Many are Called, Few are Chosen: Priestly Discernment in the Diocese of Little Rock

I have a very early memory of seeing the priest at the altar and just being kind of amazed at this man who was up there praying with and on behalf of the people and that was the beginning really of an of an awareness that maybe this was something that God might be calling me to I saw and priest a tremendous amount of joy and that was I think one of the ways in which the Holy Spirit kind of tapped into my heart and said look at this you know and I couldn't find that joy anywhere else in life I have all these memories of my dad who would always joke all my son's they're going to be priests and all my daughters are going to be nuns now he was actually just trying to get out of pain for weddings I'm pretty sure but I would just be so against the entire idea something that I resisted for many years but that idea just stuck [Applause] it did feel like something special was happening in our diocese I think when I joined there were 17 seminarians and within two or three years it was over 30 there was a lot of us who had been attracted I think to a considering priesthood after the scandals of 2002 and who wanted to kind of give a witness that the priesthood is larger than just those scandals it's a very countercultural choice and so it takes quite a bit of courage for a young man to do something that much different than what many of their peers are doing it was just this big challenge to am I really going to give myself to God or am I just gonna do it nominally you're called the lay down your whole life and everything you are and it's radical but it means that you get to live your life with Christ in a unique way it is a very visible sign of Christ's love and that's what we're called to be my vision here for our guys is number one that they are in love with the Lord Jesus and they don't have to say that for it to be present that just by the way that they are it's clear that they're in love with the Lord my call is from him my life is destined for him every day that God gives me is God's day and he's lending it to me for the day to be able to give it back to him through my actions in the day in the way I love we cannot give something that we don't have so we need that relationship be done this is Hinshaw secondly that they have a deep Brotherhood for each other we care about each other that we look out for each other that's meais is finally important the Brotherhood that exists within the seminary but especially here in the Diocese of our Rock is something else a lot of seminarians from all the diocese are like I like your diocese I like how you guys interact each other I like how your Bishop can have conversation with you I like your vocation director how you have that confidence to talk to him in anything about anything we have the father guys into the crystal there's a reason we call priests father because it's really a vision for how to Pastor our people and that same thing is true with seminarians we have a shared life we have mass and morning prayer together we have evening prayer together we have night prayer together we share meals together the guys in the seminary right now I've just been so intentional about building that community which I know that is going to be essential for the rest of my life beginning to be in the house of formation in the heart of our diocese is a privilege that many college seminarians don't have in other dioceses before the house of formation was built we had to send seminarians out of state and out of diocese when I was a seminary and I was sent away to Indiana which was a good experience but it was not experiencing the diocese that I'm gonna end up serving in in our seminarians on the college level are integrated into the life of the diocese during the time of formation in college living here at the house of formation really enables that to happen I want these guys our guys are some areas to see that they need to have a missionary spirit we are a missionary diocese so that means that you know we don't sit in our office waiting for people to come to us but that we're out reaching out to people especially folks who are marginalized that we have a zeal for souls that's what you want in a priest you want not just a person who is intellectually capable of giving a homily but it has a pastor's heart and you know has received the kind of formation at a human level that's gonna make him a good father and that that's a huge investment but you're also investing in in the future of the church and good fathers good priests [Music] hi my name is Deacon John Miskin seminarian for this glorious Diocese of Little Rock I'm set to be ordained in just two days to the priesthood I can't be any more excited [Music] when I'm thinking about what brought me here to the priesthood what kind of nudge me in the right direction I always think back to how God formed this vocation in me it's been something that's just been implanted in my heart and since my very conception I'm I've been very blessed to grow up in Christ the King parish and there's been a ton of priests who have just come through their top on the list of inspiring priests has got to be my current pastor of Monsignor Malone just the way that he celebrates the liturgy it's something important and you can tell that one he really loves the Lord and that he when he's celebrating the Eucharist is placing to himself on the altar as that sacrificial gift it just attracted me when I was growing up in the parish and I've always lived up to him for that when I entered the seminary it was with this idea like I don't know if I really want to be a priest all that I know is that God's asking something and I have to I have to respond I just wanted to give my heart away and when I finally gave that to God he just dragging it right into the seminary almost kicking and screaming at first but that's how it started a Monsignor friend has been just essential to my seminary formation and it was just this big challenge - am I really going to give myself to God or am I just gonna do it nominally and when my senior kind of just challenged me on that I just said you know what I'll really give my heart I'll really give my heart to the seminary formation I'll give my heart to God and the rest is up to him the amazing thing was it was just this immediate effect on my seminary formation I started falling in love and not just with my