SEMINARIAN SPOTLIGHT
Deacon Andrew Smith Archdiocese of Detroit , Theology III
The “ Small , Quiet Seeds ” of Discernment
W hen I was quite young , I really enjoyed ( and still do ) a nice pot pie . The kind that is cooked evenly across the top to form a firm , golden crust . When I was fortunate enough to get a pot pie like this , the first thing I did was carefully remove the top crust in one piece and hold it up just like the priest holds up the consecrated host at the Mass . Though I might not have identified it while I was growing up , it ’ s easy to look back on things like this and see a fascination for the priesthood , and the small , quiet seeds of what would become such an important part of my life in years to come .
As seeds tend to do , these movements in my heart were buried quite deeply , and as my school years went on , I never took all this too seriously . I knew that I wanted to help people , and I thought that I wanted to be a doctor . However , as I
Photo by Marek Dziekonski approached the end of high school , my parish priest pulled me aside and for the first time mentioned that he saw some of the qualities of a good priest in me and wondered if I had given any thought to the possibility that the Lord was calling me to the priesthood . I responded that , since the priesthood was such a big decision , I was going to need to “ feel ” it a little more in order to make any changes to my plans .
Two things happened to me in my last year of high school . First , in the context of praying about my next steps , especially which college I should attend , I finally grasped the allimportant truth that what God wants for me is what I want for me , too . I finally understood that , since the Lord made me , I would be happiest and most fulfilled doing what he created me to do . Second , I watched The Passion of the Christ for the first time , and this movie imprinted deeply upon me the reality of just how much Jesus suffered out of love for me . My immediate response to all of this was that if Jesus was willing to suffer so much out of love for me , I was willing to do anything for him . He deserved that gift of myself back to him .
I was in the habit of altar serving each Holy Week , and the Holy Week at the end of my senior year was filled with even more meaning for me than any that had come before . It was my last year at home ; where would I be next Easter ? What was the Lord ’ s plan for me ? With all these thoughts and emotions at the forefront of my mind , I distinctly remember the Easter Vigil Mass and a moment when I clearly felt the Lord place on my heart the thought that he might want me to be a priest . True to my word to my parish priest a year earlier , I did “ feel ” the call to the priesthood a little more , and so I decided to change all my college plans and attend Franciscan University instead .
At Franciscan , I joined a group on campus called the Priestly Discernment Program , and it was exactly what I needed . There , I was surrounded by a close-knit circle of college men all focused on discovering the Lord ’ s will and growing toward him . My growth in self-knowledge and relationship with the Lord there , along with the friendships I made , cause me to look back and see these years as some of the most exceptionally blessed in my life . After graduating , I was given the unique opportunity to spend a year in a rectory to see — as closely as possible — just what the life of a priest looked like . After this , it felt like the right next step to come to seminary .
This is now my third year at Sacred Heart , and each year seems to go by faster than the one before . Similar to my time at Franciscan University , I know that I have received countless blessings here , and I ’ m so grateful for each of these past three years . The opportunities for spiritual growth feel so accessible here . I know that in the blink of an eye , these quieter years of seminary formation will be over , and I pray that the seeds that are now being planted in my heart through formation will come to maturity , just as happened with my earliest fascinations with the priesthood so that one day I might hold up something infinitely greater than that pot pie crust of my childhood .
18 Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Spring / Summer 2022