Questions, questions

At the beginning of NaBloPoMo Liane asked me:

-When did you know you wanted to be a priest, and when did you know you were going to be a priest?

I wrote about the first part of this question (about knowing I wanted to be a priest) last year. As to the second part, about knowing that I would be a priest, it sounds like a simple question, but it really isn't. My bishop was always very careful about saying that ordinations were not set until the Standing Committee (a committee that helps oversee the diocese) gave its final consent, so I guess that's when I really knew it was going to happen.

But as for feeling like I was really going to be a priest, I think that happened gradually during seminary. I mean, you start out in a grad program like any other grad program in many ways, and you look around at your classmates and think, holy crap, we're all going to be priests! And you live in community with those people where everyone's idiosyncrasies and warts and flaws eventually show themselves, and you go through a lot of stressful experiences together. And suddenly one day you realize that you are starting to think of this or that person as a PRIEST and to see them living into that role. And you do something you'd never quite believed you could do and you think, maybe I CAN do this. I think it must be like this for med students or other people in professional programs. You take on the identity unawares, and at some aha moment start to really believe it.

-What was the best part of the discernment process for you? the worst?

Anyone who has ever been in the discernment process will tell you that it's stressful at best and excruciatingly awful at worst. I think the best part for me was the affirmation and support I received from people--in my home parish, at the job I ultimately left, from people I met in random ways. When things were rough--and they sometimes were--there was always someone who could help me pick up the pieces and gain some perspective. My bishop was brand new when I was meeting with the Commission on Ministry and my first meeting with him was pretty intimidating. But he quickly became my ally, and once I became a postulant it was clear that he wanted to do everything he could to support me.

As for the worst part--I have two responses, one specific and one general. Everyone has to have a psychological evaluation and I was required to see both a psychiatrist and a psychologist. Apparently (although I didn't realize it at the time of the appointment) the psychiatrist and I didn't connect very well. In hindsight, I think that we were coming from two very different places, and that he didn't ask kind of questions that would elicit the kind of answers that he later said he would've liked. In the end, everything worked out, but for a while it seemed like that this one thing could stand in the way of me going forward, and I really felt like he didn't get me at all. But it's tough to say that in such a situation, you know?

In general, going through this process require one to lay oneself bare, to make oneself very vulnerable, and it's scary. The outcome is uncertain. It's potentially life-altering, and it sometimes feels like one little thing, one misunderstanding or misstep could easily disrail everything. I don't know how I would've handled it if I hadn't successfully made it through the process after investing so much in it, but that does happen to people. I can say now that the stress and all that went along with it was worth it, but if you don't make it, that's a whole other story.

Any more questions?