In October of 2013, the seminarians from the diocese spoke at different parishes on their own vocation story. Below is Carlo Santa Teresa’s story as given at one of our parishes:
My name is Carlo Santa Teresa and I am a parishioner at St. Peter’s in Merchantville in my first year of formation at the College Seminary of the Immaculate Conception at St. Andrew’s Hall at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a runner. My endurance is not the best and the only shape I’m in is round. And yet, for almost five years after I graduated high school I ran like no other runner has before. I was running from something that I felt I wanted to do, something that I felt I was supposed to be, and from someone I knew wanted to give me a special task.
I think the first time I felt a vocation to the priesthood was when I was four years old. I remember being in the pew and seeing Msgr. Jim Tracy at the altar and thinking there was something different about him. It wasn’t his vestments or that he got up and spoke week after week. There was something more than that, something I wanted to know more about. As I got older, I learned more about the sacred priesthood, and I came to know and love it more each passing year. And so my senior year of high school I decided to apply for the seminary. And then I decided not to go. I wanted to take time to see what else was out in the world and to see if I was meant to do something else. And so I lived my life doing what I wanted to do, meeting new people, seeing new places, living my life on my own terms. And yet, when it came to my spiritual life, I was being more of a churchman than a disciple. You see a churchman, as my spiritual director told me, is one who spent his time talking about God while a disciple was one who spent his time talking to God and doing the things of God. And every time I would help out at my parish, helping with the Knights of Columbus, or even at some random event, I would always hear those six words I did not want to hear, “You would make a great priest!” There was even a woman in Nutley, in North Jersey, when I was visiting a seminarian a few years ago who said to me, “you have a priestly feeling about you.”
That made me feel so much better.
And then last year, something happened to me that made think about who was really in charge of my life. I was crossing a street in New York City when a taxi cab ran a red light and hit me, fracturing my left tibia and fibula. During the weekend spent in the hospital, I spent time talking to God wondering “why me?” and “why did I get away with only a broken leg when it could have been much worse?” And then, I felt God speak to me not on my terms, but on His. He spoke to me, not through my ears, or even my mind, but through the very depths of my heart. And He had nothing new to say, it was the same call that He gave to His Apostles and the many men He has called through the centuries, “Follow Me.”
It’s amazing how much better you can hear God when you can’t run spiritually or physically.
And so after I recovered, I met with Fr. Mike Romano, and began the process once again to enter the seminary. I went through the meetings, met with the people on the vocations board, and found that even during that busy time God was with me every step of the way encouraging me to continue despite the many questions and concerns that I still had, drawing me closer to Him and being more receptive and grateful to His invitation to follow Him more closely each day.
I have been in the seminary now for almost three months and I can honestly say it has been a great blessing. Knowing that you are doing God wants you to do, to be where He wants you to be, and to be with other men discerning God’s call for them, building strong, lifelong friendships, and even more than that, forming a strong bond with your brother seminarians and seeing how God is working in them. On a personal note, I feel the greatest blessing is knowing that you live in the same house with Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, being able to pray or just spend time with Him, knowing that He is available to me at any time of the day. To have Him present in the house you live in, as Zacchaeus had in today’s Gospel. What greater blessing can there be than that?
Through these experiences and these blessings, I owe a great deal of gratitude to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, for your constant prayers and support. Your prayers do indeed work. Think of the number of seminarians and priests that have come from your parish alone in just the past few years. Please continue to pray for me and the other seminarians of our diocese, as well as the 30 other men in formation at my seminary. And please pray for more men to answer God’s call to serve Him as a priest. And to any men here that feel the call to serve God as a priest, be generous and say “YES!” Take my word for it, you will feel God’s grace working in a special way each day. It really is more joy than you think you could ever have and more blessings than you think you can ever receive.
Thank you for the good work that you do to encourage vocations. Continue to strive with your prayers for more men to be generous in saying “yes”, for God is never outdone in generosity!
Father Carlo Santa Teresa
Latest posts by Father Carlo Santa Teresa (see all)
- I BECAME YOUR FATHER IN CHRIST JESUS - November 10, 2020
- Defending Life, Proclaiming Hope - January 22, 2020
- That We May Imitate What They Contain - October 15, 2019
