Do you ever wonder about marriage and children?
I do, Yes. Initially when I joined that Oblates, I knew I would be sacrificing that area. There's that first sense of being and falling in love and doing what you feel is right as a young person. You are willing to sacrifice anything and everything to get there and to do what's right. There's a romanticism in it, and I never thought about marriage until my first niece was born and I was very jealous of my brother. In matter of fact, I was trying to tell him "have you got this sorted out, have you got that sorted out, and this sorted out?" and that's when he said, “Did you become the father or did I become the father?” So I do think of marriage, we do fall in love. But it's just like anything else, once there's a commitment made to a particular life, and the priesthood is for life. There are priests who, because they made the commitment, cannot live on their own, who then have to make another commitment to say that they have to leave the priesthood and move on. The priesthood is for life and perseverance is called to live in that life, just like when you are married - you are commited for life in the Catholic Church. You might see many good things out there, but you have to make a re-commitment to what you have already made. I fell in love twice, really once, but you could say twice. It's a lonely life, it can be a lonely life and it is sometimes a lonely life because sometimes you just have to face going into your room and being on your own and not have someone else to share intimacy with, to share those things that are normal in human nature. It doesn't mean that you can't be intimate with someone. You know you can share with them your intimate thoughts, your hunger, your pain, and your desires. I can share that with some very good friends of mine, you don't share it with the world. But there might be one or two people, one of them I might fall in love with and I can share with that person, and know that it can never be taken any further and it is a sacrifice. I think we do make that sacrifice not for ourselves, but in a way we make it because God is important in our life. That's the only reason I make, no other reason and if once God stops becoming a reason for me, then every other thing then stops.
