The beginning of a journey

Some of you who will come to this brand new weblog will do so in part, I am sure, because you are familiar with my other work.Let me say at the outset that you are absolutely welcome here, but if you have come for your daily political dose, this isn't the place for that. It isn't that we will never discuss political issues of the public square here, as I am sure that sometimes that might come up, but only as it might relate to the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church.

 This blog is different because I am using it to share with readers, inasmuch as it is possible to do so, the spiritual journey that I have begun as an Aspirant to the permanent Diaconate in the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee. At first, I hesitated to write this blog because I am just that-an Aspirant. I'm not a Candidate for the Diaconate-not yet-that is nearly two years away, and if I should, by the Grace of God, receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders, that is over four years away. Much can happen in that time, and one of the things we Aspirants were all told when we began this process was to be careful who we share our Aspirancy with, because we should not put undo pressure on ourselves, lest we discover God to be leading us in another direction and we then have to explain to everyone we know why it is we aren't a Deacon.

While that is all true,of course, I can honestly say that I absolutely feel called by the Holy Spirit to be where I am right now-I am supposed to be in formation for the Deaconate, and that is something that the Lord has made me certain of, as sure as I am that the sky is blue. I have trusted God from the beginning of this entire process, and I have told Him that I offer this entire process up to Him for the refinement of my own soul, for the salvation of souls and the conversion of sinners, and most importantly for the discernment of my own vocation. Furthermore, I have told the Lord that I trust Him to lead me in the right path, and  that I believed that if this was where He wanted me to be, that He would provide a way for me to do the things which are required of me. So far, that has more than turned out to be the case, and I will have more to say about that in a future post.

Because I believe that I have a firm foundation in this search for vocation that myself and the other Aspirants are now embarked upon, I feel confident enough to share some of the experience and the many reflections I will have along the way. I'm not entirely alone in this-my fellow Aspirant Scott Maentz also blogs, and his wife is writing a chronicle of this spiritual journey that we are all on together from her perspective. I really felt called and compelled to put virtual pen to virtual paper and share my call with you. I hope you'll come back, because if God wills it, I intend to be here awhile.