Doubt
At the end of my third year in the seminary, after spending my last two summer vacations outside of the country, I spent the summer at home. While I was there, I was happy to visit old friends and all the places I used to frequent. When the day finally came for me to return to the seminary, I was overcome with a heavy resistance in which I kept repeating, “I cannot go back.” What was now surfacing was a lie that I had believed ever since I began my time of formation. It was as if the past three years I was quietly telling God, “You are taking my life away from me.” That summer only solidified the thought that God was cheating me out of the life I could be having if I were free of the vocation.
It was at that delicate moment that my parents came to comfort me. Nevertheless, their reactions were not what I expected. First, my father told me, “Don’t worry, I love you with whatever you do,” thereby freeing me from thinking I had to fulfill any expectation. My mother followed by saying, “But you cannot run away from what you’re feeling.” It was then that I began to understand Christ’s words, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”(Luke 14:26) Yet, it did not end there. It was Sunday and when I went to Mass, I noticed that the first reading was the account of Hannah entrusting her son, Samuel, to the Lord. I immediately thought of what my mother had said and was convinced that the Lord was also telling me to go back to the seminary.
I finally decided to go back to the seminary and seven years later I do not regret for a moment that I did. I now think back to that moment with gratitude toward my parents because they could have told me to stay, they could have said to take some time, but instead they told me to go and not look back. I see now how in that instance they had the power to either nurture or suffocate my vocation and by entrusting me to the Lord they are now reassured of His fidelity. Just think that it was when I saw them put God’s will before their desire to be with me that I understood just how much they loved me. It’s true that when we allow God’s grace into our relationships, we are not robbed of anything, but instead we become so much sweeter. I see clearly now the fulfillment of Christ’s words: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” (Matthew 6:33)
The fourth of six children, Gabriel was raised in a Catholic family in Framingham, Massachusetts. By the end of High School, it was clear to him that God was calling him to the priesthood, but the difficulty was accepting the vocation. Gabriel first tried to fulfill his dream of studying art, but for some reason, the question of the vocation would not leave him alone. He decided to stop running and went to the Domus Galilee in Israel for a time of discernment. This decision was pivotal because it was there that Gabriel was able to say yes to God’s call. Gabriel has now completed his third year of seminary and has been ordained as a transitional deacon. He is currently serving at the Immaculate Conception Parish in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
