I grew up in a Catholic family that for the most part went to Mass every Sunday. I attended the parochial school at the parish my family went to for grades one to eight. Through the school, I made my first confession when I was in the second grade and received my First Holy Communion in the third grade. Also through the parish school, I began serving at Mass in the fourth grade. During this time I never considered a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. I remember that in the first few years of grade school I felt a sense of awe when I stepped inside a church. At some point during grade school, that feeling of awe and that the church building was somehow different went away. As time went on, I went to Mass on Sundays and received Communion largely because that is what my family did on Sundays and I went along.

After I graduated from the eighth grade, I attended a private, all male, Catholic high school in the area that was an excellent college preparatory school. During this time I prepared for and received the Sacrament of Confirmation at my family's parish. I was mildly interested in receiving the Sacrament but to some extent, I received it because it was the next step in the life of a Catholic.

My spiritual life as I graduated high school and prepared to go off to college can be summarized by the word "mechanical". I prayed before meals with my family because that is what we did. I went to Church on Sunday because that is what my family did. I prayed before bed because that is what my mother taught me. None of that would last very long after I went to college and was on my own.

After high school, I attended the University of California, San Diego and worked towards a B.S. in electrical engineering. I attend Sunday on my own for about half of my first quarter as a freshmen and then stopped. When I was home for Christmas, Spring break, and summer, I went to Mass along with my family but did not receive Communion. Towards the end of my sophomore year, my roommate (I lived on campus), knowing I was Catholic, began to ask why Catholics did certain things.

My roommate was nominally Protestant. What he knew of the Catholic faith he had learned from televangelists so he "knew" Catholics worshiped Mary and the saints and did not read the bible. I had no idea how to answer his questions or statements regarding Catholic beliefs. I was for the large part ignorant of what Catholics believed and why we did things the way we did them, even after twelve years in Catholic schools. When praying the rosary for example, I did not know one was supposed to mediate on each of mysteries while reciting the prayers. My sixth grade class prayed the rosary once a week after our class' Mass during the week but I was never taught this. I didn't remember anything from two years worth of confirmation classes except that we had nachos after one class and pizza after another. The person in charge of the first year of confirmation was happy if we showed up for class. What I do remember learning is of questionable value. In a class on the Gospel of John I took as a junior or senior in high school, the teacher told us that this is the first Gospel scholars realized was not written by who it had been attributed to and that it contains anti-Semitic elements that are the result of the author's ignorance of Judaism. My college roommate repeated what he had learned about Catholic beliefs and I was clueless and unable to respond.

I was motivated by my roommate's questions to learn what Catholics believed. I may not have learned much during my years in Catholic school but one assertion in particular made by my roommate drew my attention. It was the statement that Catholics worship statues. I definitely could not explain why that was false but I knew it to be false. I had stood in front of statues and prayed. I had seen other people stand in front of statues praying. I had seen people reverence statues. I never ever thought the statue was being worshiped. I knew and I think the other people knew the statue was not an object to be worshiped and that worship was only given to God. I found on-line resources like Catholic Answers, EWTN, and catholic.org. Based on what I learned on-line I purchased some books. I began going to Mass at the Newman center that was at UCSD on my own. Something was different about Mass now. The priest was the same as before, but now his homilies were somehow better. I began to realize that while it was possible that Father's homilies had gotten better over the past year and half to two years, the problem was really with me: I simply had not been listening before. I slowly became more involved with the Church through retreats and small Bible study groups. For Lent when I was a junior in college, I purchased Christian Prayer and began praying Morning and Evening Prayer in addition to trying to go to Mass during the week at a local parish. Throughout out my senior year in college, I continued to go to Sunday Mass on my own. I also tried to learn as much as I could about the Catholic faith. I tried to keep going to Mass during the week and praying Morning and Evening Prayer so that those were not just things I did for Lent. I would bring Christian Prayer with me to campus and pray on campus.

During this time when my faith was renewed and I took an active part in fostering my faith and prayer life (around 2002 and 2003), the though of being a priest occurred to me. At times I could see myself as a priest offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But when I though about it, it seemed like an idea that was not possible and that God would not pick me. I have a speech fluency disorder called stuttering (or stammering). At times, it seemed to me to be severe. As a result, I really did not like public speaking. I pushed off the idea of being a priest as being an impossible dream or fantasy.

As graduation from UCSD in June of 2003 drew closer and the job hunt did not yield much, I applied to three or four graduate electrical engineering programs. I was only accepted at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. After I had decided to work for a Master's degree, I got two very positive responses from companies I had sent my resume to but I had already decided to go to SCU so I politely declined. In late August or early September, I moved into a room I had rented near the University. I continued attending Sunday Mass, trying to pray Morning and Evening Prayer regularly, and trying to attend Mass during the week if possible. I also tried to set aside one hour a night to meditate on a Bible passage. During this time, the idea of being a priest would recur at various points. I even looked at websites for some religious orders but still considered becoming a priest impossible.

