To my dearest friends,
A couple of you know already, but for those of you who don't know I have been ACCEPTED to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. The Institute is a Society of Apostolic Life which specializes in the Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form (i.e. Tradtional Latin Mass) and living the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. I am very happy to have come to this point in my life and can say with a certainty that God has indeed called me to enter the Candidacy phase of formation for the Institute. God willing in the year 2017 I and 10 of my brothers will be ordained a Priest. But that is yet 8 years away.
The primary reason for my departure is to go to a place where I can discern the will of God. What will happen during my year of Candidacy? In one year I will become more fluent in French and Latin and will study liturgy and will learn how to Altar serve a Traditional Latin Mass. I will also be residing at St. Francis de Sales Oratory in St. Louis, MO and have included my address at the bottom of the note.
This milestone of grace comes at a time when I am still discerning if God wants me to be a religious or married. Both vocations are holy and worthy of discernment, and now I get to discern deeper than before the religious life and if God wants me to be there.
To all of my friends I want to say thank you for your prayers. You don't know how much they mean to me. Please keep praying for me I will need those prayers over the course of the next year. Also, know my friends that I will be praying for your intentions this next year and that I love all of you more than you'll ever know.
Truth to be told I never thought I'd ever be writing this note since I began discerning the Institute some 4 months ago. And as some can attest... I kind of fought the idea at first. But in the end when I met with a Priest within the community and spent a weekend visiting them... I LOVED IT! I decided to go through with the application process and I am eternally grateful for it.
