Difficulties in Discerning

It’s been a long time since I last wrote an entry into this blog, for multiple reasons. For one I’ve been quite busy with school and work. Another is that I haven’t been sure what to write about. Mostly it’s because I’ve been having difficulty in my discernment.

I’m in my fourth year of post-secondary education. I could be graduating this year. Instead after this one I have two more. I’ve taken time off to work and jumped around a bit in my studies. I definitely wouldn’t change it to finish school early as I’ve gained fantastic experience as a result but it’s hard to think that after having committed seriously to discernment for over a year that I still have almost three more until I can enter the seminary. At times it feels like it’s really far away and I’m stuck and not really going anywhere. Technically I’m working towards the seminary but it doesn’t feel like it because it’s years away. Instead of finding something to work for or taking it in strides like “well I’ll really solidify a prayer routine and then find some consistent spiritual reading time and start hanging out with the younger priests more often” I’ve just been sitting and waiting. Turns out that drives me bonkers. I can wait for something as long as I can find something else to work for in my waiting. I’ve still been loving life and having a blast with my friends and enjoying work and everything; I’ve just felt a little empty because I let my prayer life hang up to dry instead of focusing on it more.

So in saying my discernment has been difficult I don’t mean I’ve been suddenly thinking that I desperately need to find a wife and have kids because I could never be a priest. It’s just that I haven’t really been actively discerning for a while and just waiting to go to seminary. Although, admittedly I have thought a lot more about married life simply because this year I’ve finally started realising what I’d be giving up. I thought of it before as just a job. Being a priest is by far the most appealing career for me, but it’s not just a career. And while I know that, I didn’t really get it. Giving up a family isn’t easy at all. I haven’t made any sort of formal commitment yet but I already feel pain at the thought of not having a wife and kids. I have a lot of friends that live in town with their family here at school and got to visit my family for the long weekend and have been reminded how awesome families are. However I’ve also made an effort (after meeting with my spiritual director for a good little kick in the shins) to get my prayer life back in order and have felt more moments of peace at the thought of the priesthood as well.

It’s still a ways away, and while it’s not really that far it feels really far. Coming to more and more of an understanding about what I’m potentially giving up helps me realise what I’m taking up and what I need to do to try and be ready for it. If nothing else my discernment is having a huge effect in shaping me. As much as I’d love to talk about how awesome a person I’m becoming I should probably save that for another post. Plus then people wouldn’t know I’m so humble. I will say though that getting closer and closer to my friends and the families around me is one of the biggest things I am thankful for. I remember before thinking “I don’t know if I can ever see a parish as my family if I were a priest, like a bunch of other families and old people and other people not my age…” I love being surrounded by people my age at school but I’m also learning to love having just about anyone around. I love having friends to run into and families to visit. I unexpectedly met a friend I hadn’t seen in weeks to give them something and we ended up hanging out for a few hours and it was awesome. I feel so much closer to them than I had realised beforehand. I find myself experiencing so much more joy and love. My friends are my family. And pretty much everyone is my friend. I’m used to calling people my brothers and sisters in Christ but now I really feel like they’re all actually my brothers and sisters. And so with that, my brothers and sisters, I ask that you pray for me; that I may keep my head on straight and my prayer life in check. That I may keep working towards my vocation no matter what it is to be rather than sitting and waiting. Pray that I may have patience and fortitude. I’m asking for a lot but I could always use more prayers. I love you all and I appreciate it immensely. (That may come as a shock to the random first time reader -woah! This guy said he loves me, what the hell’s wrong with him – but oh well.

Did you enjoy reading this? Be sure to follow my blog to keep up if you want.

Dancing with the Devil

Spiritual warfare is something that many people have different opinions on. We’ve all heard “the devil made me do it” but unless you’re diabolically possessed than you’re still responsible for your own actions. Others say that while Satan is a nice fall guy or scapegoat for having sinister inclinations he doesn’t actually influence us at all. According to our faith; however, demons, are quite real and can affect us through temptation or potentially through different kinds of possession – but this particular blog post will focus on temptation, possession may be something that I write about in a later entry.

First off let’s take a look at what we can mean by temptation. Well obviously it means to be tempted (the dictionary app on my phone says “the act of tempting; enticement or allurement”). One can be tempted to many ends. We say chocolate can be tempting. A bit of chocolate on its own isn’t really bad for us, but if we slam down a couple boxes then it gets to the point where it’s not good for us at all. Sometimes we say an offer is tempting but we shouldn’t take it. I find for me usually in this scenario the offer isn’t bad at all, it could be an invitation to go swing dancing and I love swing dancing but it may be that I have some work or something to get done and so I know it’s better for me not to go And finally we can be tempted to do something sinful in which case no matter how little of it we do it’s wrong. For instance girl’s can be tempting or enticing or alluring and obviously girls are always trouble and need to be avoided at all cost. Okay not true but having certain notions or thoughts towards a woman can either be sinful itself or can lead one to sin. I’m sure girls can have the same problem with guys but since guys aren’t as evil as women I doubt it ever happens. (Okay again not true, I’m simply trying to subliminally recruit more men to the priesthood).

