Giving God the first option: you may have never thought of this before, but perhaps giving God the first option is the window in the cloudy sky that will enable you to see the rays of the Son shining on your life.
Herein lies our vocation to holiness: Jesus, the Son of God, has chosen each of us to be light in the darkness, hope in the midst of despair, love where indifference prevails, radiating His joy in a world grown dim by selfishness and sadness.
But within this universal call to holiness, God has a particular vocation for each one of us: be it marriage, an intentional single life, the priesthood, or the religious life. Giving God the first option in the priesthood or religious life is a response which can only make our particular calling clearer and more fruitful.
Perhaps you come to the seminary and discover that God is calling you to make a gift of yourself through marriage. Has your seminary formation thus been a waste? Not at all! If anything, your seminary formation will bear abundant fruit in your marriage because it is a formation grounded on a personal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Church.
God has given each of us a unique vocation which no one on earth can respond to in the way that you or I can. Why not begin our response to this gratuitous grace by giving God the first option? To serve Him is to reign!