Tom's Story

A year or two ago I would not have guessed I’d be headed to the seminary. I had a good paying job with a great company, a nice house but for me something seemed to be missing and I felt I wasn’t doing what I was meant to be doing in life. During this time I believe several things helped to lead me to this path to the seminary. I began listening more and more to EWTN’s Catholic radio station, I began going to adoration and confession, saying the rosary and participating in the St. Luke’s Young Adult group.  

For the first time I was around other young adults who were really interested in learning more about their faith and doing something about it.But what helped give me guidance and direction was going to a silent retreat hosted by the priests of the religious order Miles Christi who gave me spiritual direction and helped me to understand and discern what God’s plan was for me. I was blessed with the opportunity to spend a year with Miles Christi at their house of discernment and grow deeper in my faith. Father Matthew, Father Joe and the Sisters of Sacro Costato at St. Luke’s have also been great role models for me during all the time I have spent around the parish. It has always helped to have my loving and supportive parents and siblings always there for me as well.

I like this passage because it is very easy to get anxious in life but helps to remember we need to put all our trust in God not in man.

Scripture Passage Matthew 6:25-27

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

by Rev. Fr. Wilfrid Parsons

Recommended Books:  

Mexican Martyrdom by Rev. Fr. Wilfrid Parsons who recorded firsthand accounts of the religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico between 1926 thru 1935.

Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile by Joseph Pearce an autobiography on the literary great Alexander Solzhenitsyn who survived the communist forced labor camps of the USSR but through his suffering regained his faith and went on to write to defend the memories of the millions snuffed out by communism and warn the West of the dangers of its materialism and abandonment of its Christian religion.

Recommended Movies:

Padre Pio: Miracle Man; On the Waterfront; The Scarlet and the Black

Favorite Songs: Ave Marie; The King of Love My Shepherd Is