April 18, 2008

• In the Beginning…

   A few of you have expressed interest in hearing (or reading, rather) about how I decided to start on the path to priesthood. This is a long tale, but fortunately for the both of us, this will provide several entries-worth of work.

  I often recount to others a certain segment of the tale, surely the most significant, which I will for now call the Laura Chronicles. But, because so many of my current readers were not even aware of my existence during the actual time I entered discernment, I will start from the very, very beginning.

  The first hint of my vocation was experienced when I was in middle school, perhaps seventh or eighth grade. I do not remember the exact year, but I remember the moment well. My cousin, Eric, had just returned to my home after hunting turkeys with my father. I was at the dinner table (folding laundry, I think) and he was standing in the kitchen doorway in his camo pants and a t-shirt sipping on a cold beer. He looked at me and, in all seriousness, said, “Jacob, you have the right attitude to be a priest.” I looked at him in surprise and said, “Really? Huh.”

  Priesthood at this time in my life was not even at the very bottom of my list of possible things to do with my life. As early as sixth grade, when I got over wanting to be a paleontologist or an astronaut, I wanted to be a dad. I wanted a wife, and I wanted kids; my career was a secondary interest, but it was starting to lean toward something involving music. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyways) I filed “priesthood” in the “forget about it” folder and moved on with my life.

  I remember a time early in high school when I was at Thursday Night CCD at St. Mary’s Hall. I was speaking with my best friend Brandon afterwards, chugging down Sprite and eating potato chips. We both admired our priest a great deal and thought about how cool it would be to live in the nice rectory and only work on Sundays and be your own boss. So we decided that, if the Vatican ever decided to allow married priests, we’d drop whatever we were doing and become priests, living the “easy life.” I know now that the priesthood is the furthest thing from the easy life that I can think of! But, hey, I was just a kid.

  During my freshman year of high school I finally and fully overcame the idea that girls were icky and decided that they were OK to have as friends. I had had a crush on a girl in seventh grade, but had my romantic illusions dashed when I actually began to find out about the real person behind that beautiful face. I was very wary about letting myself get too “mushy” about girls and, besides, there was not a single woman in my high school that could possibly find me attractive. I was a nerd, kinda chubby, big geeky glasses and if I had to choose between life and Star Wars, well, let’s say I didn’t really have a life.

  Eventually I made friends with a girl who was two years older than I, whom I will call Josephine. She eventually dated my best friend, and I soon became her confidant and ambassador between the two whenever they were unable to communicate with the other. I came to know her very well, and we became fast friends.

  One evening while I was washing dishes, Josephine called and invited me over to her house to watch a movie. I asked my father and he said, “Will her parents be there?” Mind you, I was a high school freshman at the time and felt QUITE old enough to handle watching a movie with a friend, even without parental supervision. However, her parents were out of town and my father did not grant his permission for me to go. I was very upset, and when I asked why he wouldn’t let me go he responded, “I remember what it was like when I was your age, and you don’t need to be put in those kinds of situations.”

  Irate is a good word to describe how I felt. I felt so judged and so dismissed, simply because I was young and male and my father was reckless when he was the same. I certainly understand better now that I am older, and I am very grateful that my father was so very watchful of me. But at the time I was extremely upset.

  That night I stewed hotly about what it was that I should do in light of such “treatment.” I realized that my father had no idea who I was, what kinds of decisions I was capable of making, how I thought of and related to women, etc. I then realized, too, that I could hardly answer these questions myself. That night I began thinking about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how I should live my life.

  During this period of my life, anything medieval appealed to me a great deal. I wanted more than anything to live the life of a knight, but I had always put it aside as a childish fantasy. However, my blood was hot and my mind wild, and I decided that I would try my best to live a life a chivalry and I would never, ever have sex before I was married.

  The next night I went outside under the bright moon and decided, in my romantic and somewhat rash way, that I would swear a blood oath to God (being He was the only king I could think to pledge my service to) that I would live a life of chivalry as best as I knew how, and that I would not have sex until I was married. I initially want to gash open the top of my forearm like in the movies, but I chickened out (come on, getting cut hurts a lot!) and just sawed the blade back and forth until it started to bleed just a little. I figured that would be enough to “seal the deal” and went back into the house, my heart swelling with a sense of pride, renewal, direction and adventure.

  Being so young and unable to truly grasp such a concept as chivalry and knighthood, I made my oath the same as the one from the movie Dragonheart. Yeah, yeah, a movie, I know, but those words struck me very deep and still do. I used to say them every day until they were committed to memory, and I recited them in my mind whenever I needed help in making a decision.

  “A knight is sworn to valor. His heart knows only virtue. His blade defends the helpless. His might upholds the weak. His word speaks only truth. His wrath undoes the wicked.”

  I decided that since I couldn’t run around school with a sword, my resolve to live a good and virtuous life would be my blade, and my disdain for some of the things going on in school and in the world would be enough wrath to let people know my thoughts on partying, sex, drugs, and other such things.

  Early on it was pretty easy to follow these guidelines, with the most difficult being that of telling the truth at all times. But I found more and more that I truths are like round mountains, the mountain being taller and more difficult to climb as the truth was harder, such as admitting to someone that you stole from them, whereas telling the truth about where you hid your sister’s book would be like a small hill. However, to lie would be to simply walk around the truth, and since lying really gets you nowhere, you cannot simply walk past the truth. You circle around it, sometimes multiple times, but eventually you end up right where you began when you confronted it in the first place. As you tried to walk around it, the mountain grew, making itself even more difficult to overcome. So many people would avoid so much pain and problem if they simply had the courage to tell the truth before building it up with lies first! Now I cannot bear to tell a lie unless it is part of a very harmless joke; I cannot even play poker well.

  As my efforts to live a chivalrous life began to permeate all aspects of my existence, people started to notice my character more and more, especially the women I went to school with. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my admiration and adoration of women as beautiful gifts in my life (instead of raw meat to be devoured in a vain attempt to satiate a sexual appetite) earned the trust of many womenfolk and lay the foundation for many wonderful, chaste friendships. Many young women whom I did not know except for name and face would come to me at my locker to pour out their hurts and frustrations, myself having been recommended to them by some mutual friend or other. At first it was quite terrifying as a young sophomore to learn so much about the inner workings of young high school women, but more and more my heart went out to them and I realized the great need that all women feel to have a gentleman in their life, a man that will listen (not just hear), will see (not just look or STARE), will hug them when they need it (not grope or cop), is gentle and genuinely caring, with no underlying motives to have his own lusts satisfied. I was so honored and blessed to have the hearts of so many opened up before me, and I quickly became the envy of many men, and was even more socially exiled from them.

  Not that it bothered me much.

  It was also during my sophomore year, though, that I fell in love for the first time. Her name, for this telling, will be Josephine.

  • 12:12 am
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