How do you know if you have a vocation to the priesthood?

That question has haunted more than a few men over the years. And in Los Angeles, a group (led by a man with another vocation, to marriage) is helping men discern what God wants for them. The Tidings has the details:

After a long day’s work on a recent Friday night, 13 single men gathered for a light dinner and a lot of discernment at the vocations study group meeting held monthly at the St. Monica Church pastoral center in Santa Monica.

Led by archdiocesan vocations director Father Jim Forsen and St. Monica parishioner Philip Tirone, the year-old group’s purpose is to help men decide for themselves if they have a vocation to the priesthood.

“This is not a priest recruiting group. This is: ‘We want to help you discern what God’s will is for your life.’ Big, big difference,” said Tirone, 35, a mortgage broker, happily married husband of two years and a new dad who, himself, once struggled to decide if he was called to be a priest.

After graduating from Arizona State University in 1994 with a degree in real estate, Tirone returned to his roots in Southern California where he had grown up in Victorville. Tirone had become a Catholic at age 17 following his divorced dad’s reconversion to the faith and his parents’ subsequent remarriage.

“It was super exciting. My family was back together,” said Tirone. The summer before going off to college, he started going to daily Mass and was active at Arizona State University’s Newman Club.

After relocating to Los Angeles in 1997 where he began to build his mortgage broker business, Tirone volunteered as an altar server for the 6:30 a.m. Mass at St. Monica’s, since the parish couldn’t recruit any young people to serve at that hour of the morning. “I loved being on the altar,” said Tirone, who also lectored at the Sunday 7:30 a.m. Mass and ended his morning’s ministry by taking Communion to the sick.

He entered into formal discernment for the priesthood in 2001, attending archdiocesan vocations retreats and “Come and See” weekends at St. John’s Seminary. “I discerned for a long time personally whether I should be a priest,” said Tirone.

When Father Ben Le, St. Monica associate pastor (now administrator at St. Martin of Tours), approached him in the spring of 2006 for ideas about forming a vocations discernment group, Tirone emphasized the need for a concrete plan for people to follow, since he personally had felt so “unsettled” while he was trying to figure out if he had a priestly vocation.

“We started interviewing priests and seminarians,” explained Tirone, “asking them, ‘What were the key aspects that you did during your pre-seminary days that either moved you closer to the seminary or took you away from it?’ And we basically came up with five phases in the vocational journey process: ‘Serving Others,’ ‘Vocation Thoughts,’ ‘Informal Inquiry,’ ‘Spiritual Formation’ and ‘Formal Discernment.’

“The vocational journey starts with a passion to serve. So, if somebody is open to whatever God wants in his life, [they’re welcome] to come to the group,” said Tirone, who added that people in Phase One usually never thought about the priesthood but typically enjoy serving others.

Group members must commit themselves to monthly First Friday meetings for at least a year and do the assigned reading/writing/viewing homework. Phase One also encourages participants to join a parish ministry if they haven’t already. Those advancing to Phase Two notice their passion for serving others is increasing and thoughts of a priestly vocation keep returning.

Phase Three, according to Tirone, is when participants start communicating that they “may” be interested in the priesthood. One member of the group got to Phase Three and realized that the priesthood wasn’t for him.

“For me, it was so exciting to hear that, because that’s never what I felt. It’s always easy to err on the choice of what everyone else is doing,” said Tirone.

“We want to create a group of people who will be pastors for the next generation, leaders in the Catholic Church. That’s why we’re committed to saying, ‘Hey, you need to follow these rules. If you don’t follow the rules, you’re not a good fit for the group.… We are getting tremendous results.”

The group initially began with a core group of three or four men.

“I’m convinced with what I’ve seen in the last year, if we can create a program that’s duplicatable [with monthly discernment meetings in each region] we can really turn the tables on what’s going on with vocations,” said Tirone.

Since 2003, an average of five men a year have been ordained priests for the archdiocese. Currently, five men in the St. Monica vocations group have indicated they intend to apply to either St. John’s Seminary or a religious order seminary.

Tirone, who has attended every meeting from the group’s inception, says the experience has been a blessing. “The healing process that I’ve gone through by working on this has been just unbelievable,” said Tirone. “Now I really see what I am supposed to do”: mentor men through the discernment process.

Father Forsen, as clergy moderator, says the group’s clearly defined discernment model “adds structure” to the priesthood inquiry process. “It helps [participants] see this is where you need to be and what you need to do,” said Father Forsen, who added he wished similar groups could be set up in each of the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions.

“This group is about a community of men who walk together one step at a time,” said Gregorio Hidalgo, 34, a sixth grade teacher who works in Compton. After reconnecting with his Catholic faith three years ago and trying to discern if he was being called to the priesthood, Hidalgo was directed by Father Forsen to the vocations study group.

“I met a group of guys who think and feel and fear as I do,” said Hidalgo, who plans to apply to St. John’s Seminary next year. “I learned to see my vocation as a gift that I [can] nurture one day at a time. It calmed me down. I love it.”

There’s more at the link, including information about contacting the group, if you are interested. You can also visit their website for more.

Photo: Philip Tirone, by Paula Doyle, The Tidings