Vocation Story: Test the Hypothesis

    My name is Kevin Vogel. I am just finishing my first year as a theologian at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO studying for the Archdiocese of Omaha. But had you asked me four or five years ago what my plans for the future were, considering the priesthood was not in them.
    I grew up on a farm near the small farming community of Howells, Nebraksa. I am the second oldest of five siblings. My father is a small farmer. My mother was an elementary teacher, stopped to raise my siblings and I, and now goes back and substitutes. Growing up on a farm was ideal for me. I spent much of my time outdoors. I loved to go exploring and wanted to learn about the world around me.
What I couldn't learn on the farm, I looked for in books. I loved mystery novels but I also like to peruse through our encyclopedias. I was passionately curious about how things worked. Dinosaurs, insects, rocks, and outer space among my favorites.
    My mother was my first teacher. She taught us in preparation for school and about God and the importance of prayer. We went to Mass every Sunday and sometimes pray together in the evenings. I went to Catholic grade school in Howells and then public high school. Though I had been raised in a Catholic culture (most of Howells is Catholic), I didn't have much interest in my Catholic faith during high school. It was just something I took for granted. There were plenty of other things to do (basketball, track, band, chorus, drama, speech) and topics to keep my mind busy learning about. Stemming from the fact that I was curious about the world around me, my favorite classes were my science classes. Upon graduation I decided to go to the University of Nebraska at Kearney. I wanted to go into physics research, specifically, astronomy.
    My freshman year I lived on a floor with sixty other honor students. Honors housing was great. You could often find a group of honors students discussing some deeper issue into all hours of the night. One such topic was religion. Students in the dorms came from a large variety of religious backgrounds compared to Howells. I was not prepared to answer the questions coming from the non-Catholic Christian friends. I was impressed by their enthusiasm and knowledge of their faith. realized I also wanted to know why I believed what I did, partly at first to answer them, but as I began to look into the Catholic faith and into some of the things they professed to believe, I found myself wanting the truth more than anything else.
    The summer after my freshman year I did undergraduate astronomy research at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The research was sometimes tedious, but overall the ten-week experience was great. Also that summer I began my quest for truth with reading the Bible. I nearly made it though the first half of the Old Testament by the time school started again, but I did not feel like it had helped me understand my faith much better.
   The start of my sophomore year marked the beginning of some intense research: I was searching for the truth about God as I simultaneously began to delve deeper into physics. Whenever I wasn't working on physics problems, I was reading articles and listening to talks online about the differences between most non-Catholic Christians and Catholics. I wanted to see both sides, straight from their own sources. Non-Catholic sources were varied, and different beliefs did not seem to meld together coherently. Catholic explanations were thorough, and fit together so well that to explain one aspect, one necessarily had to touch on other parts. That's what made it difficult at times to explain: doctrines are not separate entities but are related intimately to one another. I also found how Christo-centric and Scripture centered Catholicism is. Also Church history and the witness of the saints pointed to the Church. The most exciting find was the "re-discovery" of the Eucharist. That alone would have been enough to convince me.
    Though I was learning more about my faith, the learning was still focused on myself. It was for the purpose of being able to answer questions more than for creating a deeper relationship with God. It was intellectual, and not yetsupernatural. I wasn't looking to be transformed, to be converted. The summer after my sophomore year, I did some more astronomy research at Indiana University. This time, my experience was different. It was the same kind of research as the summer before, but after the first couple weeks I began to strongly dislike the work. I decided I did not want to spend a career on a computer crunching data. At one point we had a session on graduate school that starting me asking myself if I really wanted to go. This was my first encounter with uncertainty about where I was going in my life. I felt very alone with my family so far away. I began to attend Mass daily before going to work. I also tried to spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the evenings or weekends. This gave me the strength I needed to make it through work. I also continued to study my faith, reading the New Testament and beginning the Catechism.
    I returned to school for my junior year, disappointed about my time in Indiana and unsure if I still wanted to do physics research. I stuck with the major since I had gone this far and didn't know what else to do. The intense upper level class schedule was draining, especially since my attitude from the summer was poor. I had to pray before and sometimes during some of the classes just to stay focused on the material. I did not enjoy them. Finally, toward the end of the semester I began to like them, and even enjoy them some days.
