find out the time for Mass and returned to my dorm.

The next Sunday, I actually got up early, at least for what I had become accustomed to on Sundays, and went to Mass at the Chapel. Mind you, I hadn’t been to Confession in at least nine months and missed several Masses just in the few months that I was in the Air Force, but still received Communion at Mass. This is a good example of the spiritual state that I was in at that time, something which embarrasses me to this day. I met the celebrant, Fr. Hilaron, as well as one of the members of the Knight of Columbus council.

In the months following, I actually started to develop a fairly good attendance record at Mass. Fr. Hil, the junior Catholic chaplain who I had met, encouraged me to get involved in the Catholic community, and I helped out at Mass by monitoring and running the sound system from the back of the chapel. I was an electronics geek, and it sounded right up my alley.

The Knights of Columbus on base were no slouches for recruiting, and they quickly made contact with me and invited me to join. Within a year of arriving on base, I had joined the Knights and become active within the council, helping out with many of the activities the Knights were involved with both on and off base. I made it a point not to miss a meeting or activity unless official duties conflicted, which they rarely did.

For about my first couple of years, I maintained a certain status quo. I was somewhat active with the Knights, helping out with most of the activities and attending most meetings. I became a “more Sundays than not” Catholic, meaning I attended Mass more Sundays than I missed. I felt I was doing well, but didn’t have a prayer life, and hadn’t received the Sacrament of Confession in several years. In short, I was like many Catholics, even those we consider active, throughout the United States.

One day, after a couple of years in the Air Force, I was surfing the Internet, playing with the pre-Google killer search engine Altavista. On a lark, I entered “Catholic” into the search bar, just to see what would turn up. To my surprise, a great number of sites popped up, each containing a lot of information. Now that I know the amount of garbage that is on the Internet today and likely was on it back then, I feel that the Holy Spirit was really guiding me in what happened as part of my search.

One site in particular caught my interest, the Catholic Information Network. I started to first skim, then read, then devour voraciously, the information that was contained in this site. I couldn’t believe it, all this is Catholicism? You mean it’s more than just Mass once a week? Suddenly, things that I had learned years before in Religious Education came back. The Hail Mary and the Rosary. What the Mass meant. I had pushed all this to the back of my mind, never to be remembered, until I stumbled across this site.

Over the next few months, I had read almost everything on the CIN site, so I found other sites. There was this organization called Catholic Answers that did apologetics work. Lots of great information there. More reading ensued. I became interested in doing apologetics, but was too scared to try attempting to defend the Faith. I didn’t know much and realized it.

At some point, I found a link to EWTN’s website and began to read through their library as well. I knew who Pope John Paul II was, but I didn’t anything about him except that he lived in Rome and I’d seen his picture a bunch of times. Of course, EWTN had a lot of great information on the Pope, so I learned about JP2 and his predecessors. I also learned about Church history, and the Second Vatican Council, and so much more. I felt like the proverbial kid in a candy store. Unfortunately, we didn’t have EWTN on our cable, so I had to settle for the documents in the library.

I just couldn’t get enough information on Catholicism, and at some point along the way, something clicked in my mind. I realized that I needed to either commit myself fully to the Catholic Faith that I had been spending months reading about or just give it up altogether. Half-heartedly attending Mass and not being active in the Faith wasn’t going to cut it. This really is the moment of conversion in my life, the point where I took this Catholic faith, which had been passed on to me, and made it my own. For the first time in my life, I took responsibility for living the Faith and continuing to grow in it.

Because of my new-found excitement for the Faith, I became more active in the Catholic chapel. I once again began to Lector at Mass, and recommitted myself to Knight of Columbus activities. I was elected one of the trustees of the council, one of the officer positions within each Knights of Columbus council. I even began to pray on an irregular basis, beginning with devotions like the Rosary, and started to understand that Jesus wasn’t just some abstract historical figure. I became aware that He was present and active in my life from the beginning.

At this point, I started to feel a little nudge. You see, I came across a vocations website. I don’t even remember what diocese it was with, but it was a site dedicated to discernment of vocations. At the time, I looked at the site, laughed, and moved on. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” I thought.

Later on, I felt a little tickle in the back of my mind, almost a nagging. I remembered the Confirmation instructor telling me that I was going to be a priest. No, that’s not going to happen. Go away. I’m not called to be a priest, others are. I’m going to finish up my enlistment, get a computer job that pays lots of money, find a wife, have a family, live happily ever after.