In the first few months of 2004 I discovered Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara, CA. This parish is how I came to know the Institute of the Incarnate Word. I found Our Lady of Peace when looking on the diocese's website to see when the Sacrament of Confession was provided at the parishes near me. Most parishes schedule half an hour to an hour on Saturday afternoons. Our Lady of Peace not only listed a few hours on Saturday but also daily before each Mass of which there were three each day during the week! Shortly after this I began attending Our Lady of Peace for Sunday Mass. Around Summer 2005, a young adult group was started at Our Lady of Peace. I went to the first few meetings and wound up on the core team responsible for planning and leading the group's activities. As part of this group, I grew stronger in my faith and became more active in fostering its growth along with the other members of the young adult group. At this time when the thought of being a priest occurred to me, I didn't take it seriously. I took it as a nice thought and nothing more.

One evening after weekday Mass early in Lent of 2006, a lady came over to me and asked me if I had a vocation to the priesthood. I responded, “I don't know.” I was taken aback by the question and confused. The lady replied, “You do.” She asked me my name, so I told her. She told me her name (I wish I could remember it) and said she would pray for me. Also at church that night was one of the other leaders of the young adult group (Jonathan) who would enter the Institute a few weeks before I did.

After this brief conversation, I took the idea of being a priest seriously and was nervous that God was calling me. I continued going to Mass on Sundays and weekdays when possible, praying Morning and Evening Prayer, and trying to do an hour of personal meditation a night. I began to recognize that God was calling me, but I was comfortable with my life. I had my friends from the young adult group. I had by this time graduated from SCU with an M.S. in Electrical Engineering. I had a job as a software engineer at a Silicon Valley startup which was paying a 26 year-old with his first full-time job $70k a year. I had just bought myself a new 2006 Acura TL in February of 2006. Life was going very well for me by the middle of 2006 but I could not deny the fact that I had a desire to be a priest.

In the summer of 2006, I learned that one of the other leaders of the young adult group was going to join the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara, which is the female branch of the Institute of the Incarnate Word. I sort of knew she had been heading in that direction but her decision to enter now surprised me. Shortly before she left California to enter the SSVM novitiate, I learned that another friend from the young adult group was also going to enter the SSVM.

As the time for these two friends to enter the Servants drew near, I had a conversation with one of them which broke down a barrier that was hindering me from accepting and acting on my vocation. My friend knew that I was discerning and asked what was holding me back. I told her about my speech fluency disorder. She responded very simply, “That's not a very good reason.” I had no response to that. The stuttering was a weakness I saw within myself but God chooses the weak things of the world so that His glory may shine forth more brightly.

In early September 2006 I was already scheduled to begin a three day version of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola offered through Our Lady of Peace. During one of the meditations in the Exercises, I received the grace to resolve to follow God's most holy will for me. I still had not decided to enter the IVE or any seminary at that point. I though that I would do so the following year. Since it was already September, I thought it would not be practical to do so that year. In my mind, this would give me time to wrap up my finances. I had just signed an apartment lease with a friend that would not expire until June of the next year. I still had education and car loans to pay off. Time to wrap up my finances was what I thought I needed.

A few weeks later, another friend from the young adult group at Our Lady of Peace would decide to enter religious life. Jonathan's decision to enter the IVE novitiate in October 2006 led to me considering entering the Institute of the Incarnate Word, which something I had never really done. I had been looking at groups with an attachment to the Roman Missal of 1962 that were in communion with the Pope. But after Jonathan and the other two left, I began to feel that it was not safe to wait one year. Rather than eliminating the worldly considerations that I planned to put in order over the next year, there was the real possibility that I might get more entangled with them and end up doing nothing about my vocation. I also had the example of three close friends not to delay but to respond to God's call.

I began to look seriously at why I had decided it was best to wait until next year. My two main reasons to wait were: to take care of my finances and determine where I would enter. After looking closely at my financial situation, the only real issue I found would be to sell my car for enough money to cover what I still owed on the car loan. I thought this was feasible and it did end up working out. I also evaluated why I wanted to join an institute or society attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Sacraments since I had only been to three or four Mass according to the Missal of 1962. I had seen numerous beautiful pictures of high Masses according to the old form on-line and wanted that sort of solemn worship of God. But I did not have an attachment to that form of the liturgy. My sole reason for wanting to enter an institute or society which used the Missal of 1962 was to have a reverent liturgy.

The Novus Ordro Mass could be celebrated reverently and I had had that at Our Lady of Peace, so I couldn't fault the current Missal for the liturgical problems I had seen or heard about on-line. My two main reasons to wait until the next year turned out not to be good reasons.

After speaking with a priest I decided to enter the IVE. The next day I told my direct supervisor at work that October 27th would be my last day. About an hour later an e-mail came into my inbox from someone in the marketing department. It was to the company CEO and VP of Engineering laying out the results of a meeting that had occurred earlier in the day that was unrelated to my leaving. Towards the end of the e-mail it contained the line, “Richard has just given his two-week notice.” As soon as I read that, I thought to myself, “What did I just do?” I realized that I had just quit my job and completely altered my life. I continued to pray Morning and Evening Prayer, do an hour of mediation, attend daily Mass when possible and then placed all my trust in God.

By God's grace, I am now at the beginning of my third year of philosophy and will be renewing my temporary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience soon. I thank God for His countless blessings and patience with my stubbornness and desire to fulfill my will. I thank God in particular for leading me to discover His call.