Now I believe that oftentimes when we’re tempted to do something it doesn’t mean there’s a demon on our shoulder whispering into our ear to do it. I bet that a lot of the time it’s just because we want to do it and tend to be sinful in nature. Or it can be because it’s a battle a demon has already won against us and now we’re predisposed to be tempted in whatever particular direction. The reason it’s called spiritual warfare is because it’s war. The devil’s demonic forces, if you will, work solely to cause our damnation. They don’t sleep they don’t eat they don’t play. For the gals reading this -how did it feel to be called evil earlier? Even though you knew it was a joke it probably still stung at least a titch. We know that evil is a really strong word; you can’t be any more bad than evil. That’s what Satan and his demons are. They’re evil. They work around the clock to bring us farther away from God. If they don’t spare a moment to cease from tempting us then we can’t spare a moment to not fight them. 1 Peter 5:8-9 says “Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith.” I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not be hunted by a roaring lion… Now when I say we can’t spare a moment to not fight them I don’t mean that we have to pray for protection from temptation with every waking moment. I mean we should take care to never be in a situation where we’re not somehow guarded.

“The devil makes work of idle hands”. So don’t be idle. I find I’m most drawn to sin when I’m doing absolutely nothing, just lazing around wasting the day away. So I try to pray as much as I can and work hard and be proactive most of the day. I’ll still take some time to watch a movie or even play a game but I won’t do it for hours and hours. Also I know personally (and it’s this way with most people) that late at night I’m much more easily tempted as well. My two big blocks of prayer are in the morning to start my day right and at night to keep my head on straight. If I’m tired I do my best to go to bed and not just keep watching t.v. or checking Facebook endlessly. Keeping buys or hanging out with friends helps a lot but for those moments of heavy temptation that are going to come having an active prayer life is key. Prayer gives us those spiritual weapons to keep the evil one at bay. The more often we pray the stronger our spiritual Hadouken is gonna be.

Ultimately though, we can’t win the fight against sin on our own. The most sure fire way to defeat temptation is to simply pray about it in the moment. Never has the Lord not answered anyone who has called for His help. Check out the above picture. Not only has the angel laid waste to half a dozen demons all around but he’s doing a pirouette on one. It’s not a hard battle for him like it is for us, because he’s sent by God to defeat demons. We all have guardian angels and St. Michael and God’s heavenly legion of angels to fight demons for us. They can’t lose because they’re fighting for God. If we really call upon God’s help then he’ll win but we have to want Him to win. If we half heartedly ask for help while we’re already in the process of sinning then it’s not gonna happen. I don’t believe God’s going to do all the fighting for us, He still wants us to make an effort. But He will do most of the work. I had a nightmare when I was a kid one time that the devil was chasing me to devour my soul (terrifying right?) So I spent the first part of the dream running around my block but couldn’t run fast enough so my dad being a quick thinker drove me to the church in town. I ran out of the van just as Satan tore apart my dad’s body with his claws and fangs and booked it to the church. But guess what? The church was locked. I ran around to every door and it wouldn’t open and right as I was about to be devoured I woke up, terrified. I didn’t want to run into my parent’s room because even though it was just a bad dream I was now scared that if I involved them they would be eaten by a demon. It was then that I remembered hearing that the one thing that can always fight the devil off is the word of God. For whatever reason the only verse that came to mind was what Jesus said to Satan in the desert (I had an odyssey cassette with that scene in it so I had heard it a few times) “Man cannot live on bread alone but by every word from the mouth of God” and I just kept saying it over and over again. It made me feel immensely better the verse itself confirms that we need the word of God. Another great weapon to have in our arsenal is the bible. Reading it is something that I have a hard time doing regularly but when I do it feels amazing.

Spiritual warfare is real, but it’s not something to be afraid of because we’re on the winning side. But we do need to keep in mind how to keep our spiritual ammunition fully loaded and ready to go. Never hesitate to call on the Lord for help and always fight the good fight.

Check out my earlier posts Prayer Demands Discipline for what I have to say about having a healthy prayer life.

Did you enjoy reading my blog? Please follow by clicking the link above on the right to keep with more posts.