By this time, I haven’t had too much luck with the dating scene. One girlfriend turned out to be trouble. Another girl that I was very interested in turned out to be a devout Mormon who expected to marry another Mormon. That’s not happening either. I’ve read enough Catholic apologetics to know that the Mormon church is bad news. All this is going through my mind, as I’m pushing the thoughts about the priesthood away. After all, I told myself, there’s still plenty of time to find the future Mrs. Sticha.

Shortly after my third anniversary in the Air Force, I received some bad news from my supervisor: I’d been chosen to spend five months in sunny Saudi Arabia. The unit needed to find someone to send on a deployment that had UNIX server experience. I had the experience and was getting close to the end of my enlistment, so I was perfect for the assignment. I tried to fight it, coming up with every excuse in the book, but ending up having to go. As I saw it, the only saving grace about this assignment was going during the winter months, when it would be a more comfortable temperature in Saudi in contrast to the cold temperatures in southern Illinois. It was also at a time when there were no active hostilities with Iraq, although we were watching Saddam Hussein very closely.

As part of my preparation for deployment, I had to undertake some training that I never thought I’d face. Because we thought that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons (and yes, every major country in the world thought that at the time!), I had to go though Nuclear, Biological and Chemical training, also known as the “Chem gear”. I also had to renew my certification on the M-16 rifle, much to my great amusement. The base was well away from any theoretical front lines that might develop, so there wouldn’t be a lot of the US military forces left if I had to pick up a rifle and fight.

Training complete, I take a short period of leave and fly off to the sunny deserts of Saudi Arabia. Before I left, I was advised that all religious articles were not allowed to enter the country for any reason. Although I had been praying the Rosary on occasion, my Knights of Columbus Rosary stayed Stateside for fear of things going ill with Saudi customs over it.

I arrived at the deployment base and discovered that the base chapel, a temporary hard tent set up in an empty block, was right across the street from my quarters. The base was a permanent facility built for Bedouin tribes, but later turned over to the Air Force when the Bedouins refused the houses. Each house had five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and everyone had their own rooms. I found it quite interesting that I could look out the window of my room and see the chapel, especially since I had become so interested in the practice of my faith.

Being active in my faith didn’t prevent me from missing Christmas Mass. I was still of the mindset that missing Mass once in a while was fine, so I didn’t hurry over to the chapel to find the schedule for Masses. I arrived shortly before Christmas, and it wasn’t until after New Years’ Day that I actually began going to Mass again. I obviously still had a lot to learn about the Faith.

When I did start going, however, I met Fr. Raymond (a.k.a. Fr. Red because of his red hair), the Catholic chaplain who was there on deployment. He had arrived shortly after Christmas, and was deployed there for six months. After a couple of Masses, he asked me to do something that I had never considered: cantor at Mass. Me? Sing in front of people on my own? Are you serious? There was one other person, a Navy Lieutenant who had been cantoring on his own and was willing to train me so that I could sing with him. I agreed, and joined him in leading the music.

As my deployment went on, I began to enjoy the assignment. It was pretty easy work, the weather was nice, at least at the beginning, and I was getting active in the chapel. By the time Easter rolled around, the Navy LT had returned to his permanent assignment and I was cantoring on my own. I also helped Fr. Red set up the chapel for the different celebrations of the Triduum, not to mention attending Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil for the first time in my life.

As I became more active in the chapel, I began to know Fr. Red better. As I began to know Fr. Red, I began to realize that priests are just normal men (well some priests are, anyways). Guess what came back? Yep, that little tickle in the back of my mind. Those memories of the Confirmation instructor came back as well. Once again, I pushed them away and recited my litany of plans for my life. This wouldn’t be the last time that I felt that little tickle by any stretch of the imagination.

I finally finished my deployment, and not a moment too soon. It was 102° F when I left Saudi Arabia at the beginning of May. I was eager to get back to the United States and begin the process of finding a job so I could start raking in the big bucks that I knew were out there for me. I was ready to go, ready to put an end to my Air Force career and start my civilian life.

When I got back to the United States, I plugged back in with the Knights of Columbus council on base. Many of them were military retirees who had retired from Scott and decided to stay in the area, so I knew that they would have an idea of which parishes near the base were good. One of them invited me to St. Clare Parish in O’Fallon, about 5 miles away from the base. One Sunday, I decided to attend Mass there instead of at the base chapel. I was blown away. Here was a relatively young community, mostly active military and families or military retirees, with a pastor who didn’t look like he was even 40 years old. I knew this was the parish I wanted to belong to. Once again, the Holy Spirit guided me in ways that were far beyond my understanding, as this decision would affect my discernment greatly.

