By Deacon Clint Johnson, Special to The Message
I hadn’t considered priesthood to be a real option for me until my senior year of college. I didn’t have a pull towards it when I was younger but instead always thought I was going to get married because that was the most familiar path to me, so the most certain and predictable. Going to church every Sunday was always a certainty, too, so I continued to do this out of habit even in college, and that’s when I had my first big understanding that what God wanted me to do may not be what I had planned for myself. This was such a difficulty, because it was the realization that I had to submit my will to his and that (I felt) I would no longer be free.
One constant theme that has always been present in my life is the tension between freedom and claustrophobia – the fear of being trapped both physically and metaphorically. To be free meant to have certain knowledge and total control while being trapped brings a feeling of doubt and depression/hopelessness. When I first felt the pull that God desired me to make a total sacrifice of my life for him, I was filled with both the desire to do what he wanted but also the paralyzing fear that I would be trapped, inadequate, not smart enough, that he wasn’t even real, etc.
I took several small leaps of faith, hoping that God’s will would be uncovered over time. My desire was not merely to become a priest but to be a saint, and that remains my only desire. Over the past seven years, I have been drawn into the understanding that priesthood is the path by which holiness will happen for me. As much as I’ve been terrified to accept the call out of fear of being trapped giving homilies, being a public person, never getting to be married, or never getting to have my own children, I’ve found these fears to be completely insignificant or even irrational when compared to the love of God. The more I rely on myself, on my own certainty, or what makes me comfortable, the more stressed, prideful and doubtful I become. But the more I surrender to God’s plan he’s laid out for me, the freer I become – and not a surface-level, symbolic freedom that’s just a “nice feeling” but a real freedom that pierces every part of my life.
In surrendering to God’s will, I have seen him turn all my fears into my greatest joys. Even though I may be terrified to give a homily, it’s the place where I feel that I am most fully being poured out for my wife, the Church. And being in Vincennes only a few months, I already have more children than I have time to give attention to. The whole process of growing in a relationship with God has helped me understand that he doesn’t desire to take my life away from me, but he desires to make me brand new. The carefreeness and peace I experienced in childhood is not something to grow out of but something to grow into. The brief sadness or suffering of setting aside what I think will make me happy is nothing to be compared to the real happiness that God promises for those who love him.
Pray for me that I can be a good father and can show my children that perfect love casts out all fear.