Scholastics

So, it's Recollection already... or silent retreat weekend, as it could also be known. Or, as I'm discovering, it's also been voted "Weekend Most Likely to Produce a Blog Post".

I think it's probably got something to do with the whole reflection aspect of Recollection. And, with me, anyway, introspection leads to realisations, leads to blogging.

Back within the month or so before the holidays, I had my follow-up meeting with Fr. Shayne (the seminary's rector) and the psychiatrist who did my evaluation (standard procedure for seminarians). There's no need or reason to go into all the sordid details of my life that were revealed-- save one. It came out in the testing, somehow, that I'm "very smart"... which Fr. Shayne warned me then could well mean that I'll get sent on to doctoral or liceniate studies, post-ordination.

Well, I liked the compliment about my intelligence as much as the next person, but to be perfectly honest... the thought of MORE than the eight years of study I've already got to work on did NOT appeal to me. It's part laziness, but it's also part humility. If not real humility, then some sort of faux humility. As a kid all I ever wanted to be was a parish priest... not a seminary formator, or a diocesan administrator... or anything.

The whole prospect of possibly going on to further studies lurked on the edge of my mind for a good month, maybe two, thereafter. I'll readily admit that it's foolish to have been thinking in 2006 about events that couldn't happen any sooner than 2014... but it was rather a foundation-shaking event. Though I didn't KNOW I was going to the seminary throughout high school, it was the default setting. Since I was about five, there was never another real expectation of what I'd do.

Well, I came back to Seminary at the start of January... and got my marks (a solid 4.0 average), and started classes again... and I started to get excited about classes. English, Sociology, and History were all gearing up to be spent on... my pastoral future, more or less. Not exactly, but something like that. Then there's religion (Intro to Christianity: easiest course I'll ever take, and rather useful in my field...) and Logic (the only course this semester towards my major). School was suddenly not looking so much like a bad thing, but an awesome thing.

Meanwhile, my reasonable side reasserted itself and told me that it was way too early to be worrying about being shipped off to doctoral studies, as I don't even have a Baccalaureate yet. The Archbishop was gone, so who knows what my bishop-to-be will decide to do with me? We don't even have a clue who he'll be, so far all I know, I won't get along with him, and he'll just keep me in the parish, or I will get along with him and he'll just keep me in the parish, or he'll ignore me, and I'll just stay in the parish. Basically, reason won out and reminded me that nothing's to be taken for granted, and one can still hope...

...even as my mind began to think that another stint at studies might be cool. Fr. Shayne's Rector's Conference a couple weeks ago didn't hurt that prospect either. It was a frank look at how stressful and overworked the modern priesthood is-- scary, but with God's grace, lovely.

Thank goodness my life isn't in my hands. I wouldn't know what's best for me.