Sin Sucks

Sinning is something I do more often than I should. I suppose it’s something in all likelihood we all do more often than we ought to. Sometimes it’s venial (smaller sins that do not require confession) and sometimes it’s mortal (grave sins that require confession). Sin tends to make me less of a good person too. Just something about being in a state of sin often leads me to think “well I have to go to confession anyways I may as well do this one too” which is absolutely terrible of course. A good analogy I heard was your sin piles up like trash in your car. At first you just leave wrappers lying around and maybe bottles or drink cups, then maybe whole bags of trash from fast food and as your car fills up with little bits of garbage, as you fill up with venial sin, all of a sudden a mortal sin, like a big black trash bag doesn’t look very out of place anymore. “Just add it to the pile, whatever, f*** it…” Of course, piling on sin tends to make us feel pretty crummy. So as Catholics we go to confession. For anyone who doesn’t know, confession in this context isn’t just like admitting something,

it’s admitting your sins to a priest and then him offering you absolution for your sins; forgiving you in persona Christi.

My parents aren’t both Catholic. My dad’s Lutheran, and so while I did receive a Catholic education and went to Catechism, either because I didn’t really remember what I learned or I didn’t really pay attention, or just because I looked up more to my dad than to my teachers, I ended up not knowing a fair bit about my faith and adopted parts of my dad’s. One of these was not going to confession. It makes sense when you think about it without knowledge of catholic teaching. Why should I tell a man in a collar about my sins? I’ll just say sorry to the big Guy himself and know that He forgives me because He loves me. I later found out in life that as Catholics we believe we can do this for venial sin. Or if say you were trapped on an island without any hope of ever coming into a contact with a priest ever again, you could do it for mortal sin as long as you’re truly repentant because not being able to go to confession is out of your control. For those of us who are not castaway we must go to confession for mortal sin. In sinning mortally we have essentially turned our backs on God for the time being. Our deliberate action has severed our relationship with Him, not on His end, but on our end. Note though, that it has to be deliberate, with knowledge of the fact that it’s a mortal sin. It’s recommended however, to go to confession regularly, not just for mortal sin. It gives you a bunch of graces and it helps you keep your back car seat clean, as it were. If you cleaned it out regularly before it got too dirty, it would be less often that you’d end up with big black trash bags in the pile. I personally can’t wait more than a couple weeks just because I’m drawn to sin after that point. I’m not strong in that regard, I’m not able to resist morts once I have a few venes racked up. The standard recommendation is to go every month, while we’re kind of expected to go at the very least every six months.

So what’s with penance then? If we’re already forgiven why do we need to do penance? Well we don’t technically have to as absolution has already happened but it’s definitely recommended. The Catechism says “Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin had caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health…he must ‘make satisfaction for’ or ‘expiate’ his sins (1459). A priest explained it to me with this analogy. If you broke your mum’s lamp with a baseball bat, but you apologised and she forgave you then buying a new lamp (even if it’s not the same or as nice) would be like penance. It’s an extra thing you do to make up for your sin even though you don’t have to. Plus often times priests may give you penance that is meant to assist you with whatever your sin was.

A part of the act of contrition that I make at the end of confession that I always forget about is that I’ve firmly intended with God’s grace to sin no more. Yes I will be back in the confessional, yes I will sin again, but I will not intend to. Sometimes when I’m struggling with a particular sin (lately it’s been sloth because I’m wanting to spend my entire day just loafing on the couch playing video games and watching movies) I forget that “oh hey I resolved not to do this”. For some reason knowing it’s wrong doesn’t seem to be enough of a reason to not do it. I suppose that may be part of the human condition but I find the best way for me to fight it is to make sure I keep my prayer life up to snuff. As I wrote about in Prayer Demands Discipline, having a strong prayer life really does a ton, and in this instance it helps me fight sin and not put myself in occasions of near sin or open myself to temptation. Sin sucks, but prayer rocks. My brothers and sisters in Christ, please pray for me, a sinner.

Thanks for reading! If you liked it then click the follow button up on the right to get my posts e-mailed to you.

Won’t You be Lonely?

In my first post “What about a Family?” I talked a little bit about the sacrifice one would have to make to become a priest. Today I want to get into it more in depth (plus I rolled a one which was this topic). As we all probably know, in order to become a priest in the Roman Catholic Rite you must take a vow of celibacy. You can’t have a wife, you can’t have kids. I feel people often assume that potentially living by yourself means you’ll be lonely. I recall staying at a priest’s residence for a few days when I was travelling around the states and I talked to him a fair about the priesthood. I brought up this very point and he said something like “maybe some people get lonely, but I’m certainly not! I know a lot of married people that are far more lonely than a lot of the priests I know.” If you don’t have a thriving marriage or devout spouse then you are going to be lonely. You could even have a thriving marriage and completely devout spouse and still be lonely at times.

