What If I’m Wrong and He’s Not Meant to Be a Priest?

You’ve noticed something special in this young man you know. Maybe it’s the way he serves at Mass as his hands move with such care. Maybe it’s how young people gather around him without anyone asking them to. Maybe it’s that light in his eyes when faith comes up in conversation, like he’s found something worth holding onto.

You think to yourself: He’d make a great priest someday.

But then you doubt yourself. What if you’re completely wrong about him? What if getting married and having a family is what God has planned for him instead? What if I make him think about something that was never right for him? What if my words stick with him and he can’t let them go?

So, you end up staying silent, never saying a word to him, and he never knows what you saw in him.

Other People Feel This Too

Our vocations directors and our priests in the Diocese of Camden hear these concerns from many of our parishioners. The questions may be phrased differently, but the hesitations all sound the same. “I wanted to say something, but…” and then the sentence moves into worry.

Here’s what years of helping young men discern their vocation have taught us: Your encouragement doesn’t need to perfect and full of certainty and wisdom. It just needs to be said. Through the Called By Name program on a national scale, we’ve watched what happens when someone finally speaks up. And we’ve seen, too, what happens when no one does.

What Does a Calling Look Like?

Let’s start with what you’re probably hoping to hear. No, there isn’t a checklist for what to look for in a young man who you think would make a great priest. You won’t look at a young man and suddenly know with absolute certainty what path God has for him.

Don’t worry because he won’t know either, not at first. Vocations don’t announce themselves like your alarm clock that wakes you up to start your day. They are discovered slowly through guidance, formation and community. It’s like looking back one day and realizing you’ve been heading somewhere all along. There’s no checklist to follow or specific signs to look for. The discernment happens over months and years, with conversations that matter.

A young man called to priesthood won’t be perfect. He’ll just be faithful, and that usually looks pretty normal. He serves people without being asked. He loves Christ, and you can see it in how he treats everyone around him. He cares about his community in a way that makes you stop and think, even just for a second, “I could see him as a priest.”

Pay attention when that thought comes to you. Your instincts about people matter because you’ve spent years paying attention and caring for others. You don’t need to doubt yourself into staying quiet.

What Happens When You Say Something

When you see the heart of a priest in a young man, you might be seeing a gift God is working on in his life right now. You’re seeing what could be possible, not what is definitely going to happen. But noticing something and deciding his future are two different things if that is what you’re worried about.

You’re not ordaining him a priest just by saying something to him. You’re not even asking him to go to seminary. You’re giving him encouragement that he might never hear from anyone else. Just knowing that someone in his community sees something good in him, something worth mentioning out loud? That could be what helps him hear his calling.

Your words only show him what you notice about him. That’s it. You’re giving him that picture of himself. Everything after that is up to him and God.

Think about other times you’ve noticed gifts in people. When you tell someone they have a great singing voice at church, you’re not telling them they have to become a professional singer. You’re just saying what you notice, what God put in them. Your encouragement gives them something to think about, but it doesn’t force them to do anything.

What’s Your Part?

Here’s what might help you let go of this fear of not saying anything to a young man. You don’t have to be sure if God is calling him to be helpful.

Is it your job to figure out God’s entire plan for his life? No. Is it your job to speak up so he hears one possibility? Yes. God takes care of everything else after that, all the work of calling him and helping him answer.

When people wait until they’re absolutely certain before speaking up, vocations go unheard. Young men go through life never knowing that anyone thought they could be a priest. They miss the chance to ask themselves the question that matters most: “Is this what I’m meant to do?”

Vocations are heard when communities encourage them. It affects the young man when the people he knows or serves find the courage to talk to him. It’s not always a big change. Sometimes it’s just something small that makes him start asking questions about where God is leading him.

That’s what encouragement does. It opens a door. What happens after he walks through it is between him and God.

If priesthood isn’t right for him, he’ll figure that out over time. And the whole process will still be good for him. But what if he really is called and nobody ever says anything? He might never find out what God wanted for his life. We should be more worried about that than about being wrong.

How You Can Help Him

Called By Name exists because we know how hard these conversations feel.

When you write down a young man’s name, nothing uncomfortable happens to him. No one is putting him on the spot and there will be no pressure at all on him. You’re just passing along what you noticed to priests who know how to handle it carefully and are trained to have these conversations about discernment.

Our priests from the vocations office will reach out in a way that feels natural and comfortable. We invite him to go at his own pace, whatever feels right for him. We don’t expect him to commit to anything at all. It’s just an invitation if he wants to figure out what God is saying to him.

Our priests help him through guidance, formation and community as he listens for what God is saying. If God is calling him to be a priest, we help him hear it. If God has a different plan for him, we help him figure that out too. Either way, he knows his community saw something good in him worth talking about.

You don’t need all the answers to his questions. You just need to be willing to write down his name.

What If No One Says Anything?

Imagine this happening years down the road. He’s older, looking back on his life, wondering things he’ll never know for sure. “Was I meant to be a priest? Did God try to call me and I just missed it?”

Now imagine he heard it because someone said something.

Vocations are heard when communities encourage them. Our silence, although we mean well, leaves them in silence too. But when we say something? We help them hear what God is saying.

Your encouragement can help a young man hear God’s call.

Are You Ready To Help Him?

You don’t need to know exactly how his future will turn out. You just need to care enough to say something. Write his name down through Called By Name and help a young man hear his calling.