VitalianChristophere L.

Napone 4th year Butil class

My Vocation Story

Why came to my mind of becoming a priest?As I re-think for the reasons why I decided

to take the entrance exam in the seminary and eventually enter after I graduated in high school,

all I remember is that I simply just want to become a priest. I cannot articulate the profound

reasons at that time,butfor sure just I desire to become a priest. In my elementary years up to

high school, every time I was ask what is my ambition, and every time I fill up in autographs and

in the year book of my graduation, I always indicate priesthood. I even remember myself playing

with my childhood friends in which I sometimes act as a priest, hanging long pants from my

back-neck so that it may look like a stole of a priest. I also remember myself very happy and

surprise in my JS prom in high school, where in the class prophesy, I am a bishop. Hence, the

question on why came to mind of becoming a priest, my answer before is that I just simply love

it since my childhood.

When I am already in the seminary, I learned that this love to become a priest must have

reason or cause. Later I did realizewhen I am already in the seminary why there was a great love

in me to become a priest. This love was formed because of some reasons.I realize that I enter in

the seminary because there is a seed of love in me to God and His Church. This seed of love to

God and to His Church was formed unknowingly in my life experiences until I decided to enter

in the seminary.

The seed was first implanted to my heart by my parents. Since I was a child, they raised

me with the consciousness that there is a loving God. As they raised me with their love, my

parents also let me be familiar to the Church. They secured that I may have the necessary

sacraments,and that they facilitated me to participate in some Church activities like flores de
Mayo, choir, and especially the Sunday Masses. I also noticed with them that they themselves

are so active in some Church activitiessince my father is a lay minister while my mother is a

catechist and a lector. They are also member in FALA( Family and Life Apostolate) and

PPCRV. By their so much participation to the Church activities, there is no wonder how they

implanted in my heart the seed of love to God and in the Church. My older brother and sister

were even, influenced by my parents, as my sister enter in the convent and my brother in the

seminary. In the decisions of my siblings, the more I felt the closeness of God and the Church in

our family. From my childhood, I grew up with the awareness that the Church is like my second

home and that God is part of the family.

Another factor which made to germinate more in my heart the seed of love for God and

the Church is the experience that I have about the goodness of the priests. It is a common

understanding that priests represent God and the Church. My parents have many priest friends

like Fr. Dennis Prisco and Fr. DodongLasala. They often times went in our house. My parent's

closeness with those priests increases my perspective to the Church as my second home. With Fr.

Dennis for example, he sometimesinvitedmy family to go with him in his apostolates, to his

assigned parish, and sometimes even to have some recreations. I see not just the goodness of that

priest to my family but also in his goodness to other people especially in bringing people back to

God and letting them to feel the love of God. Fr. Dennis, for example, founded the Home for the

Abandoned Elderly, giving love to the aged persons that were left by their families. Those

gestures imprinted in my heart that priests are so good and that I want to become like them.

Another factor which increases the growth in my heart of the seed of love for God is my

personal experience itself to God’s abundant blessings. I am grateful to the love of God that I felt

through the blessings that He pours to me in terms of talents and abilities, achievements, friends
and most especially of my loving family. Those things are so much for me. Even though, maybe

for others, the things that I have are so simple and small, but for me, I recognize them as great

blessings and I feel not worthy of it.Anyhow, the things that I have gave a great impact in me to

feel God’s love more and more.

By those experiences, I realized that those became the hidden reason for my decision to

enter in the seminary. I always associate those experiences to the love of God. My talents and

abilities, my ever supportive friends, classmates and teachers in high school, those inspiring

priests, my another supportive parish priest, and my family are concrete manifestations of the

love of God to me. And I believe that the love that I experience and that I continue experiencing

is the Voice of God.All the blessings that He showered upon me are a very clear calling in me to

share it other people. I believe that entering to the priesthood is the best way to answer the

calling of God for me. By those experiences, I felt the commissioningto thank Him,and be a

living witness of His love to human kind.

When I am already in the seminary, my life is very calm, happy, exiting and relax. I

really felt at home in the seminary. As the years gone in the seminary, I really felt at the bosom

of the Lord. I have some problems but they are minor. My family uring my SD with sister Cecile

Galion, I even ask her why I have this kind of experiences, for I believe that it is not normal to

have only minor problems.

Theologian Frederick Buechner said that the place God calls you to is the place where

your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. There are two factors in his definition to

vocation. I am glad that at least I have already the taste of the deep gladness to God’s love. In my

five years of formation in the seminary, I continue to be glad in all the things that the life of
priesthood being taught to me. I am happy to practice the life of becoming a priest. As have this

deep gladness of the love God, I also recognize that the world is somehow in hunger to feel the

love God. Thus, I believe that the voice of God becomes clearer in me. I am called. And the great

challenge is, if I can faithfully answer His calling. That is why I continue to pray to Him to abide

in me always, especially in my weakness and in making worthy and ready to answer His call.