Where does loneliness come from? I know a lot of people that live on their own (not just priests) who don’t seem to be lonely at all and have also met lots of people in relationships or even married that feel very lonely. It seems then that loneliness does not come from being alone. I contend that it comes from a lack of understanding. When we feel like no one understands us or relates to us is there for us, that’s when we’re lonely. If a husband or wife is so busy working and providing for their family and when they’re off they just consume their time with tv or the internet, facebook, twitter, etc. etc. I imagine it would be pretty easy to feel lonely if you didn’t take time to cherish your family or spend with friends. One thing about being a priest is while you may not necessarily have an abundance of time often, you don’t need to commit any to a family at home. It’s pretty well summed up in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34 “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.” Obviously being worried about pleasing your spouse is not a bad thing and being a good spouse is in itself serving the Lord. But not having to do that can let you serve the Lord more freely as well.

Technically speaking not all Catholic priests have to do this. We currently have had quite a few married Anglican priests convert to Catholicism and are able to continue being priests even though they already have families. Also if you belong to an Eastern rite such as the Byzantine then you can be a married priest. Now while they are in full communion with our rite and are Catholic as well it’s not entirely the same. We believe all the same things but our Masses are different in some ways, they don’t really do adoration, and I’m pretty sure they stand way more. Some people have asked me why I don’t go to one of these rites to become a priest so I can also be married. Simply put, it’s not mine. It’s extremely similar, yes, it is in full communion with our Roman Catholic Rite, yes, it follows the pope, yes. But it’s not my Rite. I don’t know anybody in it, I wasn’t raised in it, I don’t feel called to go to it. I belong where I am.

With all that said it’s important to recognise that becoming a priest takes sacrifice. A lot of sacrifice.

Anyone from my Reach year remember Fr. Caleb and Fr. Justin’s talk about sacrifice?

Sacrifice is supposed to hurt. The realisation that becoming a priest would mean not getting married or sharing in sex with a wife hit me pretty late in my discernment. And when it did it hit me hard. I was suddenly nearly overwhelmed with worry and anxiety that I may not get married and I wanted a wife. I started thinking of almost every girl I know that I had any interest in and thinking “maybe she’s meant to be my wife! Maybe she’s meant to be my wife! What if she’s meant to be my wife!” So I prayed a rosary to calm down and arranged a meeting with my spiritual director. He told me that it was good I realised what I could be giving up, and that it would be a big sacrifice and that sacrifice is supposed to hurt; because sacrifice is death to self. Every time we sacrifice something we’re letting a little piece of our self die because we’re not giving ourselves what we want. When someone chooses to not get married; that is a huge sacrifice, that’s a lot of death to self.

I suppose that to not get lonely I’d have to hang out with my brother priests fairly often. Having friends and family you can talk and relate to would help a lot and of course being involved in your parish because they are essentially your family when you’re a priest. If God does will me to become a priest then I hope to join many families for dinners and outings and events and really connect with my parish or community. Not having a family would be a huge sacrifice. But God is greater and I’m sure He can make it worth it.

Family in Community

So this post isn’t really about discernment so much about how awesome it is to be Catholic. I’m sure people of other religions feel this way as I’m sure do some people who simply belong to strong communities. The feeling to which I’m referring is that of belonging, of family.

I come from a small family. I have one little brother so with my parents there’s four of us plus our dog and other pets; pretty much the stereotype statistic for a family in Canada. Most of the family on my dad’s side is either passed on or out of reach. He came from Germany and so his family spread out a lot over the continent and as far as I know we’re out of contact with most of them. My mum’s side of the family is quite small as well. She has two brothers only one of which is married with children. They have two kids and a dog as well. We do get to see each other every once in a while but we’ve never had any of those huge family reunions some families have and so I feel like I have a very small family – which is totally cool by the way, not complaining.

Since growing deeper in my faith and connecting more with the church and the catholic community, especially since coming to University I feel like I am part of a huge family. I call almost everyone I know bro or sis and my friends that live with or have family here welcome me into their home on a daily basis. Sometimes I’ll stop by to say hi or come over for something and I’m fed several times, given a drink, taken out to a meal or movie or sports game or invited to spend the night (or several nights). I’m given leftovers to take home as well as extra food. These are all huge blessings that totally prove Matthew 6:26 (“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”). The part I love the best though, is simply the closeness I have with my catholic family. The jokes, the laughs, the talks, the walks, the smiles, the high-fives, the fist bumps, the hugs, etc. etc.

We are all part of the church, part of the body of Christ. “They will know we are Christians by our Love” is a hymn that pretty much sums it up (and now it’s stuck in my head…). It’s so much more than merely being great friends. I had friends in high school, I have friends now that I see in class and at work. Granted some of my friends that I see in class and at work are like family as well. Some of my “best friends” aren’t even religious but I love ‘em and am super thankful for them. These are much harder to come across though outside of the catholic community. They’re like family because they’re awesome people and we have a lot in common and get along great. I feel like those aren’t even requirements for my bigger catholic family though. We’re together in faith. Pardon the cheesiness but I am a man of sentiment and I believe that we pray together and play together and we will stay together as family forever in this world and in the kingdom to come after. I love everybody I am blessed enough to be close to in my faith and having this closeness and community is such a beautiful gift that God has given me. God is good! All the time! All the time! God is good!

