Vocational Discernment

Something that I’ve been discussing lately at the Air Force Academy among some of the faithful Catholic cadets is the topic of vocational discernment.  For those who may not know, a vocation is a calling.  (From the Latin, vocare.)  The world would like to suggest that our calling is to something like an occupation; something we are drawn to and enjoy.  Vocations, however, are much deeper than this.  Vocations are about the call from God that will bring us fulfillment and happiness in life, to prepare us for life eternal with God in Heaven.  The discernment part is how someone goes about listening to the call and applying that call in their life.

Many of the young men I have been discussing vocations with lately seem to know that they are called to the priesthood – however, they are all in different places with their decision making process.  One young man is denying his call.  Another is preparing to leave to enter seminary in a few months.  Another wants badly to leave and enter a religious order, yet, doesn’t have the support from important family members.  They are all journeying towards Christ.  In this journey, they will find their way if they keep their eyes on Christ.

If you are currently discerning your vocation – married, religious or consecrated single life -, I recommend you take the following steps.

1. Have an active, daily Sacramental and prayerful life.
2. Seek a qualified spiritual director and meet with him regularly.
3. Read good quality, orthodox, Catholic spiritual books.
4. Talk to lots of people – priests, religious, seminarians, married men, married fathers and single men.  Gather that information and prudently process it.  (Ask lots of questions.)
5. Spend at least 2 minutes per day gazing at a crucifix contemplating Christ’s example of love.

A word to family and friends of men discerning their vocation.  I urge you to support them, whether you agree or not with their decisions.  If a young man chooses the priesthood, via a call from God, don’t think that it’s an abrogation of life, or life as you know it.  The priesthood is an incredible calling and must be respected and supported.  Many believe that the priesthood is suppressing reality and suppressing sexuality and suppressing the desire to have a family.  This is simply not true.  Please, refrain from being a stumbling block in a man’s discernment.  Support him, love him, answer his questions, attempt to guide him.  In the end, however, it’s the man’s decision, not yours.

Here’s a short clip called “Fishers of Men” from the Vocations Office in NYC.  Click HERE if you can’t see the video below.

TrueMan up!

Ask an Expert – Relationship with God, No Church?

My latest Ask an Expert response on iibloom.com:

QUESTION: Can I have a relationship with God without going to Church?

ANSWER: I know this question is on the hearts and minds of lots of folks, so thanks for stepping out and asking it. The short answer is, yes, you can have a relationship with God without going to Church. After all, He created you! However, that relationship is going to be a bad one. Think about it this way… imagine that you’re married and that you and your spouse have completely opposite schedules. You never talk, you never see each other. You never go on dates, you don’t snuggle at night and you never eat a meal together. What kind of marriage are you going to have? Not a good one. I DON’T think this is what you’re getting at.

Imagine now that you never become intimate with your spouse, that you never share or participate in their sacrifice for you. Imagine that you have barriers between you and your spouse that eliminate the ability to fully understand each other. What kind of marriage is this? An even worse marriage than the other. This, I think, IS what you’re getting at!

“Can I have a relationship with God without going to church?” Being in relationship with God is about much more than simply going to church. Being in relationship with God is about being involved in His life. God the Father sent His only Son, Jesus, to take on human flesh. Once Jesus became man, He gave fully of Himself in a sacrificial way. This sacrifice is what we celebrate at Mass, and is the “source and summit” of our faith. This sacrifice is The Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist! When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we are more intimately connected with Him than at any other time in our lives. There is no other single way to be more closely related to Him than this! He dwells in us, physically, after we receive Him. What a great honor and privilege!!! 

Previously, I stated that you could have a relationship with God without going to Church. I don’t actually believe that. In order to be in relationship, which means to be connected to someone else, you have to participate in their life. Jesus gave His all for His bride, the Church. His life was service to His spouse. If we’re going to be in relationship with Him, we have to participate in the life of the Church, the bride of Christ.

[If you read in the Gospel of John, Chapter 6, Christ institutes the Eucharist. These passages are vital for a Catholic understanding of what Christ did on the cross for us.]

