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From our Pastoral Intern Eben MacDonald
In May of 2006, after many years of prayer and discernment, and after
many months of going through the seminary application process and
interviews, I received the phone call I had been waiting for… the
vocations director called to tell me I had been accepted into Saint
John’s Seminary. I could hardly believe it! After so many years of
hoping, wishing, and praying, this dream was about to become a reality.
And now I began a new process—transitioning into the seminary.
Preparing to transition into the seminary required a lot of adjustments
on my part. At the time, I was living in an 850 square foot condominium
and would have to adjust living in a 10 foot by 10 foot dormitory room
and sharing common bathroom and showers with the other seminarians. I
had to prepare to leave my job and know that I was no longer going to be
having much money. I had to prepare to leave behind the daily routines I
had become accustomed to and get ready to embrace a new schedule and
routine.
As I began packing up my belongings, I realized how much “stuff” I had
accumulated over the years. I had amassed a lot of material possessions
which had once seemed important to me, but now no longer seemed to have
the same hold over me. So, preparing to go to the seminary was very much
a process of letting go of a lot of things. I gave away a lot of
furniture and appliances that I would no longer be using, and gave away
a lot of clothing as well, and tried to downsize and simplify my life in
order to enter seminary formation.
What I discovered after entering the seminary, is that a seminarian and
a priest still faces the same worldly temptations as everyone else. You
don’t escape these things when you enter the seminary or the priesthood.
Since a priest gives up the freedom to marry and have a family, it can
be very tempting to compensate by filling one’s life with material
things to fill that void. We’ve all heard the saying “You can’t take it
with you.” The things of this world, all of our material possessions,
won’t help us to get to heaven, and they won’t matter in the next life,
so this life is a process of learning to let go of this world and
learning to hold on to the things of this world lightly, and not
allowing our material possessions to become “gods” in our lives. The
Gospel invites us to live a simple life in imitation of Jesus. It’s also
a matter of learning to live our lives in an attitude of gratitude,
giving thanks to God for all of the things that we enjoy in this life,
recognizing that all we have and all that we are is total gift! |