Be a Man!

It seems a fair few people in the blog community have been writing on chastity/purity lately. I’m not purposely following the trend; I just rolled a die to pick my topic like usual and happened to roll this one. A brief note to the women folk that this post is for them too; I thought about making the title more politically correct and ‘inclusive’ but couldn’t think of anything as catchy. Whenever I say man just think back to old times when it was in reference to all of mankind/humanity.

One of the hardest parts of being a man, arguably, is staying chaste and pure. I know I for one have struggled with this quite a bit in my… since forever. I’m not sure when exactly it started but I can remember doing stuff that ‘felt good’ since I was a kid, and then once I got to high school I learned what masturbation was and decided to give it a try and, like I’m sure every guy knows, couldn’t stop for the longest time. It didn’t help that I didn’t know according to my faith it was a sin until my last year of high school. Of course I also got hooked to porn at some point, because you can access thousands if not millions of pictures and videos online just by googling it. For me that actually started out because of curiousity. I wanted to know what a woman looked like without clothes on, I knew what my body looked like but was curious what a girl’s body looked like, but I stumbled upon pornographic material and was hooked almost immediately.

Today’s culture does not help with being pure and chaste either. Magazine covers with inappropriate pictures are at nearly every till in almost every store, movies are loaded with lustful romance and sex scenes and the schoolroom is filled with rude conversation. As a teenager I thought that stuff like touching and gratification was just part of a relationship. Thankfully my parents had taught me abstinence so I never went all the way but unfortunately I didn’t really know my faith and I didn’t really know what respect for women was so I still did more than I’m proud of. A lot of people think that chastity equals abstinence. It doesn’t. Abstinence is simply waiting for marriage to have sex, which is a good start, but it permits you to take part in whatever kind of sexual activity you want that isn’t full out sex. Chastity (in my words) is the act of honouring yourself and others by acting purely; that is to say it’s keeping your sexual desires in check completely. No touching, no sensual gratification, in some schools of thought it even excludes macking (making out).

How do we fight this?

<

It’s important first off to recognise that you are not alone. A survey done in the last decade showed that 99% of American males have masturbated at least once, which, because surveys suck, actually means 99% of American males admit they have masturbated at least once. I imagine porn has similar numbers, and women aren’t excluded from this struggle. The numbers may not be as high but quite a lot of girls struggle with masturbation and/or porn as well. Talking to someone can make a huge difference. The biggest gaps from masturbation in my life have been caused from having a brother in the faith to fight with; to cheer each other on, to check up on the other, to pray for one another. It sucks to have to admit it but it makes a huge difference.

Fight fight fight. If you don’t try, you will not succeed. That means you can’t even allow yourself to think about it. The Imitation of Christ has a fantastic passage about dealing with temptation. It basically says that if you reason with temptation you’ve already lost. Rather you must deny the enemy at the door, do let him gain any access to you. That means as soon as the thought pops into your head you say no and pray it away. Another important thing to recognise here is that sexual desire is not evil. Sex is an awesome, beautiful gift from God and we ware meant to want it. What is wrong is not using it as He intended and abusing that gift. When you fail which everyone does from time to time and I have done many, many times is, admit you messed up but don’t sulk and look down and hate yourself. Remember that you’re trying and you’re human and get up and try again to do better this time.

There’s a lot of material out there that can help too. Bad Catholic recently published a post on why porn sucks that shows some great information on pornography and Matt Fradd is an awesome anti-porn activist who has some great material on fighting the good fight against porn as well as striving for chastity including a blog post I really like he put up not too long ago. I recently found and listened to Matt Fradd’s interview with former porn figures “The Ugly Truth” which does a great job of exposing the lies of porn and showing why instead of supporting the industry we need to fight it and pray for those trapped in it.

As much as we may try to belittle the monstrous things that masturbation and porn are and how degrading they are to our person, it’s important to know that they are terrible disturbers of the peace and that if we as men or women take part in these willingly then we are degrading the way we see each other. It’s hard, but you don’t have to be as swift as the coursing river, have all the force of a great typhoon, have all the strength of a raging fire, or be as mysterious as the dark side of the moon to succeed. You just need to try and fight as hard as you can, set rules and boundaries, and be humble and ask for help of either friends and God or at least just the big Guy himself.

