Vocations

  So many of us have felt that we are called to marriage, and some have felt they are called to religious life, whether they are or not, I think we shall let the Church decide.  That said, I have thought long and hard about it, and I thought I may want to be a monk.  Then again, thinking about it, I think I may want to get married.  I have found a woman (I am a college student) that I didn't even realise I liked until yesterday.  Why do I bring this up?  Because some people are NOT called to religious life, just as some people are not called to a marriage vocation.  Many are called to neither (I always thought it was odd we had the emphasis on one or the other).  Now, that said, if I do get married, my job is to teach my wife and children the Faith.  Did you know that marriage is about helping your spouse get to heaven?  Is that not awesomeness?  Now, I will point out that I know of a few validly ordained Catholic priests that are married (Two of which I have met, both former Orthodox, Eastern Catholic biritual priests) as well as one in Augusta that became a priest through a the Pastoral Provision.  They are very hard working men, and a really good defense of the Western norm of clerical celibacy (remember, celibacy is a discipline not a doctrine.  I remember talking to one of these priests about what it was like to be married and to be a Catholic priest, he said "why would you want to be crucified twice"?  But he also stated that "two crucifixions means two resurrections".  He's a bit of a pessimist, but I like him anyway).  I have been engaged twice (not that the second one will admit to it, not sure why she is so hostile toward me, wait, keep reading, you're about to find the answer), the second woman I was engaged to is a Baptized Catholic that is now Anti-Catholic, and much of the reason I became Catholic (this was about a year and some minutes after she and I broke up that this happened, she was there at the church when I was Baptized, Confirmed, and received my first Holy Eucharist).  She wanted to get Confirmed, which is why I started going to Church with her anyway, to the best of my knowledge, she never did, but she's on her third Baptism, so there's that :'(.  So I pray for her.  That's another thing I have been thinking about, in all honesty, how often do we tell people we are going to Pray for them, just to forget about them?  Back to the original point of this post.  We must remember, it is not us that makes the call, it is God working in us.  Some of us will have happy marriages, some of us will have broken ones.  Some of us will spend time in seminaries only to realise we do not belong there, some of us will stay at a monastery for a while to realise that this may not be the right path for us.  And that's what it's about.  God calls us to holiness.  He calls us back to him, sometimes, we just have to figure out how to get there.
-Adam Charles Hovey