If you aren’t vigilant, a lot of formation in the seminary can create a momentum toward navel-gazing. We can get in the habit of asking ourselves constantly, “How is my prayer life, my school work, my vocation, my ministry?” Even something like community, which jostles us out...

Sometimes I wonder at the marvel of it all: I grew up a Protestant kid just a few miles from Notre Dame (a place with which my family has no formal connection), and now I am a Roman Catholic, a vowed religious, and a seminarian.

The truth is that we cannot repay God for the gift of our vocation, for bringing us to himself, but we can thank him by discerning and following him along that path.