Anthony A.

 attending monthly holy hour, praying as a family in the morning car ride to school, before meals, as well as praying the rosary most nights. As I began school, some rosaries were accompanied by an hour-long lecture on various topics of Scripture and Faith from my grandmother, uncle, or mother. Around ten years old, my siblings and I were trained as altar servers, and from there we would help most Sundays at our home parish as well as any school masses.

As I continued my educational journey at Chaminade High School, it marked the beginning of considering the possibility of a priestly or religious vocation. At Chaminade , I began to be involved in a religious education program, where I would teach a third-grade class at a local parish once a week. Then, I joined the retreat staff program and the Sacristan club, where I would help set up and clean up school masses. Around this time, the Marianists Brothers began to invite young men to an event called “Operation Fiat.” Operation Fiat was an opportunity for men to get a glimpse into the brother’s communal life to open up the idea of a religious vocation. The night would start with evening prayer, the vocation story of one of the Brothers, and then dinner with the community. This was my first glimpse into what religious and community life could be like, but it was also the first time I questioned if this was something I could be called to do in my life. Shortly after attending Operation Fiat, I sat down with Brother Stephen Balleta, the director of vocations for the Marianists, to more formally inquire about religious life. This was the first time I had been moved to see if the Lord was calling me to the possibility of religious life, and certainly not the last.

During the pandemic months and as I headed into college, my family was still praying the rosary together every night, and we would watch a livestreamed Mass every day because we were unable to attend Mass in person. That fall, I found myself at Catholic University, and I held strongly to a daily rosary and daily Mass. However, I gradually began to turn away from many of the Faith based activities. I began to hang out more with my roommates, one of whom was a good friend of mine from high school. This friend, who used to also be involved in a lot of the Faith based activities at Chaminade, simply stopped going to Mass altogether. I began to slowly turn away from my own prayer life and relationship with God. Instead, I opted for a restless life of partying and socializing, but I would make sure to still go to Mass on Sundays. In the spring semester, I decided I would start to altar serve at Sunday Masses, but I did not stop my partying habits. As the year continued, my relationship with Christ hit a state of a comfortable, lukewarmness that I had never experienced, and it persisted even after returning home for the summer.

In the following fall, the liturgy director made a strange proposition to me. He instructed me to speak with the director of Campus Ministry so I could become a sacristan. Although I was a little hesitant, I accepted the position. As the sacristan, you would find me setting up all Sunday masses, as well as whichever daily masses I was available for. It became my responsibility to ensure that all four campus chapels were stocked up, and that all the liturgies ran smoothly. I quickly began to enjoy my work as a sacristan, and although it was not easy, I took joy and appreciation for the work of being a sacristan. I found comfort in preparing and cleaning up for Masses, as well as a personal, reinvigorated love for the Eucharist and the liturgy.

The fall of 2022 began my junior year of studies, and I was dating a girl I had just met. She was from an agnostic Jehovah’s Witness background and knew nothing of Catholicism. At the same time, the Dominican Order had taken over the university’s campus ministry. With all the changes in my personal, work, and academic life, I quickly became burnt out. I was running from classes to chapels to dealing with an overly emotional girlfriend. Life was moving too quickly, and my inability to say no led to me being stretched too thin and reaching burn out. This feeling of burning out began to affect my own prayer life, and I went from enjoying the set up before the 11am Sunday Mass, to struggling in being there for all the Masses. Being a sacristan was no longer edifying for my own prayer life, but I insisted on doing it. This brought about another period of spiritual dryness and lukewarmness towards God, the Mass, and the Eucharist. Once more, I found myself not knowing how to pray or how to turn back to Christ. Around March, one of the Dominicans approached me and asked me if I had considered applying to be a campus minster. I quickly said no, but he asked me to reconsider, and I submitted a last-minute application.

In early August of 2023, I found myself in a room with twenty-three other students who had been accepted to work as campus ministers. One day in late August, I was cleaning up after a noon Mass, when out of nowhere one of the chaplains asked me if I had ever considered the priesthood. At this point, I was still dating my then girlfriend, I was studying for the law school admission test, and although I had previously considered a vocation, it had been a very long time. The chaplain told me to consider it. After the conversation, I left the sacristy a little shook, but with a newfound restlesness.

After a messy breakup, I found myself in another relationship in the span of a few weeks. A couple of months later, I would wind up on a weeklong mission trip to Guatemala. The week in Guatemala was perhaps one of the most grace filled weeks of my life. Throughout the mission, we spent a week in a very poor village hidden in a hillside. We had spent the week visiting homes and listening to the problems of the families. Their honesty, humility, and grand Faith in God’s infinite love and mercy have remained a major witness to my own personal conversion. In one of the house visits, there was a very sick man who had not left his house in the last year due to a sudden illness that had impacted his ability to walk, and I had remained with him for about an hour to listen to him. Later that night, our trip chaplain asked to speak with me. I assumed we would discuss the logistics of the nine baptisms that would occur the following day. We discussed the liturgical matter briefly, but he quickly pivoted and asked me if I had ever considered the priesthood? Once more, I had been caught off guard with the same question I had encountered a few months before. I told him that yes, but I was more interested in the girl I was seeing, so it was not a priority. With such a quick response, I was getting ready to leave, but he called me out saying, “Anthony, why are you being so evasive?” In the moment I dismissed that comment as well, but I came to realize the truth in his words. For the last couple of years, I had kept evading the Lord through constant distractions and excuses. I had a feeling of restlessness in my heart, and yet I chose to keep ignoring it.

As graduation neared, I had rejected going to law school, so I was in desperate need to find a job. With no job guarantee, I applied for a missionary program to El Colon, Mexico. This program would have me working and forming high school aged men as I lived in a community for about a year and a half. I told myself it would be a great time to get away and discern a priestly vocation. I was accepted into the mission and with no job lined up, it seemed like the most obvious and easy choice. However, after much prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, I would wind up saying no. I spent the rest of my summer applying for job after job with no luck. Finally, one hot summer night, I get a call from the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. I was shocked as I had only submitted my resume thirty minutes prior. The Cathedral hired me, and before I knew it, I was back in Washington D.C.

My time at St. Matthew’s has been filled with various challenges. I realized that working for the Church is certainly much different than being an active participant in a parish. Yet, it has given me many blessings in various ways. The opportunity for daily Mass and adoration has remained a consistent part of my life, and working with the homeless and hearing people with various of their struggles has opened my heart to seek out Christ more and more. It also has taught me that although good work is prayer, it is important that I safeguard and maintain a prayer life outside of just work. At the same time, it seemed to further the restlessness in my heart. I thought that through my work at the Cathedral, God would give me a clear answer, but I felt just as scared, conferred, and restless as I had been a year before. It was once I confronted that fear, that I asked the Lord for courage to submit an application. Therefore, after attending a “Come and See” weekend with the Dominicans, it was not restlessness that I felt, but a bigger sense of peace. It was then that I decided to stop evading the Lord, and attempt to hear what He was calling me to. Throughout my life, I have seen how my vocational discernment has been a gradual process. From serving as an altar server, to the sacristy, and having the privilege of working at the Cathedral, the Lord has blessed me with a gradual step by step process, even if I have been stubborn along the way, which is why the conversation in Guatemala continues to linger in my heart today.