June 2022

     Growing up, I was your typical kid who just went to mass because that was how I was raised. I grew up Catholic and my family is Catholic, but I never really took the time to learn about the Catholic faith. I didn’t really understand the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass until I was in highschool, so I was just going through the motions. I began to altar serve at my home parish, which is St. Peters, in Covington, when I was nine years old. So I grew up around a reverent environment and I learned to be reverent in church, during prayer, and while I was in the  presence of God. This helped me to understand a little more about the Catholic Church, but I was still not very interested in it.

      Once high school hit there was a whirlwind of all kinds of different problems that started to emerge in my life. The most important problem/question I had was me asking myself: why am I alive? What should I do with my life? I was struggling to find purpose in life and I did not know what to do. But by the grace and love of God, I was blessed to grow up with so many wonderful Catholic families and friends who were an amazing example and light of Christ. They would talk to me about the Saints and how they were examples of Christ’s love and that we should follow their example of good Christian living. Over time, I became more and more interested in God and the Catholic faith. Without those close friends of mine I don’t know where I would be. My friends introduced me to the CYO youth group, which taught me about the Catholic faith and I was surrounded by people and friends who enjoyed each other and loved the Church.

     Around my junior year of high school, one of my good friends invited me to go on a TEC retreat. The name TEC stands for Teens Encounter Christ and that is exactly what happened with me. It was such an amazing experience. There were about three talks a day and most of them were young adults telling us of their own faith journey. This was very inspiring and gave me hope that I could grow close to Jesus and have a relationship with Him. After mass one day at the retreat, I was praying and I felt God say in my heart: You are alive because I love you! You are mine and I care about you! Now I didn’t hear God say anything out loud, but it was like He let me know in my heart that He loves me. And I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and joy. After the retreat was over, I had a new love for God. I was going to mass more, I actually wanted to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and I started to form a habit of daily prayer.

     It was now junior year and it was time to begin Confirmation practice. At first I was not the most interested kid there, but I did care. A couple weeks in, I became more interested and I was learning a lot of new things about the Catholic Church. While preparing for Confirmation, a couple of friends and I went on a Come and See retreat at St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana. While I was on the retreat, I felt super peaceful and joyful. I had previously been thinking about the priesthood and maybe even entering the seminary. But now that I was able to meet seminarians at the seminary and see what they do, my desire to enter seminary increased.  Once Confirmation finally arrived, I was ready to be filled with the Holy Spirit and take my Catholic faith seriously. After Confirmation, I was seriously looking into applying for seminary.

     It was finally time to graduate from high school and I needed to make a decision of what I was going to do with the rest of my life. By this time, I met with a couple of priests and I had been praying about it for a while. So thanks to a couple of amazing priests who showed me by their example of ministry and service, I decided to apply for seminary. A year later, I was accepted into St. Joseph’s Seminary College and I just finished my sophomore year. I have grown in my faith and have learned so much about the Catholic Church. I am still open to whatever God wants me to do with my life, but I will be continuing in my formation as a seminarian.