I attended a mass celebrated by a close friend today. Last time I saw him, he was deacon and now he is a priest. It was a great experience. We both started studying theology together when I had contemplated the priesthood and he did attempt to recruit me into his religious order. I guess this is why it had a very profound experience on me, the fact that we were both on the same track and it could have been me up there under different circumstances.

So what do guys who wanted to be priests think when they see former classmates up there doing the priest thing? I dunno!

The strange thing about my desire to be a priest, was that I wanted to be like St. Jerome and not have to say Mass. People often asked, "what's the point?" To that I shrug my shoulders. I guess it is why the Jesuit life looked so appealing.

Since the evening that my wife-to-be and I did dinner at a friend's house, with their two kids playing loudly and experiencing something of the craziness of family life, I never looked back, I knew I wanted a family with all its craziness. By that time the priesthood had become a distant call due to a number of factors.

One thing that I'd suggest to religious orders and dioceses is that they need to begin taking into serious consideration the fact that most young men and women come through the undergraduate system with significant debt. Like the Jesuits, they need to consider that debt an investment not an impediment.