Excursus: The Road to Priesthood

Well, April has been one wild ride out here at Mundelein! Most notably, we had our bus trip to St. Joseph's Seminary in New York to see… drum roll, please… THE POPE! Yeah, that's right, the successor of St. Peter, Chief of Apostles, here, in the flesh, on our own native soil. What an experience! What's more… I even have pictures! The problem, however, is that I can't get the pictures off my camera and onto my computer. The camera's driver software is not Vista compatible, and since upgrading to Vista, my card reader no longer works. Alas. So… I'm going to wait to blog on the Pope-trip, or Pope-Mania as one of our seminary professors took to calling it, until I can post with pics.

For now, I want to address some of the questions that were left in the comments to my last post which had to do with the process of becoming a priest. You know, I never cease to be surprised by how many people are unfamiliar with the process of becoming a priest. I meet several people, for instance, who think that seminarians are priests, or that it is a relatively quick process to become a priest. I suppose we can attribute these widespread misconceptions to the rarity of men answering God's call to the ordained priesthood in our times. It's just so rare for many Catholics to actually know a seminarian that I can understand why the process can seem so mysterious. Well, it's time to clear up the mystery!

Question 1: How long does it take to become a priest?

Answer: According to the current rules set out in the Program for Priestly Formation (PPF), the process requires two full years of a "Pre-Theology" program, or four years at a college seminary, and then four years in a "Theology" program at an approved Catholic major seminary. So, in the Unites States, where most dioceses and religious orders (if not all) require a bachelor's degree before they will sponsor a man at a major seminary, this all adds up to a minimum of four years beyond the Bachelor's degree (if coming from a college seminary) or six years after the Bachelor's if one needs to go through a "Pre-Theology" program. (That's my track, though I got grandfathered in under older requirements so it will only work out to five years beyond the Bachelor's.)

What is entailed in these two programs? Well, here's the simple version. The PPF outlines four areas of formation: human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral. Human formation focuses on helping a man to form himself into a healthy, celibate, sociable, respectable, wholesome leader (in a nutshell). Spiritual formation then seeks to help that man ground himself in a life of prayer so that he will become ever more conformed to the person of Jesus Christ as head and shepherd in whose name he will do all of his ministry. Intellectual formation strives to prepare men to be effective teachers and preachers of God's Word—teachers who know the Christian Tradition well enough to help the Church discern what it can use to spread the Gospel and what it cannot. Finally, pastoral formation has as its goal showing a man how to take the fruits of the other three areas and use them successfully in ministry to the People of God. Essentially, these four "pillars" of formation determine the content of all programs at a college seminary, a pre-theology program, or a major seminary. The main difference would be the proportions in which these various elements are combined and their particular focuses. Generally, pre-theology focuses on philosophy whereas theology focuses on… theology… go figure! Human formation at the pre-theology level focuses on discernment, developing a prayer life, and getting a man used to being a public figure. At the theology level, this is continued, though with more intense and specific expectations.

Question 2: When will you be ordained?

Answer: Well, if all goes according to plan, I will be ordained a transitional deacon in May of 2010 and a priest of Jesus Christ in June of 2011.

Question 3: What if you change your mind? Can you back out?

Answer: Yes. to put it frankly. A man can leave his formation program at any point before his diaconal ordination. However, along the way, one receives the Rite of Candidacy which can be understood as a public commitment to devote oneself fully to the formation for these Holy Orders of Deacon and Priest. (It is very much like the commitment involved when one gets engaged.) After that, one may still leave, but it is generally expected that one's discernment of his vocation should be quite certain before he receives candidacy, as well as his superiors' discernment of his fitness for these orders.

Question 4: How could you tell this is what you wanted to do and when did you know?

Answer: To be honest, my discernment process took a really long time; it's been something I've thought about since I was a little boy. In fact, I really could do several posts on the discernment process alone, and will do so if there's enough interest. To make a long story short, though, I would say there are two necessary components to discernment, for anything, not just the priesthood: prayer and consultation. First of all, as Christians, we are all called to be men and women of prayer. In prayer, we must lay ourselves at the Lord's feet and say, "your will be done," with sweet abandon. Then, we need to shut up and listen to the movements of the Holy Spirit within the depths of our hearts. As one priest said to me, "Ask the Lord what he wants you to do, and he'll tell ya." That was some of the best advice anyone has ever given me. Then, we cannot allow our spiritual lives to become a closed conversation between us and God. Just about everything God gives to us in prayer, like all of the blessings he gives us, are meant to be shared with others. In the discernment of one's vocation, this looks like trying out different forms of ministry and listening closely to the feedback people give you. For me, I have almost always had people telling me that I should become a priest, that I would make a good priest, and so forth. As one of our professors here summarizes it, "Your vocation is from God, but who gets to say that you're really called by God? The Church." It's easy to see the common sense of this. I might have all the desire in the world to be a priest, but if when I give scripture reflections, or try to counsel people and they fall asleep in boredom or invariably get horribly offended or confused… the chances are my call is not authentic. God always supplies the grace needed to answer his call. If the gifts just aren't there… most likely the call isn't there either.

For me, I was not able to make the decision to apply to my diocese until two years after finishing college. I was volunteering full-time with the Redemptorists in inner-city Philadelphia working with the homeless and prisoners. My time there was steeped in communal prayer, service, and the constant review and correction that comes from living in a healthy community. I also had a spiritual director who helped me to ask God the right questions in my prayer and to understand the answers I was receiving. After getting a taste of social work, teaching, counseling and apostolic work, I could see that I valued elements of all these things, but couldn't see myself doing only one of them as my "day-job." On top of that, I began to notice how unique my appreciation for the liturgy and my enjoyment of leading the community in prayer really was. When I put all of these elements together, along with what I had recognized as an inexplicable "leaning" toward the priesthood, I knew I had to take a closer look and become a seminarian.

I hope this clears up some questions, but if there are more, don't hesitate to ask!

Until next time, God Bless!

~J