Here’s a little prayer I came up with that continues to help me a lot in seeing others with respect and fighting to stay chaste and pure.
Lord god, thank you for making me a man,
help me to be the man you made me to be,
a man of strength, honour, and virtue.
Help me to not see women in lust,
for they are your most beautiful creations.
But to see them for their true, pure beauty,
As you would see them through your eyes, Lord, with love and respect.
Once again Lord, thank you for making me a man.
Help me to follow your example Lord Jesus, as the perfect man,
And that of your foster father St. Joseph, Mary’s most chaste spouse.
Amen.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this be sure to follow by e-mail by clicking above on the right.

What if I’m Attracted to Someone?

Is anyone else kinda tired of seeing those Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” memes?

In my first post “What about a Wife?” I had said that there’s always gonna be a girl that you’ll find yourself drawn to. While I’m no expert on handling attraction (and I’ll tell you why) I thought I’d go a bit deeper into it. Just a couple of years ago I was in a fairly serious relationship because while I had been discerning priesthood I felt that the attraction this gal and I had was more special than any other crush I had felt and so it must have been something to go on. It lasted for a little over a year and while it felt great most of the time it didn’t last. I actually didn’t really feel the call back to priesthood until during the break-up which I am thankful for because it would have been really hurtful to have broken up with her because I had mistaken my vocation and focused too much on her. Yet thankfully younger Karl learned a lesson from this and that is what I wish to share now.

First off, I am in no way trying to claim that I am immune from being attracted to women; that is dead wrong. Also, just for the record it’s not like my calling is manifesting itself due to lack of numbers in the opposite gender. Living in Victoria I am surround by beautiful catholic women, literally. The number of catholic women to men in our Catholic Students Association at school is probably 4:1 or so. I remember my spiritual director making a joke that with myself and a couple of others discerning religious vocations the girls are going to have an even harder time finding future husbands.

Needless to say, after having already done an about face in my discernment (twice) I had to have a better resolve to not be wrapped up in a girl but still obviously be open to the possibility of actually being called to marriage. The first thing I did was try to be more brotherly and more open and vocal about my discernment. Calling a girl “sis” can really help both remind you that you’re supposed to be discerning and stepping back from relationships as well as let any ladies that like you know that you’re not thinking of starting any relationships. Also I found calling all of my female friends sis (or at least those I’m closer to) also helped strengthen my friendships with them and helped us foster brotherly/sisterly relationships which are great. Being more open and transparent about my discernment also helped me a lot because it reminded me even more strongly that I am discerning as well as tell others plainly that as well. Also it’s great for finding other people who are discerning to spend time with and pray for.

The other thing I’ve done which I’ve found to probably be the most helpful in dealing with my crushes/attractions is waiting. If I start to develop feelings for a certain girl I take a step back and do my best to wait it out. This also helps because it is possible that I’m actually called to marriage, discerning means I have to be open to whatever call I may receive. I’ve come to discover that generally if I get strongly attached to someone I simply have to wait it out. Sometimes it’s because I’ve spent too much time with them or because I’ve thought about them too much. But so far after a couple of weeks or so it fades and then when I hang out with them after that it doesn’t come back. I take this to mean it was just a crush and the attraction wasn’t as deep as I thought it was. I also find that when my prayer life is very healthy this happens less often where as when I’m not praying as much as I should be then it tends to happen a fair bit more. It’s odd and in my opinion not correct to thing of women as being a temptation but the thought of being with someone can be. And of course temptation is easier to dismiss and resist when you’re closer to God.

This is something I talked to my spiritual director about and he gave me a word of caution that while for him this wasn’t as much of a problem because he was considerably older than most of the women he’s usually around (being a University Chaplain) but since I’m an “eligible single” of the same age I may have to be careful in being more “brotherly” as it could be misconstrued as simply being more friendly. It probably took me most of this year learning to get closer to my friends (not just girls) while still having definitive lines and feeling natural in all my relationships but I feel much closer to all my friends now and thankfully still feel just as resolute in my discernment and I feel all my friends still know this as well.

There are many wonderful women in this world and I would love to take out many of the women I know but it’s important for all of us no matter what we’re discerning to remember that God has a special plan for us and for them, and I personally don’t want to get in the way of any one else’s future. If anything I want to help guard my female friends for their future spouses and be as good a guy friend as I can be. I’m learning to lay boundaries and lines and it’s different with every person. I have a few female friends that really enjoy roughhousing me every once in a while which was very odd to get used to being really old school in my upbringing. I have some friends that like to hug pretty much every time we say hi and bye while others that only seem to hug when they are leaving for an extended period of time. It’s a constant trial and error process, learning how to act around women and what is appropriate around whom. Sometimes the best thing to do is talk to someone (but not the one you’re attracted to! That is a can of worms my friend) who is close to you who may have another perspective and can let you know if you’re going too far. Women are beautiful gifts from God and I am blessed to know so many. I hope that I and all men will come to respect and cherish them the way we’re intended to.

What Good is a Spiritual Director?

