ME E T YO UR S E MI N AR I AN S
Matthew Kurt has a fire of
love for Jesus and wants
to share it with the world
I
first started thinking about the priesthood
in eighth grade. I had just gotten confirmed
and my grandpa gave me a book, The Life of a
Priest. I thought to myself, “Yeah right Grandpa,
no way! I’m going to get married.” However, this
gift planted a seed in my mind for the priesthood.
Throughout high school, my dream was to go to West Point
because I wanted to be the president. And, my great-aunt told me
that she would never vote for someone who didn’t have military
experience. There was no doubt in my mind that I would get into
West Point.
In my senior year of high school, I went to praise and worship
and adoration. I felt Jesus calling me to kneel. He revealed to me
and image of him and I in a cabin. He said to me, “Matthew,
I want you to be a priest.”
I thought to myself, “That was just my imagination. I was just
trying to have a cool experience
at praise and worship. I’m still
Matthew Kurt
going to West Point.” Then I
thought to myself, “If I don’t
Archdiocese
get into West Point, I might
of Detroit
start thinking of the possibility
Pre-Theology II
of maybe becoming a priest.”
About a month later I didn’t get
into West Point.
I attended Michigan State University on an ROTC scholarship.
During my time there, I started going to daily Mass. I also joined a
priesthood discernment group and through that group, I started
to pray and read the Bible.
Then I got an opportunity to go on a discernment trip with
the Archdiocse of Detroit vocations office to the Camino de
Santiago in Spain. However, one of the requirements to go with
the vocations office was you couldn’t be in a relationship.
My question then became, “Do I start solely discerning the
priesthood right now?” I talked to Fr. Dan Westermann, who
was in charge of the priesthood discernment group and he told
me, “Matthew, it would say a lot to Jesus if you took a year off
from looking for a relationship and start solely discerning the
priesthood.” He continued, “Matthew, you probably aren’t called
to the priesthood, but spending time in prayer and scripture is
only going to make you a better biological father.”
I started to discern the priesthood. My intial prayer was, “All
right, what do you want from me Lord?” However, God doesn’t
usually work like that. One day, on my way to the Shrine of the
Little Flower in Royal Oak, I was reading about St. Therese of
Lisieux’s life. I read about her child-like heart that was on fire
for the Lord, and I said to myself, “I want that!” I started falling
head-over-heels in love with Jesus Christ.
I now had this fire for the Lord, and I wanted everyone to have
it. This is one of the things that attracted me to the priesthood,
especially being an Army chaplain. As a chaplain, I could spread
this fire around the world.
One day I was at Mass and the reading was on the creation of
Eve. Father Dan was the presider, and I thought to myself, “This
is going to be about marriage. I don’t have to pay attention to this
because I’m discerning the priesthood.”
As his homily went on, my peripheral vision became blury while
Father Dan came more into focus. Then he was staring right at
me with that Fr. Dan grin of his and he said, “St. Catherine of
Siena said, ‘Be who God meant you to be and you will set the
world on fire.’” I broke down weeping in the pew because those
words were for me.
Since then, I’ve been trying to fall more in love with Jesus because
if you’re in love with someone so much, you come to a point where
you’re willing to do anything for that person. If there was one piece
of advice, I could recommend for any guy discerning, I would say,
don’t worry about what you’re called to do in the future. Just worry
about loving Jesus today, because He will take care of tomorrow.
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