I was asked some
time ago, by someone important, to write about something other than baseball
and movies. Someone else had told me, a
couple of years ago, that I should write "the inside scoop" on
seminary. Well, I'm not going to go that
far, especially since they say there are two things no one should know how
they're made: sausages and priests, but I did figure that I could marry those
two suggestions. I figured I'd start
what I hope to be a series of blogs about vocations and seminary, in case
anyone wants to know more about that.
After all, one of the most frequent questions is: why would someone want
to be a priest?
This first post
is intended to be a glimpse at my process of getting to the seminary. Some people may think all priests (or
seminarians) have basically the same story.
In fact, as many seminarians and priests as there are, there are that
many different stories. I will say you
can mostly group them into three camps: those who knew all their life and
entered right out of high school, those who had an idea but still decided to
try "real college" before seminary, and then there's the "late
vocations," sometimes also called "second vocations." These are the old, sometimes wise ones. Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology,
where I currently take classes in Milwaukee, specializes in these late
vocations.
Ostensibly I
fall into the third category, though not perfectly. Despite what those at St. Francis might say,
I'm on the lower end of the "late vocations," since most are in their
40s or 50s. So for that group I'm young,
though for many seminarians I'm old. As
usual, I don't fit in.
This is kind of
getting besides the point. How did I get
to the seminary? Why did I go to the
seminary? Good questions.
Let me begin by
saying, I never, until very recently, thought about being a priest. Growing up, I never thought beyond
baseball. I still rarely do. I think the earliest I ever declare a future
job was when I was about 5 years old I told my mom at Daily Mass that I wanted
to be a doctor "so I could help people." I don't know what that was about. I remember saying it, but I don't remember
thinking it. I certainly moved away from
the doctor thing quickly, since the sight, or even thought, of blood and other
bodily fluids makes me queasy. My sister
got all of those genes.
But, there's
another detail in there that may be important: Daily Mass. My mom took me every day until I started
school. So going to Church was normal
for me. It also led to a kind of funny
side note, though seminarian me kind of cringes when I tell this story. I had my first Communion at a very early
age. You see, I grew up in Houston, in
the 80s. They were (very unfortunately)
very loose about things back then. There
was no tabernacle in the church (sigh) so after Mass the "extra"
consecrated hosts were brought into the sacristy. Did I mention my mom was a sacristan? In any case, one day I found myself, hungry,
in the sacristy. I was tall enough to
reach the counter, so I'm guessing I was around 5 (there's that age
again). I was hungry, I saw food, so I
started eating. After consuming a
couple, my mom walked in, saw what was happening, and quickly made me stop. The holy side of the story is: I could not
wait to receive the Body of Christ. The
unfortunate side of the story is: I was able to do it in the first place.
I digress
again. As I said, I grew up very close
to the Church, but in some ways it was so "normal" that I never
really thought about it. I never thought
about being a priest, largely because I wanted to be like my dad and have my
own family. So that's how I went through
the next twenty years or so: marriage was my only option.
I eventually
realized I would never be a baseball player, and being a manager was a long
shot. I had to think about something
else. I still don't really know how I
decided on history, though the best explanation I can give is that I like my AP
US History course (which was taught by my baseball coach). In any case, when it came time to decide on
college, I settled on history. I also
thought about theatre, and even auditioned for and received a theatre
scholarship to the University of Dallas.
This was THE SCHOOL my mom wanted me to go to. It's Catholic, and pretty solid at that, and
nearly every student spent one semester studying in Rome (I could have met St.
JPII). The history program was pretty
good, I had the theatre scholarship, and there was a chance I could walk-on the
Division II baseball team. It seems like
the perfect fit! But yet, on the last
day I could choose, I went with Texas A&M.
I don't really have a good reason why, except that at the time I was
working at Texas Roadhouse in College Station, with a bunch of Aggies, and I
got swept up in the Spirit of Aggieland.
It can do that to you.
I am happy to say
that, unlike the majority of "kids these days," I continued to go to
Mass every Sunday. It helped that St.
Mary's is a pretty awesome place. That
being said, I do have to admit that many times it was out of obligation, or
maybe guilt, more than "want to."
What I'm trying to say is that I was not exactly the best Catholic. I started dating a girl in Houston, and it
got pretty serious. If you know me well,
you know that it was serious enough that we got engaged. For my 3.5 years at A&M, I essentially
went home to Houston every other weekend, so I never really got into the St.
Mary's scene. Shortly before I
graduated, we broke up, and I prepared to move on to grad school (and of course
it was that easy to move on).
This meant a
move all the way to the University of North Texas in Denton. During my two years there, I had a bit of a
conversion experience. By that I mean,
something happened that made me take my faith more seriously, and Sunday Mass
became less an obligation and more something I wanted to do. During one of the summers, one of my best
friends convinced me to go to Aggie Awakening.
So you see, while I was at A&M, I never even bothered to go, that's
how out of the scene I was. In any case,
I went with an open mind. I'm glad I
did, because it remains one of the most important weekends of my life. It was largely a "right place, right
time" retreat for me. I felt much
closer to my faith, and realized I had to take it seriously.
I then moved on
to Auburn University, and I actually went out of my way to become more involved
in Church (difficult for my extreme introversion). Even though I was already one of the
"old ones," I got involved in the vibrant college student group. (Another side note: by "vibrant" I
mean, from a relatively small group, we have at least three religious sisters,
one religious brother, and I believe four seminarians/priests from my time
there.) It was a very good group, with
some people I wish I had got to know even better. I also started to attend Daily Mass fairly
frequently, eventually became the sacristan for our Thursday evening Mass, and
was part of one of the two Sunday night Mass choirs for five years. Despite all of this, I never once thought
about being a priest. It was still
marriage or nothing. I did, however,
start to think about perhaps becoming a permanent deacon one day (the old
"best of both worlds" falsity).
During my time
at Auburn, I was blessed with the chance to travel to Europe for my
dissertation research. I was studying
the Mission Control Centers of the United States and European space programs,
and needed to travel to each of them for research. Houston was easy, California was a quick
flight, and I also drove to D.C. for the National Archives (a great trip in
itself). The European leg consisted of
three main stops. First, I had to go to
Paris to visit the European Space Agency Headquarters and archives. I had never been that interested in going to
Paris, except maybe to see Versailles and Normandy. Instead, I loved my time there, and did not
see either of those (meaning I need to return).
Next was the actual control center in Darmstadt, Germany. It's a small city south of Frankfurt. It is definitely not a tourist stop. The final necessary stop was Florence, the
home of the official archives for ESA. I
had not thought much about Florence before, except that I knew there was
obviously a lot of history there. If I
fell in love with Paris, I don' t know what to say about Florence. It is by far my favorite city I have ever
visited. The most meaningful stop for me
was in the church of Santa Maria Novella, near the train station (and my
apartment). While I was looking around,
completely blown away, I decided to sit down for a little while to take it all
in. At that moment, I felt completely at
peace, as never before. At the time, I
took it as consolation of my faith, and an increased desire to serve the Church
in some way (as a married man). Looking
back, it was probably my first real pull towards the seminary, but again, I did
not see it as such at the time.
Oh by the way,
while in Florence I met up with a couple of friends, and we took a side trip to
Venice (disappointing, the city, not the company). Also, while planning my trip, I decided: I'm
so close to Rome, I can't NOT go there.
So I tacked on a few days at the end to visit Rome. To be honest, after Florence I was not that
impressed with Rome (but not the Vatican, that was amazing, especially the
Sistine Chapel-Last Judgment!). I need
to go back to better appreciate it.
