Catholic journalists know that discernment stories are popular because they give readers hope. And they often follow a pattern: They usually include a “God moment” in which the subject, through a dramatic circumstance, hears the word of God and finds with sparkling clarity the call to become a cleric or religious. They end with ordination or follow final vows.
Jacob Hubbard’s discernment story isn’t like that.
Hubbard had multiple “God moments,” and he entered seminary because of them. But in seminary Hubbard realized that ordination wasn’t his calling. In November 2018, he discerned out of seminary.
“By our baptism, we’re all called to be priests, prophets, and kings,” Hubbard told CNA. “So although I won’t be an ordained priest, I’ll be living out my calling by being the priest of my family- the bridge between them and God, offering them Christ as much as I possibly can and relying on His Strength to do so.”
It could be easy to see Hubbard’s discernment out of seminary as a failure. In fact, many seminarians who discern out of seminary face a kind of stigma from their friends and family, and even from themselves.
But that stigma is based on a misunderstanding of seminary’s purpose, Hubbard told CNA.
As Hubbard said, “The stigma today is that when people see seminarians, they don’t see them as discerning individuals, they see them as mini-priests.”
Seminary is a “house of discernment,” he said, “not a house of mini-priests,” adding that if a man leaves seminary, it’s often a positive sign of his ongoing vocational discernment.
Fr. Phillip Brown, President-Rector of St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, agreed.
“As a seminary faculty and as a rector, when a seminarian discerns out, and we’re satisfied that it was an authentic, good, discernment, we don’t consider that a failure. We consider that a success,” Brown explained.
“What I say to the seminarians is that in the end, the objective here is not to become a priest, but to be what God has made you to be,” Fr. Brown said.
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