29 years ago, I doubt I slept a wink. That day I was making the most consequential promise of my life.
I had no idea what lay ahead. Like a young man on the day of his wedding, I knew the "I am" (the ordination equivalent of "I do") or "I ams" changed everything. It is wonderful that the last "I am" adds, "with the help of the grace of God."
Hearing our newly ordained make his promises brought it all back to me. Seeing him wipe a tear from his eye during it all reminded me of how overwhelming and powerful that moment was.
In all my time in the seminary, I struggled with the idea of whether I was worthy of such a moment. But as I told a young man thinking of seminary, "You are not, and you never will be; were God to only call the worthy, then He would have no one to call." The closest we get to worthy is being open to God's transforming grace. That is what He looks for. Openness.
After all, before every reception of Communion, do we profess our unworthiness yet acknowledge God's ability to heal us through the Blessed Sacrament?
As I said on the weekend of First Communions, the children had not come to a graduation where they had earned the right to take Communion; rather, in their prep it was about training to remain open (which is why First Confession comes before First Communion).
I said the same of our confirmandi and our neophytes. I say the same for Fr. Hartman and myself: we received the grace of Holy Orders not as a reward for making it through seminary, but because we have shown an openness to said grace.
Ordination is not a graduation any more than matrimony is... it is the beginning of a life-long covenant of fidelity and ongoing conversion and openness.
That is necessary.
As a priest, there are days of joy and days that crush me. There are days I rejoice I said “yes” and days where it seems like the way of the Cross. Openness to grace is what gets me through those latter days and helps me get back up again, find a confessor, and remind myself Our Lord didn't moan and whine His way down the Via Dolorosa. The last few months have been difficult; however, God provides.
So to the young men reading this who are perhaps contemplating seminary, if not in full sprint mode fleeing from it...
What God wills, He provides for. Trust Him.
You are not worthy. That is OK, as God already knows that, yet is undeterred.
Seminary will not make you worthy; it will make you open to grace.
Trust Him.
Trust matters most when we are under fire, under stress, isolated, and confused. When Jesus called Peter out of the boat to walk on water, He neither stilled the waves nor the wind. When Peter faltered, Jesus pulled him back again. Trust Him.
So, I will celebrate my 29th anniversary the best way I can... by watching a young man begin a journey I started decades ago.
I am aware that by the time he reaches his 29th anniversary, I probably will have been called from this life. I wish him joy, peace, and for him to keep his contagious fervor he already has.
This article originally appeared on Facebook.