Seminarian to Deacon

On the last evening of my fall break this past week I had to opportunity to visit St Mark seminary where I was for my first years of formation. Those years were a time of incredible growth in all areas of my life and where I really was able to hone in on God calling me to the priesthood.

It is not a big and sprawling seminary, at most in my time I think we had about 14 guys, so community life was great and you could get to know your brother seminarians well. Looking back on those years, I realize that I miss the community life and the formation program - I wish every seminarian could experience life in a small minor seminary like it. Being in major seminary now for almost 4 years, I realize how much of an impact it had on me and how well it formed me and prepared me for, not only theology, but for my current ministry as a deacon. The God I know and love and desire to share with others I really got to know in my time there.

I had the opportunity to deacon at mass and join them for dinner before I got on the road to come back to school. It was the strangest feeling and experience to be a deacon in the chapel where I spent hundreds of hours in prayer and mass as a young seminarian and now visiting - vested and proclaiming the gospel - as a deacon! I was ordained a deacon in that chapel back in April - it is an icon and anchor of my vocation.

In talking with the guys after mass, I saw in them that same wonder and awe that I had about major seminary and how I would be preparing myself for ordination to the diaconate and, now as I inch closer, priesthood. It sparked in me a desire to reflect upon that myself and what advice would I give to the men moving ever closer to laying their lives down for God and His people.

First, I would say that you have to fall in love with God. This is sort of a pious cliche, but it is essential. For someone getting ready to move on to major seminary or is getting close to ordination, it is important to remember that you need to stop re-introducing yourself to God and come to know Him - thus love Him. I know this from my own spiritual journey that I would, for years, re-introduce myself every time I sat down to pray and act as if this was the first time I ever communicated with Christ or assumed that He knew nothing about me. You need to become familiar with Him and let Him be familiar with you - this is, for me, the only way to fall in love with God.

Secondly, you need to become comfortable with and know yourself. If you do not know yourself - your triggers, strengths, weaknesses, sins, wounds, joys and everything else - then you are setting yourself up for a hard road ahead. Your spiritual life, your ability to freely embrace celibacy and your ability to love others is going to be hindered if you do not know who you are. You cannot give yourself over to Christ and those whom you are called to serve if you don't know what you are giving them. Knowing yourself allows you to grow wholly and maturely.

A third and last point I want to make is that you need to have a sense of humor and a good worldview. Rigidity and stoicism is not the best approach to giving your life over to loving and serving God. We need to be people who see the world for what it is, who can see the greater plan of God at work, who can experience God in all of creation and who can be someone who people look to for God's love - We need to be that which the world often deprives us of. We need to be people of God and people of Love. When we seek to truly embody that then we become the most effective. I think we can easily isolate and push people away from God if we are not real.

These thoughts are perhaps too general, but they are true and essential. Yes we need to study and do our work, but that knowledge wont mean much if we haven't worked on improving ourselves and our relationships with others and with Christ. The kernel of it all is Love, let love be your guide.