Genesis ....

The book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew bible and the Old Testament. It is the first book - the main point I am trying to show here ..in that there must be a beginning of this journey of mine why it all came to this - the beginning ..the Genesis of my discernment journey.

 

When asked 'why' I did it - and my best answer would be 'why not'... we all have desires in life - in that we are given only one life and if we don't try or attempt to discern to find out what is the best life which will give me the ultimate satisfaction then we will not be able to say at the end of our journey that we have lived to the fullest or perhaps the best of our one life.

 

For me, I just want to experience the joy of life, the peacefulness of life which after searching and under direction I find that perhaps this is it. It may sound self-centred but then in every personal desire of ours it always starts with our-self - that personal desire i.e. wanting it for our own self instead of others. This can be seen in marriages, one's desire to marry another person in order to fulfil one's own selfish desire of love or having him/her as one's partner in life. The same can be said as well of extra marital affairs, the fulfilment of another person's personal desire for another person though he/she is married. Is this not selfish ?

 

A lot can be said on the topic of selfishness or of being self-centred but I can clearly recall, the desire to be a priest has been in me for sometime ever since I was faithfully serving in church as an altar-server. Each time I serve I would be thinking as to how it would feel to be there at the altar celebrating mass and being able to elevate the sacred host and the blood. I never express my desire then to consider the priesthood to my parish priest nor my family as I felt not worthy but more importantly I do not think it would be taken seriously instead it would be a laughing matter. In addition, most people around me would never consider me as a candidate nor have the qualities to be a priest - as I came from a 'dysfunctional' family in that it is 'broken' where love and affection is scarce.

 

As time goes by and as I step onto the real world after completing my tertiary education and immersing myself in the corporate and public sector, the desire of the priesthood slowly diminish but it never totally extinguished itself. From time to time, the desire did float back and forth and each time it happens I would brush it aside yet it persisted. The period when I was in the secular world was a time when I can be considered as a lapse Catholic. Church attendance was extremely rare and going to confession and receiving communion was something alien to me. I was 'away' from the church for nearly 20 years and during those times I was constantly in a spiritual struggle as if there was a force which keeps on pulling me back to the church and whenever I had the courage to bring myself to church - there would be many moments where I would be in tears, feeling the unworthiness to be in front of the Lord, my sinfulness and the wanting to be back at the embrace of the Lord yet I didn't have the courage to do so until much later.