Tuesdays with Daddy – My Primary Vocation & Responsibility

Sometimes it’s hard to clearly determine priorities.  What’s really number one in my life?  Why is it number one?  What else must occur in order for number one to stay number one?  As a husband and father, my primary vocation is to care for my wife and children, and this is where priorities get sticky for me.  In order to care for them, I need to be with them, but at the same time, I also need to provide shelter, clothing, food and safety – the essentials.  In order to provide the essentials, I have to earn money.  In order to earn money, I have to be away from them, either at my office, on the road speaking or at other locations outside the home.  Since I’m also studying for my master’s degree, my time is taxed heavily.  This isn’t even to mention upkeep of the house and vehicles, house chores and other necessary errands that must be completed.  How do I determine rankings of my responsibilities?

I’ve found that taking myself out of the equation is the best way to make the determinations.  What?  Here’s what I mean… I try to remove my desires, my wants, my preferences and instead, place my wife and children (and all of their needs, wants and desires) first.  When I do this, I find that my emotions are kept in check (even though I might want to be making money, hanging with my guy friends or watching a game).  When my emotions are kept in check, I am able to clearly determine what’s important.  Keep in mind, that making money isn’t bad, and hanging with your guy friends isn’t bad.  They are both goods things.  However, if making money, hanging out with your guy friends or any other activity/project/endeavor takes you away from your priorities, they become distractions and hindrances.

So, when determining priorities, I recommend removing yourself and your emotions from the decision making process.  Once you do that, your mind will be clear and you’ll be able to clearly make the right decisions.  Best of luck.

Man up!

Relationships Relationships

It’s been requested by a frequent reader (I’m fairly certain that she checks the site daily from her RSS subscription!) for some relationship advice, encouragement and/or help.  Since we have several friends either newly married or soon-to-be married, I thought it was a good time to introduce some ideas about relationships.  [Thanks for the suggestion!]

No matter what stage of your life you’re in (single, dating, engaged, married), it’s important for us to all strive to be better.  Make today better than yesterday and make tomorrow better than today.  Personally, I tend to be very selfish (something I work on daily) and I often let my wife down in this area… an area in my life that keeps me from fully obtaining TrueManhood.  However, I know that it’s a weakness and I work on it.  I try to put her needs first, to think outside the normal day-to-day “to do list” box to go out of my way to show her how much I love her.  When I don’t do that, I fail in my role as her husband.  When I fail as a husband, I fail to fulfill TrueManhood.  If today I make some mistakes, I’ll work very very hard to not make those mistakes again tomorrow.

Our marriage is strong (one of the strongest I’ve ever come across) because we both strive to be better each and every day.  We have our off days, sure.  We also have incredibly strong days.  What’s great about my wife and me (and I can brag because 1. it’s true and 2. it’s my website!) is that we both desire to continue to grow.  We’re never okay where we are.  Striving for excellence and perfection in the Lord is our daily goal.  (In a spousal way, at work, with our kids, as siblings and in public.  Everywhere.)  No matter what stage of your life you’re in, strive to be better each and every day.

When we dated, the relationship worked well for us because we were both very grounded in the fact that we wanted to be married with children.  We had both had numerous relationships that all went asunder and we weren’t investing in a long term relationship to “just have fun”.  We were dating with a purpose.  The purpose for us was marriage.  If you’re in a dating relationship, I highly encourage you to date with a purpose.  You’ve probably heard it before, but I can’t stress enough the importance of having that purpose in dating.  It orients your entire being, your will, your mind toward the vocation that you’ve been called to by God.  Protect yourself by being in a relationship only with a person you can foresee marrying.  If you can’t see them being the parent of your children, and you can’t see yourself growing old with them, or they really really annoy you in a million different ways, then get out!  Call it off.  Dating isn’t about settling on the person you’ve been dating the longest, it’s about finding the right person for you.  If you listen hard enough, God will reveal the person He created just for you.  Once you find that person, you’ll know.  It’s an incredible thing.

Recently, my wife spoke at a college women’s event.  There was a “man panel” where the women could ask the men questions and get frank answers in return.  Although the guys tried (sorry guys, you missed the boat here), Catherine told me that they just didn’t get it.  When asked, “Tell us about your ideal date”, not a single man on the panel said anything about the girl.  They never mentioned doing anything that she liked, or finding out her favorite restaurant, or trying to make the date special for the girl.  I tell this little story to illustrate an important point in dating… do what the other wants to do!  Be sacrificial.  Bite the bullet.  Put the other’s needs and wants before your own.  Think outside yourself, it will bring great joy to both of your lives.