As I was job hunting, and getting the usual uncertainty and flat out rejection that comes with the territory, I started to become unsure of myself. Was I going to find a job. The end of my enlistment was approaching rapidly, and there were no firm commitments coming forward. Once again, God tried to speak to me through that little tickle in the back of my mind, and once again I ignored it. I continued my job hunt, and ended up leaving the Air Force without finding a job, but didn’t have to wait too long before one came around.

Continue to Part 3 – Civilian Life

Thanks to the pestering of AdoroTeDevote and others at Plurk, I’ve decided it’s probably time to put my vocation story down on “paper”. I’ve broken the story into 5 pieces, so hopefully each post won’t be too long. As I complete and post each section, I’ll update this post. So, without further ado, my vocation story.

Part 1 – Culbertson
Part 2 – Air Force
Part 3 – Civilian Life
Part 4 – God’s 2×4
Part 5 – Seminary Discernment

The temptation when writing a vocation story is to make the story about the author, not about the movement of the Holy Spirit within the author’s life. In my life, I can definitely see the Holy Spirit nudging me in the right direction, even as I resisted and tried to go the opposite way.

When discussing my vocation story, I always go back to high school in Culbertson, MT. Culbertson is one of the little towns that dot much of the Great Plains in North America. Big enough to have its own school, but small enough that it’s not hard to know everyone in town. We moved into Culbertson right before my Freshman year in high school, and I wasn’t happy. We’d moved a lot throughout the years that I grew up, mostly following jobs for my parents. I wasn’t looking forward to yet another move, and to a very small town this time.

Despite my misgivings, we did move to the small town of Culbertson. After we had gotten settled into our new home, we went about getting to know this town. We were signed up for school and went to Mass at the small parish of St. Anthony for the first time. I was amazed by the size of the church compared to what I was used to. The church in the previous town could seat 800 people, while St. Anthony’s could only hold about 250, and that would be stretching the limits.

Fall came around, and school started. Like many parishes, high school youth group started about the same time as classes started, and I had been signed up for youth group as well. You see, my mom wanted both of us to receive a good Catholic grounding, even if we really didn’t practice the Faith at home. Yeah, we said the grace before meals once in a while. Sure, we had a crucifix or two hanging on the walls of the house, but we really didn’t talk about how the Faith matters to us. Since it didn’t seem to be important to our parents, it wasn’t important to me. We went to Mass more Sundays than not, and I was a regular at youth group, but the practice of the Faith ended there. Over the summers, the Sundays we attended Mass became lessened due to the desire to enjoy Summer break, not to mention the all important high school part-time job which frequently meant working on Sundays.

The practice of my faith went like this for about two years until my Junior year in high school. At the time, the procedure in the diocese was to confirm during high school, preferably Junior or Senior year. In our case, the bishop only came around every other year, due to small numbers of confirmandi, and it happened to fall on my Junior year.

As part of the preparation for Confirmation classes, we had a one-on-one meeting with the instructor of the class. During this meeting, she asked me to consider lectoring and teaching Kindergarten and First Grade religious education. I agreed to give it a try, do my part to help out at the church and all that. We were expected to be at Mass every week, so I made sure to attend. It would be impossible to hide the fact that I’d missed, but I still wasn’t really committed to the practice of the Faith.

At one point, about half way through the year, she came up to me during a weekend retreat and said the most surprising thing that I had ever heard before: “Cory, I think you’re going to be a priest.” I was shocked. Me, a priest? Get up there every Sunday, suffer through the Mass willingly? Me? No way, forget it. I’m going to college, get a degree and a job, get married, have a family, and live happily ever after. That’s what we do in the US, right? The priesthood is not a part of that picture.

She wasn’t satisfied, however. About a month later, a religious sister came to the parish to talk about vocations. During the talk, as the sister was discussing the priesthood, the Confirmation instructor leaned over and said, “You know she’s talking about you, don’t you?” Once again, I shook my head no. There is no way I’m going to become a priest. Forget it!

As I look back, I can clearly see the work of the Holy Spirit through this woman, who happened to be the mother of one of my classmates. She told me one more time before the year was over that I would become a priest, and again I refused. In a way, I almost see a parallel between her three invitations to the priesthood and St. Peter’s denials of Our Lord. Just as he didn’t give up on St. Peter, Our Lord didn’t give up on me, but continued to work in my soul.

Following my Confirmation, I continued to Lector at the parish on occasion and occasionally be involved with the parish youth group, but I still wasn’t committed. The summer following my Junior year, I went on a Christian leadership retreat sponsored by the diocese, but the Faith was still something vague and unimportant to me throughout my Senior year. It was after high school that something in me began to stir, and practice of the Faith became important.

Continue to Part 2 – Air Force