Deacon Nicholas Morrison

My life before the seminary:

My life before seminary was that of a high school student. A busy life of class, playing sports and musical instruments, and enjoying time with friends. I was homeschooled after attending first grade at St. Bernadette School in Silver Spring, MD. I was then homeschooled all the way through high school, along with my other six siblings. My family and I were part of various homeschool communities in Montgomery County, MD, and it was in there that I formed many strong, Catholic friendships. I love playing sports. Swimming was my main sport growing up, and I swam in both summer and winter leagues. Later, went on to become a coach of my local swim team. I also really enjoy playing soccer, ultimate frisbee, football, volleyball, the whole nine yards. Music was also a big part of my childhood. My siblings and I all played piano, beginning around seven years old. Later, I began playing the flute, picking around on the mandolin, and other instruments along the way. I was a member of numerous choirs, church choir, a boys’ choir, and even an acapella choir.

What convinced me to enter the seminary:

There were many small factors that slowly gave me the courage to join the seminary. Having the faithful Catholic example of my parents and many friends was important for me to initially grow in my faith and love for the Church. For years I figured I would eventually have a family and find a job. I became set in my plan, as basic as it was, and became obstinate to the idea of joining seminary. Eventually, I attended the Archdiocese of Washington’s Quo Vadis retreat, mostly to join many of my friends who also attended the retreat. During this retreat I was told that God loves me more than I love myself. Taking this to prayer, I thought that if the Lord loves me more than I love myself, whatever life He has in store for me is going to make me the most happy I could be in this life. I was struck by this, and eventually had the courage to tell the Lord I was open to whatever He wanted from me. It was a year or so later that I told the Lord He better hurry and show me what he wants from me. I was beginning to look at colleges and universities, but was struggling to come up with some job I looked forward to spending the rest of my life doing. Again, I brought this to prayer, and asked the Lord simply to attract me to whatever He wanted me to do. It was at that time that my older brother was also in the seminary, and I saw the fraternity amongst the seminarians as something I wanted to be part of myself, a big team of strong, Catholic guys all striving for holiness. Realizing this correlated with my prayer asking God to show me what He wanted, I thought, “What’s the worst that could happen? Maybe I could get a little holier.” At that, I entered the seminary and slowly have grown in my formation, and the Lord has continued to deepen my love for Himself and for His Priesthood.

Other interests include:

I have a newly discovered love for road biking. With the fast pace and my need for speed, I find that biking beats running any day! I recently completed my first century (100-mile) bike ride as part of the Archdiocese’s Ride for Vocations. My other hobbies include sketching and design. Given the time and a few pencils, I enjoy sitting down and drawing a small image or two. I took some lessons in various forms of art when I was younger, and have only recently started tapping back into what I learned. I’m looking forward to trying my hand again at watercolor.