DON’T waste your life wondering – step forward in faith. That was a key message from Monsignor Kevin Long, the rector of Perth’s St Charles’ Seminary in Guildford – the place Catholic men go to find out if they are being called by God to be diocesan priests.
In a day of elegant worship and frank conversation, nine young men attended the seminary annual Enquiry Day on Sunday 16, October.
If they are being called, it is also the place where they will spend the bulk of seven years in residence.
In addition to in-house spiritual and intellectual formation, they will commute to the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle for study.
Morning and night, they will congregate in the seminary’s humble chapel to pray for guidance, for their loved ones and for the world.
Third-year seminarian and student president Grant Gorddard said seven years might sound like a long time, but he was far too busy to take much notice.
“It seems a long time but it goes quite quickly. You learn a lot but I’m sure after seven years I’ll think I still don’t know enough,” he said.
“If God is calling you he has a particular mission for you and he just keeps on calling.
“It’s a discerning thing. Your emotions can completely reverse and be all over the shop but the vocation will persist.”
But what a lot of people really want to know is how he felt about a life without intimate female companionship. Mr Gorddard said priests were called to form intimate, chaste, relationships with all people.
“You have to have a real, genuine loving relationship with God, basically,” he said. “We’re called to be in intimate loving relationships and as a priest you are in an intimate loving relationship with God.”
The day began with morning prayer, followed by talks from seminarians on their own experiences approaching priesthood.
Mgr Long addressed seminarians and enquirers alike during his homily at Mass before much informal conversation ensued between the two groups of men during lunch.
The rector told the enquirers it was highly unlikely God would tell them what to do directly.
“Don’t expect God necessarily to knock you off the horse on your way back to Damascus this afternoon with the certitude that you should be in the seminary,” the rector said.Waiting for a definitive bolt from heaven was tantamount to impressing your own will on Christ, he said – something Catholics were meant to avoid in favour of the divine will.
“Look at [84 year old first year formator] Fr John and look at myself … we are older men,” he said. “I think we could have wasted our lives if we had waited for a certainty which perhaps is not given to us this side of heaven.”
Several existing seminarians have walked away from lucrative careers. If you were in desperate need of major dental work, engineering or information on the chemical makeup of pharmaceuticals, St Charles would be a good place to be.
St Charles has 12 seminarians in residence with three on pastoral placement; five more are studying at pontifical universities in Rome.
Since reopening in 1994, the number of WA locals has been supplemented by seminarians from overseas but local numbers are on the rise. The youngest seminarian is in his late teens; the oldest is 62. If last Sunday’s enquirers join their ranks, the average age will fall further still with the nine men aged from their late teens to their late 20s.