    Up to this year, I had focused mostly on the intellectual aspect of my faith. I was slowly realizing that being Catholic was not just doctrine but a way of life to be lived out, not just when I felt like it, but at all times through everything I did. My junior year began what I call God's "Divine Invasion" of me. In many ways I began to care more about my friends and family. I participated in a couple bible study groups, attended a busy person's retreat, and made holy hours. Throughout my junior year I began to experience what I later found John Paul II called "the Law of the Gift." I really don't know how it began, but quite a few people, some my friends already and some I would get to know, would come to me asking for help with math and physics homework. Before, I would have turned some away so that I could stay caught up with my own, but now I took time out to help anyone who needed it. I found I enjoyed helping them more than doing my own. My fear that I would not be able to complete my own was unwarranted, for I found I could get it done anyway. I also became less afraid to let people know about how much my faith meant to me.
    The second semester I began helping TA general physics for one of my physics professors, Dr. Mark Markes. I found how much effort had to be put into teaching, but I also found that I liked helping the students understand the concepts. I began to discover the great joy in giving without expecting anything in return. I am not sure when my first thoughts about becoming a priest arose, but I believe they began to develop through the Holy Hours and by giving more of myself to others.
    The summer after my junior year, I went to the University of Michigan, this time doing research in atomic physics rather than astronomy. The tasks were more "hands-on" working with equipment than just computer work. Since I was part of a research group mainly composed of graduate students, it made me more able to work with people of different backgrounds and unafraid to ask for aid to problems. I was able to attend Mass at a nearby parish where I discovered a group of about a dozen young men that met biweekly called Chi Rho. Chi Rho began with either Mass or evening prayer, had a meal, had a talk given by a priest or seminarian, and concluded with night prayer. It was the first opportunity I had had to spend time talking to other young Catholic men that were discerning God's plan for their lives. During my stay in Michigan I was able to share my faith with several of the undergraduates in the program. I enjoyed the research at Michigan much more than the previous summer, but it also began to develop thought about being a priest.
    As I began my senior year at UNK, I decided to change my sleeping schedule so that it fostered better prayer habits. I was still unsure about the direction God wanted me to follow, and the only way to find out was to listen. I continued trying to get to know my friends better and continued to TA for Dr. Markes. I was also working on research for him that I was going to use as my senior Honors project. The research was dull and tedious computer work. I found the only time I really got excited about my physics studies was when I was trying to explain it to someone else. I knew that I enjoyed teaching, but science alone, I was finding, could not answer the important questions about the meaning of our existence. So many people, I was finding, were unsure of the answer.
    I began going to Mass several times during the week at a nursing home in Kearney run by Carmelite Sisters. The nuns, though they had nothing of their own, were the most joy filled people I knew. Sr. Delphine, though she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was one of the most joyous. One day when I first started coming, Sr. Ann Mary, came over and asked me what seminary I was attending. I told her I wasn't in the seminary, just at UNK, but she caught me off guard, since I had been contemplating being a priest. After that, every once in a while, she would tell me how she was praying for me and how she thought God was calling me to be a priest. Still I could see so many imperfections in myself that I couldn't understand how I could be a priest. I talked to a priest at a retreat and then a priest that my Mom had come to know well. He advised me to find out if what I had been experiencing was indeed a vocation to the priesthood.
   After meeting with the vocation director of the Archdiocese, I was enrolled in Conception Seminary College where I studied philosophy in the two year pre-theology program.  Philosophy was a great transition subject between physics and theology.  (I joke that one has to study physics before metaphysics.)  Philosophy also challenged me to study myself at a deeper level, and understand my own presuppositions about things.  The three-fold formation program – academic, human, and spiritual – challenged me to conversion to Christ more than ever before.  Through my time there I began to grow in confidence in myself and in the Holy Spirit guiding me along the path God has chosen for me.  I found that I am not alone in discerning my vocation.  There are many people that help us understand how God is working in our lives and help us to constantly purify our understanding of ourselves so we can be more open to his will.  After two years I decided to continue seminary formation.  I was accepted into Kenrick and have now completed my first year there.  It has been quite challenging, academically and in terms of human formation.  God has definitely blessed me more than I ever imagined.

    I think one of the biggest risks that I had to take in choosing to come to seminary is to leave behind the career that I had prepared myself so much for. I had done research during two school years and three summers. I had presented this research at three national conferences. The experience that I had built up was ideal to support entrance into grad school. I didn't know with the scientific certainty that my systematic mind liked if priesthood was my calling. But I could not ignore the idea. I needed to "test the hypothesis" so to speak.
    For those who are thinking that God may be calling you to the priesthood, do not be afraid to test the call. I was afraid at first because I did not know absolutely if God's call was for me to be a priest. The call to priesthood only seems stronger now that I have been in the seminary for three years.  My time at Conception and Kenrick so far has been a real blessing. One of the best things about being here is being around other young men discerning God's will for them. Keep your eyes on the Beloved and he will lead you.