“I was searching for the truth”

I’ve heard two priests in the past two days say that, about how they found their way to the Catholic Church and ultimately, their vocations. And they both separately said they found their vocation not by thinking through what they’d like to do in life, but by asking in prayer what God wanted them to do.

One was talking about his conversion from Mormonism on The Journey Home on EWTN, a very thoughtful and gracious conversation with host Marcus Grodi, respectful of all questions and beliefs. The priest was asked by a couple of different callers about how he would encourage young men to consider a vocation to the priesthood, and he had that excellent response…..when you consider your future, ask God what he wants you to do.

That got me thinking a lot about ideas to promote vocations, which is absolutely critical. Since I serve on the Archdiocese of Chicago Vocations Advisory Committee, I’d better be thinking about ideas to promote vocations, or I’m not helpful to them. So I’ve been thinking…

Then today at Mass, a visiting priest gave the homily, and the congregation was engrossed. I sat in the back and saw most of them and their reactions. Not surprising, because it was Fr. Burke Masters, Vocations Director of the Joliet Diocese, who shares his own personal story every chance he gets. He’s a friend, I know his story, and it loses absolutely nothing in the re-telling because it is captivating. He wasn’t raised Catholic, had never been to a Mass when he entered a Catholic high school, wanted to be a major league baseball player…..and nearly was. In fact, he was in the White Sox system for a while. By then he was Catholic, but didn’t know the faith well enough to answer its critics. He attended other churches with friends who tried to convert him, but kept coming back to his church. “I was searching for the truth,” he said, and he found it in the Eucharist.

The awesome priests don’t get the headlines. And since the badly fallen ones do, they’ve become a stereotypical image for some people of what a priest is, especially for Church detractors who want to get mileage from a scandal, regrettably. When I hosted my radio show, I put the question out a few different times to listeners “Do you have a good priest story? Is there a priest who has made a difference in your life?” People love to be asked that, and they respond eagerly. They want to tell stories of great men of the Church who give or gave their lives in service to their people, with zeal and wit and wisdom and humility.

Great priests are both servants and leaders, they are manly men who step up to one of the most radical challenges in the world, and spend many years in training and formation for their life’s service. Which reminds me of an article I wrote a few years ago that cited some of the most profound writing I’d encountered on the priesthood, from Francois Mauriac.

“The grace of Holy Thursday will be transmitted unto the end of time, unto the last of the priests who will celebrate the last Mass in a shattered universe”, writes Mauriac. “Holy Thursday created these men; a mark was stamped on them; a sign was given to them. They are like to us and yet so different — a fact never more surprising than in this pagan age. People say that there is a scarcity of priests. In truth, what an adorable mystery it is that there still are any priests”.

My son is pretty far down the path in major seminary, so I know a lot of awesome priests and seminarians. The good news is, their numbers are starting to increase. The truth is, there are many more who haven’t yet heard the call.

There are a lot of ways to help them listen. (Click especially on the link to “View Fishers of Men Online”.)