Whilst I have always been a Catholic, for most of my life I had great difficulty in seeing myself as the sort of person who could become a priest. I decided my true calling was to be a mathematician, so I duly went off to Cambridge to study mathematics.It was whilst finishing my PhD in Cambridge that I spent 9 months living in the Dominican lay community. The lay community consisted of about six lay students living alongside six Dominican friars and sharing in their prayer life. I really enjoyed life there, and the thought did occur to me that maybe I could become a Dominican. But I hesitated. There were so many other things I wanted to do. Religious life would be fine if only I could pick and choose the bits I liked and reject the bits I didn’t. So instead I got a job as a software engineer in Somerset. Maybe there I could settle down, buy a house and have a family.
Two years into my job, I was listening to the radio and a journalist was saying that there was a crisis in religious vocations. I wondered whether there really was a crisis. Maybe there was only if people like myself didn’t respond to God’s call. Maybe God was calling me but I just wasn’t listening. So over the next few days I listened. It was only then I really started to understand how much God loved me and how much I loved God. I didn’t need to get married to be a complete person. My faith in Jesus Christ made me a complete person. For the first time in my life, becoming a priest was something I really wanted to do.
At this stage I didn’t know what sort of priest I should become, so I got in touch with Worth Abbey which runs a religious discernment programme. Over the next year, I went to Worth Abbey once a month. This really helped me discover how I could best serve God, and I soon started to look at the Dominicans. It wasn’t just that I enjoyed living with Dominicans, but I really believed in their mission statement – preaching for the salvation of souls. Being a fairly shy person, the thought of being in the Order of Preachers was fairly daunting, but I felt I didn’t have to rely on my own strength – God would give me the strength to do His will.
So here I am, in the Order of Preachers, confident that God will give me the grace to live out my Dominican vocation.
Br. Robert Verrill is a first year student
Well said, Br. Robert. Say it with a trumpet blast.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the posting Br Robert. It's always helpful to hear about other people's vocation journeys.
ReplyDeleteMatthew
A lovely post.
ReplyDeleteNOW GO OUT INTO THE CATHOLIC CHAPLAINCIES AND THE SIXTH FORMS AND TALK TO THOSE YOUNG CATHOLICS WHO ARE OUT THERE!
Spread the word! Our parishes are dying because, apart from the odd "mention" and prayer, nobody is talking seriously to the young about discernment. The university chaplaincies seem to be the last and only places where vocations are being seriously discussed.
I am glad that I am not a 20-something in my local parish. I would have given up long ago...
Discernment- a term form Jesuit spirituality which no Jesuit can explain. If your life is leading you to a religious vocation, you need a serious not to go in that direction. Lets use plain English and not the pious private language of the sad.
ReplyDelete"Oh I will have to discern if what you say is true"
So if you do it perhaps you can explain it.
"If you do not know what it means then I can not explain it to you"
So it is a private language. You should not be using it on a blog
"I can ride a bike without being able to explain it to YOU"
Discernment is a term from the New Testament, actually. Paul prays for the Philippians 'that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment (dokimazein), so that you may approve (others translate this also as 'discern': aisthesis) what is excellent' (Philippians 1:10). We find the term dokimazein used again in the first letter of John: 'do not believe every spirit, but test (= discern, dokimazein) the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world'. In 1 Corinthians 2:14, Paul says that the unspiritual person does not understand the gifts of the Spirit of God because they are 'spiritually discerned (anakrinomai, judged or evaluated)'. And of course Jesus had warned his disciples to beware of false prophets and to be ready to 'discern' (he doesn't actually use this term, he says 'recognize') good from bad. There he gave them what remains the fundamental criterion for evaluating spiritual claims: 'by their fruits you shall know them' (Matthew 7:15-20).
ReplyDeleteSo the discernment of spirits, discerning what one's vocation might be, evaluating spiritual claims (apparitions, for example) - these are all activities in which the Church has been involved from the beginning.
But perhaps you have experienced a bad use of the term 'discernment', because it seems to have gotten under your skin?