Archive for February 2nd, 2008
My Life for Christ Br. Richard Sutter, L.C.
My Life for Christ
Brother Richard Sutter, LC
I first thought about the priesthood when I was 17 years old during a weekend visit with my cousin to a Trappist monastery in Conyers, Ga.
After a conversation with my father, I spoke with the vocation director of our archdiocese. He told me that I should go to college first.
In the fall of 1987, I began undergraduate studies at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., where Abbott Placid Solari, OSB, was my spiritual guide throughout college and in the years that followed prior to entering the Legionaries of Christ.
Along with graduating, I was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army on May 10, 1991.
Throughout my years of military service, I continued to ask the questions that lingered from my college years: Why do I believe what I believe? Do I truly act in accordance with these beliefs? What am I supposed to do with my life? Will the military be my career? Will I find a wife? Is God calling me to be his priest?
I even included looking into the priesthood as an option when getting out of the military. Yet during my high school, college, and military years one important thing was absent: a constant prayer life.
In March of 1997, I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army as a captain and began a career as an information technology project manager at the corporate headquarters of Quest Diagnostics in Teterboro, N.J., just outside of New York City. It was an excellent career opportunity with a promising future; after two years, I had received two promotions and three pay raises. But while my business opportunities increased, so did my life of prayer, along with a more frequent reception of the sacrament of reconciliation and Mass attendance during the week.
In January of 1999, I signed up for a Legion-sponsored “Test Your Call” retreat at the novitiate of the Legionaries of Christ in Connecticut on the weekend of Feb. 20. After a business trip to Pittsburgh that enabled me to visit my cousin at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio, I made the resolution to attend Mass, pray my Rosary, and pray morning and night prayers every day. This resolution, inspired by the Holy Spirit, helped prepare the fertile ground of my soul for the retreat.
On the first day of the retreat I knew decisively and definitively that God wanted me to test my call during the candidacy program that summer. The three months of candidacy and next two years of novitiate were the most spiritually enriching years of my life and, with the help of God’s grace, resulted in my total consecration to God when I professed my vows on Sept. 1, 2001.
I am currently studying philosophy at the Legion’s Center for High Studies in New York and never let a day go by without thanking God for this unmerited gift of my vocation.
“My Life for Christ!”
http://ncregister.com/info/vocation_guide_2006/
PLEASE Pray for our Seminarians,Deacons,Bishops, Priests and Cardinals. Pray for our Beloved Holy Father. For Holy Priests and Consecrated Religious Men and Women.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Come O Holy Spirit, Come
Come O Holy Spirit! Come by means of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary-Your well beloved spouse!
Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son- our Lord Jesus Christ- in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. For the sake of His Sorrowful Passion- have mercy on us and on the whole world.
I take thee for my all, O Mary! Give me your heart! O my Jesus, I am all Thine and all that I have is Thine through your Holy Mother Mary.
Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus- I love you. I trust in You. I believe all the truths which your Holy Catholic Church teaches because You have revealed them. You cannot deceive and will not ever be deceived.
My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people. A light to reveal you to the nations….
Mane Nobiscum Domine.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )My Life for Christ Br. Richard Sutter, L.C.
My Life for Christ
Brother Richard Sutter, LC
I first thought about the priesthood when I was 17 years old during a weekend visit with my cousin to a Trappist monastery in Conyers, Ga.
After a conversation with my father, I spoke with the vocation director of our archdiocese. He told me that I should go to college first.
In the fall of 1987, I began undergraduate studies at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., where Abbott Placid Solari, OSB, was my spiritual guide throughout college and in the years that followed prior to entering the Legionaries of Christ.
Along with graduating, I was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army on May 10, 1991.
Throughout my years of military service, I continued to ask the questions that lingered from my college years: Why do I believe what I believe? Do I truly act in accordance with these beliefs? What am I supposed to do with my life? Will the military be my career? Will I find a wife? Is God calling me to be his priest?
I even included looking into the priesthood as an option when getting out of the military. Yet during my high school, college, and military years one important thing was absent: a constant prayer life.
In March of 1997, I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army as a captain and began a career as an information technology project manager at the corporate headquarters of Quest Diagnostics in Teterboro, N.J., just outside of New York City. It was an excellent career opportunity with a promising future; after two years, I had received two promotions and three pay raises. But while my business opportunities increased, so did my life of prayer, along with a more frequent reception of the sacrament of reconciliation and Mass attendance during the week.
In January of 1999, I signed up for a Legion-sponsored “Test Your Call” retreat at the novitiate of the Legionaries of Christ in Connecticut on the weekend of Feb. 20. After a business trip to Pittsburgh that enabled me to visit my cousin at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio, I made the resolution to attend Mass, pray my Rosary, and pray morning and night prayers every day. This resolution, inspired by the Holy Spirit, helped prepare the fertile ground of my soul for the retreat.
On the first day of the retreat I knew decisively and definitively that God wanted me to test my call during the candidacy program that summer. The three months of candidacy and next two years of novitiate were the most spiritually enriching years of my life and, with the help of God’s grace, resulted in my total consecration to God when I professed my vows on Sept. 1, 2001.
I am currently studying philosophy at the Legion’s Center for High Studies in New York and never let a day go by without thanking God for this unmerited gift of my vocation.
“My Life for Christ!”
http://ncregister.com/info/vocation_guide_2006/
PLEASE Pray for our Seminarians,Deacons,Bishops, Priests and Cardinals. Pray for our Beloved Holy Father. For Holy Priests and Consecrated Religious Men and Women.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Immaculatae 