If you’re engaged, all I can say is, BUMP THE DATE UP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!  Engagement was literally an earthly-purgatory for me.  I hated it.  The worst part of engagement is that you’ve made the commitment (minus the vows and Sacrament) and you want to be with this person all the time.  The saying goodnight and driving home at 2:00am.  The waiting.  The wedding planning.  Yuck.  I am so glad I’ll never go through that again.  If you’re in this stage, embrace it and go with the flow.  It’ll be over at some point.

I have a theory (for all stages of relationships)… it’s about arguments/fights/disagreements.  I am 100% convinced that in order for an argument, fight or disagreement to take place, one or both parties is acting or speaking out of selfishness.  Don’t be selfish!  Selfishness kills relationships.  Don’t do it!  (If you can think of an example where an actual argument, fight or disagreement has taken place where at least one of the people involved wasn’t selfish, I’d like to know about it.  Email me at Dave@TrueManhood.com.)

As I’ve written about before, Catherine and I have a saying we use in our marriage.  It’s like our motto.  It’s simple, really. “Always Make the Choice to Love.”  If you want to read more about this, check out an article I wrote for www.iibloom.com by clicking this link.

Man up!

How Does a Single Man Live Love?

I didn’t really speak to this in my previous post… how a single man lives love.  I spoke about how a married man can live love and how he can show his wife love, but nothing specifically for a single man.  Let’s dive in.

[Let’s say that our single guy isn’t in a dating relationship, courtship or engagement.]  He still follows the principles laid out in the Catechism (CCC 1822) about what charity is and he realizes that all he does should be out of love for God and love for neighbor.  I think it’s easiest to understand this idea (of living love) if a single man lives life as a servant, with the intention of bringing glory to God.  Essentially, a single man lives love the same way a married man does, he simply directs his love towards others differently; a married man has a wife and maybe children that he loves above all other humans – if you’re not a husband or a father you’ll understand what I mean if you become one.

Often times, the word love is distorted to mean something (only) having to do with romance and/or intimacy.  Not true.  Obviously, marital love tends towards romance/intimacy, but marital love should stem from the same foundation that God’s love (specifically, Christ’s love for us on the cross) does.  This foundation is life-giving, selfless and sacrificial.  It might be easier to get the distinction if we use the word charity in place of love.  As we think about what a charity does (helps people, lends a tender hand, comforts, protects, continually thinks about the welfare of others, etc.) it might make it easier for us to understand what living charity means.

A verse to think about:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says: “Charity is patient and kind.  It is not jealous, it does not boast.  It is not arrogant or rude.  Charity does not insist on its own way.  It is not irritable or resentful.  It does not rejoice in wrong, but rejoices in right.  Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

If you’re a single man, are you always patient?  In traffic, at work, in line at the grocery store?  Are you arrogant or rude?  Do you think more of yourself than others based off petty worldview mentalities?  Are you irritable?  Easily frustrated, constant mood swings or uncontrollable rage?  Do you rejoice in others failures or struggles?  Think about your life in connection with this verse.

Man up!

7 Days of Manly Superbowl Stuff – Day 3

T-Minus 5 days and counting until Superbowl 43…

Today, I’m thinking about the players in the NFL, and the typical picture that is painted for us of a player on the side lines.  Typically, we see the star players getting a water-boy to squirt water in their mouth for them, someone who takes their helmet off and places it on their own personal “helmet heater” and yet another person who comes behind them and places a warm cape over their shoulders during cold games.  Is this reality?  Do you have an assistant that comes behind you and “takes care of you”?  Most of us want to say no, but if you think about it, you might have to change your answer to yes.

Think about it this way… if you’re a married man, do you make your wife take care of everything around the house?  (The cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping and the bills?)  Does your wife do everything for the children?  (Feed, change, dress, educate and play with them?)  If this is making you think, I’m glad.  My hope is that each of us realizes that, much like the players on the field, a marriage is a team.  In football terms, how well would a team do if the offense also played defense AND special teams?  They received no rest, no substitutes and no relief.  They’d get run down and worn out.  Are you doing this to your spouse?  A True Man knows that cooking is a huge help (on a grill is preferred!), that cleaning any part of the house is a major relief and that a break from the kids is a god-send.  A True Man also knows that this DOES NOT take away from his manhood, but enhances it.  Be a teammate.

Man up!

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