Discernment: Signs of the Vocation to Which You Are Called

Discernment:   Let’s continue to reflect on three basic signs of a vocation, as presented in an article by Rev. Martin Pable, OFM Cap. The first of those three signs is  that you have a desire for the life you are considering. The second sign is that you want the life for the right reasons.  In other words, what is motivating you to want to marry this man/this woman, to want to be a priest or to enter a religious community of women/men, or choose the single lifestyle?    A Vocation Director will be searching for the motivation behind your desire to enter religious life or to become a priest.  Someone preparing you for marriage or counseling you about remaining single will also be concerned about your motivation. 

Adequate reasons would be wanting to enter religious life or become a priest would be wanting to serve the Lord above all else, wanting to participate solely in furthering the mission of the Church, to live the Gospel in a radical way, to grow in intimacy with the Lord by a life of prayer and service, and the sacrifices of  being a priest or living in a community of women/men religious, not having a husband/wife to love exclusively and raising a family together in faith. Wanting to live with others who share a common mission and desire to grow in faith and love by furthering the designs of God as revealed through communal discernment of God’s will is also the kind of motivation that indicates the possibility of being called to religious life and or to priesthood.

Inadequate reasons  for wanting to enter religious life or become priest would be looking for the security which members of a religious community enjoy or that a priest seems to enjoy: a roof over one’s  head, three meals a day, a bed to sleep in each night, the social life of  retirement with fellow religious/priests in one’s advanced age,  life insurance, so to speak, and lots of things for which  other people in the world scrounge.  Other inadequate motivations  would  be wanting to escape loneliness or a failed relationship, or thinking that being a religious or becoming a priest gives you status and instant recognition or that it is a glamorous life. A young man who was applying to enter a seminary  said to me : “I need to be honest. I’m attracted to the pomp and circumstances of being a priest.” If that is one's only motivation for entering a seminary or a religious congregation, then the call to priesthood or religious life needs to be questioned.