faith not just with Catholicism I started falling in love with the priesthood and with the people of God in a very different way once you give your heart to God he's got it there's no going back [Music] these last couple of weeks before ordination they're just a big emotions all the time you know so on the one hand your morning and it real sense the loss of seminary of relationships of this structure that I've been formed by and then on the other side there's this joyful anticipation that I'm going to be a priest you know so I'm just trying to hold these two together in these coming days [Music] the amount of people that just have come up to me and just said you know I'm praying for you I know your ordination is coming up and just you've been on my heart the amount of support that we get from the Knights of Columbus from the Serra club from just within parishes it's it's incredible I'm gonna say it's not like any other diocese I'm looking around at just this band of brothers and I don't see just kind of like these fraternity brothers I see these men that I'm gonna be working with for the rest of my life so the ordination starts with just the glorious hymns of the organ just blasting in the cathedral and you're walking down the aisle just blown away by the amount of people by the support and love of the diocese that's just come here to witness this this joyful moment you get to the pew your family's right with you primarily a vocation is learning how to love and I learned how to love from my parents watching them share their life together just the vulnerability and the intimacy of giving your life away to someone else it was always very clear between my parents and then obviously how they loved me it's a beautiful image of sitting with your family who has brought you to this moment and moving from them to the hands of the bishop eventually philony Saints everyone will turn to the tabernacle and I'll just lay myself down and just feel the weight of the prayer of the people of God is showering down upon me preparing me as they have been praying for me throughout these eight years for my whole life for this moment that's about to come when the bishop lays his hands on me there's gonna be a puddle on the cathedral floor I think of just my tears after that I'll stand up I kneel before the bishop once again and he'll lay his hands on me and it's that moment that's the moment where it all changes and then all the priests will come and do the same as the bishop as a sign that I'm one of them we invested with the so launched a school for the first time I'll be wearing my gear ready to go out into the fuel my hands will be anointed so they'll be made holy set aside so that they only know how to bless by the grace of God [Music] another part that I've just been kind of dreaming about when I walked down and when I bless my family for the first time [Music] it'll be my first blessing I give and it's just so appropriate that it would be to my family [Music] they've been nothing but supportive from day one I've just seen the jewelry that they've had I'm just so thankful for I mean all my brothers and sisters couldn't have walked this without him nothing but support [Music] it's such a difficult thing to imagine what I'll feel like after the ordination you know on the one hand I imagine I'll feel the same I'll feel like John and on the other hand I imagine I'll feel like everything has been changed because my identity has changed in a very real way in a moment I become father and my relationship to the world is different and I'm just looking forward to placing myself on the altar making a sacrifice of my own life with and for the people of God there's no more humbling and that than that I have everyone in the world to thank this vocation in this journey it's I don't walk it alone you know every single person who has just said a prayer before they go to bed all those people kneeling before the Eucharist just asking for God's help for me to send His grace to me I'm blown away by the generosity of the people of God honestly I just wouldn't be here without it [Music] it's very powerful me to think about how somebody is steeped and being loved in their formation and front of lay by the Lord and all that love is necessary to bring them to the altar for nation so the Lord certainly does the lion strip that with the grace of love I ask for each person but also we as a church all that all of us have something to do with getting that person to to the altar for ordination it's always it's something that I just kind of think through that when when I see them getting ordained and just them the great joy and gratitude and I think fundamentally I would say for a real sense of gratitude for all that it's taken all the sacrifices that people have made because they believe because of their faith what the Lord does in each person how you intervenes and ways a lot of times we don't necessarily even notice but but it's there everyday and that the graces that surrounds that person it's it's it's overwhelming to me over half of our guys now have been seminarians while I've been the location director so to see that our guys are now in different places in the diocese and that they're serving the people of God that just really I'm very proud of them and and so it's it's exciting to me to see that our church is so alive it's not just about priests that'd be oppressive Isis all of us are being called to discipleship and that it helps when we see young people hearing the Lord and are willing to say I believe that the Lord is calling me to priesthood that he's talking to me and all of us supporting him and the diocese is saying we believe in that call and we believe in the Lord speaking to you but it also means that we believe the Lord speaking to each one of us and that he's calling us to be decide was he's calling us to do is clean them that that affects everything affects vocations for all of us and so this is not just about it's not just about getting priests it's about all of us in our life of conversions all of us coming to a deeper belief and it's all of us recognizing our call to be decided [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Catholic Diocese of Little Rock

Views: 822

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

Keywords: Diocese of Little Rock, Catholic Priest, Seminarian, Discernment

Id: IuA82mUmBw0

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 03 2020