One of the most beautiful liturgies in the Catholic Church is when a man becomes a priest of Jesus Christ. At the Mass of ordination, he men to be ordained kneel in front of the bishop one by one, and they place their folded hands between the hands of the bishop....
Holy priests don’t always start out holy. Take the case of St. Vincent de Paul. His beginning was rough, but in time, Vincent became an exemplar of priestly virtue and holiness. Being from a poor family, his father had to sell the family’s oxen to send him to college...
“We’re accidents floating on a rock in the emptiness of space. Billions of years preceded humanity, and after our inevitable extinction, there will be billions more years of silent emptiness. Human existence is a blip that means nothing in the vast history of...
Our Lord said that His sheep would know His voice; but when it comes to discerning your vocation, you’ve probably found that it’s not as simple as it sounds. How can you tell if what you’re hearing is God’s voice? If you keep in mind a few characteristics...
It’s easy to forget the awesome office of the priest. We see him daily offering the Mass, hearing confessions, anointing, counseling, helping his people to overcome their difficulties and sins. How often do we stop to think about what the priest really is? One way to...
Did you realize that you do not get to choose your vocation? That does not mean you have no free will regarding your vocation. On the contrary, a vocation cannot be lived without free will. Think about what a vocation is: it is a call from God to live your life in the...
From a perspective of faith, everyone shares some common fundamental questions: What is the true meaning for my existence? What is God’s plan for my life? To what fruitfulness am I called? To discern one’s vocation is to find the answers to these...
I’ve always wanted to be a priest and heal souls! That’s why I’m discerning the priesthood. But lately, I’ve lost interest and think maybe God isn’t calling me any more. One of the most difficult parts of discerning your vocation is knowing when to accept a motivation...
You can’t discern totally online — you need to talk to a person! The internet has made it really easy to find all kinds of information about discerning a vocation, and that’s great! Information about religious orders, seminaries, and discernment in general, is...
We know almost nothing about St. Joseph. Scripture tells us relatively little, and pious tradition should be taken with a grain of salt. But what we do know about his life can be a great help and consolation to one who is in the turmoil of discerning his vocation....
“…if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself. But if it comes from God, you will not be able to stop it.” (Acts 5:38-39) In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, we read about Jesus inviting two of his disciples to...
When Pope Francis was a young seminarian in his twenties, he had to think about celibacy very carefully. A few years ago, when he was a cardinal, he recalled in an interview: “I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle’s wedding… I was surprised by...
The extreme heroism of a few priests is well known. You’ve heard stories of priests who were martyred, or sacrificed their own lives for others, or endured great hardships for the sake of the Gospel. Imagine a man who comes home to see his house on fire, and...
In a previous Newsletter, we talked about what prayer is (and is not). This article focuses more specifically on how to pray. To begin, here are some important points to consider: Rely on God. We can’t develop a relationship with God by ourselves. We must rely on His...
Becoming a mountain-climber is not a one-time event. You don’t just “go climb a mountain” without ever having done it before. It takes knowledge, hours of practice, patience and perseverance. It’s hard work! But what compels a man to climb a mountain? If he’s never...
Can you imagine the Church today without the influence of one of the greatest priest-saints of the 19th century, St. John Vianney? It easily could have happened. The world could have been completely unaware of the existence of the man named Jean Marie Vianney, if he...
We live in an age when life moves fast, information comes nonstop, and sometimes it may seem the best way to deal with millions of options is not to lock into any of them. That’s the consensus of a number of studies on fear of commitment, a growing problem in younger...
Many saints struggled with temptations; some even led very sinful lives prior to their conversions. As St. Paul said, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom 7:15). What does this tell us about holiness? We become holy not despite our weakness,...
We hear a lot about how important prayer is in the Christian life, and especially when discerning one’s vocation. It’s the essential way we connect with God. So it’s obvious that prayer is important — but maybe it’s less obvious what prayer actually is....
Take a moment to consider some big questions: Did God make you for a definite purpose? Or can you be happy choosing any number of courses for your life? If God already knows your future, do you really have free will? If you were ordained a priest, would it be because...
