A Roman Catholic male in my same age group testifies the same feeling, this sense of "the calling":
I felt the call for the very first time when I was at grade 6, and that was about 10 years ago. That time, I was touched by a homily given by diocesan priest on a retreat. But, I kept telling myself that it's an amazement, no more than that. Furthermore, I thought a priest life won't be easy. 'Pray, pray, pray', that was on my mind.. and I'm terrible at prayers.. So I thought that it's kind of creepy life.. Hahaha.. Well, that time I didn't know any other things that a priest supposed to do.
On grade 7-9, I even went to the church not as often as before, and I didn't go to church at all eventually. Cause at that time, I have a bad experience involving a priest. Thus, made me avoiding going to the church. I'm a shy guy and tends to spent a lot of my spare time in the library when I was on grade 10-12. Interestingly, I'm attracted to religious books. I don't know why.. And by reading a lot of books, I came to an understanding that a priest is also a human, who has weaknesses.
Thank God on my college days, on my first semester, I met a friend who was also happened to have a vocation to religious life (he'd like to be a Carmelite). He knew that I was also "discerning to be a priest" from his junior high school friend who is my senior high school friend. That time, I'm not pretty sure about it myself (thus, I add those brackets..
).
[[That girl, who is both my and his friend, was on the same class with me on grade 10 and rather close to me until the high school days ended. So, she also happened to know that I love to read those religious books. I have never explicitly said anything to anyone about becoming a priest or things like that, but I don't know, my friends got the same impression: that I want to be a priest.]]
It's very nice I think to have a friend who has the same aspiration like us. Since he become my close friend, I'm aspired to be a priest once more. From books, I knew the Jesuits and got fascinated by their writings. And about 2.5 years ago, I contacted a Dominican priest by e-mail. That time, I thought that Dominican habit is so cool and it would be nice to know a Dominican, at least one in my life..
To make the story short, I was shocked when he said that he will stay in my town for a pretty long time due to the request of the Bishop to introduce Dominicans in the diocese and he was asked to teach at the newly founded seminary. And guess what, he stayed at my parish. Well, from him I got to know Dominicans better, and undoubtedly that his homilies was so great -- that's what aspired me to be a Dominican like him.
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