I personally felt pretty much everything on that sign when I was first felt a “call” to what may be a religious vocation; particularly perplexed. I didn’t know why I had all of these thoughts of the priesthood or why I kind of wanted to be one while at the same time I really wanted a “normal” life and have a girlfriend and not be “lonely”, etc. So I went to the Catholic Chaplain of my school and told him “I think maybe I might be sort of being kind of called to the priesthood or something maybe” and he demonically laughed “SUCKER YOU’RE MINE NOW!” No, he didn’t actually do that. He said something like “oh, why do you maybe feel that way?” with a kind smile.

That began my spiritual direction. I’ve been fortunate enough to have the same spiritual director for the past almost three years now. Even when I was convinced that I was called to be with a certain young lady that I courted for just over a year; my spiritual director continued to meet with me and encouraged me to pursue what I at the time felt was right, even though the relationship obviously ended. I always envisioned a spiritual director to be someone who would simply pray and then tell me what God wanted me to do step for step, like they were my direct line of contact with the big Guy. Nope, not quite. What he did do; though, was help me figure out what God wanted for me or at least what I felt called to do on my own, in my own time, and we’re still going. He suggested a healthy prayer regiment, as it were, daily Mass, and regular confession (and since he was a priest he would offer me confession in my spiritual direction meetings). He would talk with me to see how I felt about stuff and offer his own experience in the matter, like for instance telling my feeling of perplexity was very normal and in talking about it he helped me calm down a titch.

The biggest things, for me anyways, that my spiritual director has done though were these two things:
1. pray for me – he sends me a text every once in a while just to remind me he’s offering up a prayer for me, which is a comfort and a sweet though as well as obviously directly helping me in my discernment
2. hold me accountable – He is someone that knows that I am discerning and should do so seriously so if he notices me getting particularly close to any members of the female population or skipping mass he can call me out on it and insist that I need to shape up or keep on eye on my habits. He regularly asks me how my prayer life is and either offers more for me to do or gives me advice in how to keep up.

You can have a spiritual director all the time and it doesn’t have to be a priest either! In my case it’s a very good idea, but if you’re discerning marriage or a relationship is getting pretty serious maybe you should start talking with someone who is married about advice and what kinds of things you need to keep in mind for the future. I contend that having a spiritual director is extremely beneficial and in the case of discerning a religious vocation pretty much essential. It’s made a world of a difference in my discernment as well as just in my life in general and I can’t think of any negative things to counter the help I’ve received from it.

Do you have a spiritual director? Do you know anyone that could offer you spiritual direction? Why wait?

Prayer Demands Discipline

One of the most important aspects to living out discernment (of anything) in my opinion is to be steadfast in prayer and discipline. Regular prayer keeps us focused on our goal, gives us a clear head/heart, and in time reveals the answers we are looking for. Discipline is what we need to maintain our prayer and keep order in our lives. A friend of mine was talking with her spiritual director and at some point she said “well I’m kind of discerning right now” to which her director promptly replied “well then I’ll just kind of pray for you”. If you’re discerning part way, for whatever vocation, then I wouldn’t fathom you’d get a whole lot out of it. We need to really give ourselves to our discernment, just like the little green dude up top has so wisely pointed out.

I imagine everyone differs on their opinion of how much to pray and what to pray for religious discernment. Since I’m discerning priesthood my spiritual director has suggested I increase my dedication to the liturgy of the hours. Where as before I only did morning and night prayer at best, now I try to pray every office. I personally love the rosary and get a lot out of that so I try to pray that daily as well but definitely have not been succeeding the past few months. I also highly recommend the chaplet of St. Michael the Archangel. It invokes St. Michael and each choir of angels for help specifically with having charity, humility, obedience, and with avoiding wickedness, temptation, and with gaining the glory of Paradise and just having their protection. It also apparently guarantees its prayer an escort of angels to communion and during life and death (I personally feel the image of having an escort of angels from every choir to be pretty baller). Of course another really important thing to have in our prayer life is ample time to read and reflect on scripture. My spiritual director often asks me “how is your relationship with Jesus?” I didn’t really understand how I could possibly have an actual relationship with Him in the beginning but I’m slowly getting to, and I find reading the gospels as well as just quiet meditation is key. I also find ‘spiritual’ reading to be of use, that is, reading books about priests or people discerning or just some good old C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton simply because what we fill our heads with will greatly impact the direction our lives take, and you can get a whole lot out of books, so reading some scholarly stuff now and again can help direct us in the right way.

