Comments from the Audience: The Gig is Up

So here at the NAC we're heading into finals in a week so I am trying to get my brain moving in the right direction. Please keep me in your prayers.

By the way, I was instituted as a Lector last Sunday by Archbishop Burke. I'll have pictures up when they finally post them! Hopefully soon

On to more interesting things. :)

"There will be no one left to turn the lights off." Well that is basically what someone told me after we discussed a bit about seminary formation and he played down the fact that there are 61 new seminarians at the NAC. The priesthood is folding up and even those who are left, us, are not going to be able to do much in the years to come. We will burn out. We will be tired. We can't live this life. After talking to him, I wasn't even inspired to want to be a priest.

But is this true? Is the priesthood a dying vocation?

You already know my answer and I think the many seminarians I have met would respond in kind. If you have not been to a seminary recently, let me tell you, the morale is high. The morale is high because we know this is not the end. This is the beginning. This is the springtime of the Church. And we have hope more so because we trust in Christ and know that the Church will never fall even as we may fall.

In fact, this is an amazing time to be a seminarian or a religious. The Holy Spirit is moving in ways we cannot even begin to understand. In the 5 months I have been here in Italy, I have been amazed at all the vocation stories I have heard. Men have been called from every direction, from high school, college, and from careers. I've found men like myself who have given up a girlfriend and others who have given up a promising career. Most of us are young, in our 20's. If this is not a testament to something happening across our country I don't know what is.

Be encouraged. If you are called you are not alone. Many others, so many, thousands of us, have taken the first step in entering the seminary doors and we do so as brothers. We go to be trained, to be formed as Christ's priests, and sent out to do battle for souls. This is the time. What are you waiting for?