Semantics (A Seminarian Blog)

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. By all accounts it has no right to be, but late in the evening on Wednesday, deep in the suburbs of Bethesda, I get the opportunity to spend a little over an hour teaching sixth graders at Little Flower Parish about the Catholic faith. And in this unassuming assignment, God revealed to me a real, unexpected joy.

This summer I was preparing to enter medical school at Georgetown University when I began to seriously consider entering seminary. It was precisely this human love that prompted it all. True love multiplies. The love of my married friends begets a certain spiritual generativity--it opened my heart to a spiritual reality. Their love and their marriage is, in a very real sense, for the whole world.

The Nats were the oldest team in baseball, but given the fun they had down the stretch, they could have been mistaken for the youngest. The best priests are men who never "grow up.” They remain children at play, living only and always in their identity as beloved sons--completely dependent on a good Father.

Last year I was working as a journalist in New York City. One look at my schedule showed you work came before anything else. I squeezed my faith and friends in as much as I could; time for prayer was sandwiched between meeting a deadline and the subway ride home. Nine weeks in, I haven’t stopped marveling at life in the seminary.

Karol Wojtyla provokes wonder about a life with God. It is a wonder characterized by a desire to know, but it is more than mere curiosity and admiration. Curiosity is only asking questions. Wonder is a desire to experience. With admiration, there is no desire to do more than look on from a distance. But wonder draws us in.