In order to maintain our prayer lives we need discipline. When somebody first starts to pick up their prayer life it’s easy because they have motivation. But as time goes on and that motivation wears away, their prayer life will fade unless they have discipline to carry them through it. Matthew Kelly, in some audio tape I heard at some point in a friend’s car, I remember talked about constantly fasting. Now for those of us that don’t know, fasting does not necessarily mean missing a meal. That’s actually abstaining. Fasting is simply missing something, it could be of a meal or it could be of something else. You can fast from your entire meal but you don’t have to. Kelly recommended fasting every day from something, it could be “today I’m not going to have ketchup with my fries” or “this meal I’m going to have water instead of pop or beer” or “I don’t need seconds this time”. It could also be outside of the dinner table as well. It could be “I’m not going to listen to my iPod when I walk to school today” or “I’m going to miss a show on TV this afternoon”. In doing these small acts of fasting, we are practicing dominance of the spirit. We are putting our flesh or wants in their place. In doing this regularly, it makes doing bigger things like praying even though it’s late or when we don’t want to much easier.

Something I have done a while ago was make a template for what the perfect day would look like. My Netflix ran out some time ago which was the best thing that ever happened because now I can’t just burn time on the stupid thing. It was sucking away my prayer time, if I had spare time instead of picking up my bible or something I would just turn on Netflix. So I sat down and composed a note on my phone entitled “Perfect Day”. I scheduled into 15 time blocks (with an optional 16th of working out at 06:00) what a perfect day would look like for me, with enough time for prayer throughout the day. I like schedules and so planned it out quite meticulously, right down to 21:20 being the allotted time for Facebook and Twitter/Free Time before Scripture at 21:45 and night prayer and bed time at 22:00 (yes I both try go to bed at 10 on weekdays and think in 24 hour time). Everybody’s schedule would look different and have different levels of detail of course but I highly recommend giving it a go. I was conditioned by my mum to write a schedule and so I find it really easy to commit to a routine and go through my day when it’s written down but I bet everyone could benefit a bit from planning what a good and reasonably holy day that blessed John H. Newman would be proud of would look like.

Prayer is extremely important for us to discern what we are to make of our lives, and of course we need good ol’ fashioned discipline to make it happen.

Where are the Other Guys?

We’ve all heard the expression strength in numbers. It couldn’t be more true when it comes to discerning a religious vocation. A good friend of mine once said nothing kills your vocation more than isolation. If discerning makes you feel alone then you’re probably not gonna want to stick to it for long. The same thing goes for anything I imagine. If you want to do something but feel like you’re the only one out there then unless you’re the lone ranger (who had Tonto technically anyways) you’ll want to do something with others instead. It’s great and really healthy to have a sense of friendship, solidarity, community, or even family.

There are actually a lot of people discerning the same thing and it’s important to meet some of them. There are a particularly large number of people discerning marriage! And it’s particularly important to meet those people if you ever want to find a future spouse! For us guys discerning a religious vocation, most of our brothers are in the seminary, so that’s a pretty easy place to go for community but not all of us are ready to be in the seminary yet. For instance I am already halfway through my degree in University and I want to finish it. I also want to do some extensive travelling. There’s definitely room to travel and do other fun things as a priest or brother (monk, friar etc.) but a lot of us want to do it before hand and that’s fine I think as long as we aren’t actually running from our vocation. Since I’m still living in the secular world I try my best to hang out with my brothers who are also discerning. I don’t know many and only live close to a couple but I try to hang out with them as much as I can. If you don’t know anybody then ask a priest! Chances are one of the priests in your diocese has come into contact with someone who’s discerning. Obviously the same goes for women. Just because ladies don’t go to the seminary doesn’t mean you don’t have fellow women of faith out there discerning religious life.

For the record I’m not necessarily talking about organising bible studies or prayer nights with guys/girls who are discerning either. Those are great things to do and I get a lot out of them but just hanging out and having fun or talking can work just as well. That’s why you make such good friends at university and often will keep those friends for such a long time. You have so much in common and are going through the same things, especially if you’re in the same program. I believe it was Joshua Harris in his book “I kissed dating goodbye” who described friends as people who are standing side by side focusing on the same goal, as opposed to when people are “courting” and stand face to face, with each other being the focus rather than a future goal.

My friend Dominik and I sharing the goal of chopping wood

Those close to you can also help direct you and give you insights. Knowing yourself really well is tough to do so friends can help you figure out what you’re meant to do. They can also help keep you in line. For instance if I were discerning marriage in a relationship and I wasn’t really doing my part to be a good loving boyfriend I have a fair few friends who would not hesitate to tell me “hey man, you’ve been kind of an a$$ to what’s her face lately”. Same thing goes for discerning a religious vocation. Good friends or family can often see when you’re not praying or taking things as seriously as you should and they can help you get back on track. Holding each other accountable and offering support goes a long way in discerning and fulfilling God’s will.

Nothing kills a vocation like isolation. So no matter what we’re discerning we need to join forces so to speak and help out our brothers and sisters in the faith. Everyone needs someone to open up to and share with and hold them accountable. I know I certainly do and I praise God for giving me friends that I can look to for just that.