Adam Carrico’s Vocation Story

This article is Part 2 in our series on Christian vocation.

Greetings Everyone,
To begin our website article series on vocations I want to tell you more about what has led me to enter the seminary and prepare to live a life in fulfillment of what I have discerned to be my celibate vocation and calling to the diocesan priesthood.

My vocation discernment began back in early grade school at Saint Aloysius. At this time I was drawn to how central the priest was in so many people’s lives and how he was able to make use of that role to bring people closer to God. I also had early experiences with several priests with vastly different personalities which enabled me to begin to see God’s ability to take a wide range of different people, with various talents, and make them all effective ministers in God’s Church.

Later on in life I would reflect back and realize the joy all of these different individuals received in their ministry. I must say that priesthood at such an early age just seemed ‘neat’ and was something that I seemed naturally drawn to consider, especially at the school Masses we had on Wednesdays, when the priests had more of an opportunity to connect with the students.

The idea of priesthood, what I would later recognize as a calling to the priesthood and the celibate life, never left me while I was in high school and early on in college. This calling, while always present, nevertheless began to be buried under all the responsibilities of school and family as well as all the other distractions that occur in a young person’s life. There were times during this period in which I would convince myself that I would become a priest or religious and then a week later I would turn around and decide that it was not for me. This back and forth became routine for me and I even began to joke that I would end up being a monk. More recently I have begun to tell people that joking about entering into a vocation is a good indicator that they may be called to do just that. While my discernment may have only reached a point in which joking was the highest public proclamation of my inner thoughts, I firmly believe that God was already preparing me for this life in ways that I have just begun to understand.

A large part of how I have seen God’s work in my life occurred at a nursing home called Friendship Manor, and it was there that I first went to work halfway through high school and at the age of sixteen. Little did I know when I first began working there that I would leave eight years later a largely different person. It was at Friendship Manor that I began to realize that I was called to something more than the average life, instead I felt drawn to a life of service to God and God’s people. My first two years there I worked in the dietary department with the next six years spent working in maintenance and grounds work. While I did not work as directly with the residents as a nurse or nurse’s aid I still felt that everything I did was for the benefit of other people be it the residents, family members, or my coworkers who often struggled with the difficulty of working at such a facility. I would often forget which weeks we got paid, not because I did not need the money, having to help pay for Saint Xavier ensured that I did in fact need the money. In this way working there for me was more about helping people, belonging to something greater than myself, and striving to do better for those we served. Working at Friendship Manor also provided opportunities for me to grow in my faith through some anti-Catholic sentiments and literature that I discovered during my time there which prompted me to explain my faith in a way that awakened my desire to live it more fully.

Half way through college my desire to answer the call to priesthood or religious life was brought much closer to the surface with the belief that I was called to be a part of something bigger and thus devote my life to something for which it would be worth giving up everything. It was in this reenergized vigor in which I realized that my struggle with whether or not to enter into religious life was ok for a person my age. I did not need to have everything planned out and I was going to college, found some meaning in my work, and most importantly I had time to figure it all out. At this time I was around the age of 21 and I figured that if I had not yet devoted myself to something else by the time I was 25 I would have to give the calling to priesthood or religious life a chance to really grow instead of keeping it buried. I should say at this time of my life I was interested in a religious order: either a monastic community focused on work and prayer or a teaching order like the Jesuits, after all I had grown up with many examples of the good work the Jesuits have done including through the lives of Saints Aloysius, Xavier, and Ignatius. The first two are patrons of my grade school and high school and I choose Saint Ignatius as my patron Saint for confirmation. The question of diocesan versus religious order however was something I was prepared to spend the next several years figuring out. Nevertheless I was also prepared to see if I was called to another path because I did not intend to let those years until I was 25 slip by in waiting for a religious vocation to be the only path available.

As I finished up my college career I began to see that it would be unlikely that my history degree would open up the kind of life I was searching for. During my time at UofL I believed that teaching would probably be where I would end up, and while I thought I would make a good teacher and I enjoyed the idea of teaching, that path was missing something. With my love of history, but complete uncertainty with whether or not teaching was it for me, I graduated from UofL. Several months afterwards I left Friendship Manor realizing my future was not there either and beginning to feel it become a weight holding me back. I spent several months looking for a new job and found one working for a copier company called OfficeWare. It was after finding this job that my financial concerns were reduced and I was able to focus more on where my life was heading. The issue with a religious vocation to that point had centered largely on the issue of having children, I believed that I would be a good father and truly wanted to raise children. I began to see that I would have nephews and nieces from by brothers and sister and I would also have many opportunities to feel the joy of parenthood in a different way as a priest.

This sense of being ok with not having children of my own opened up a series of revelations about myself and my calling to the priesthood that came in quick succession two years ago. One of these revelations was that I was called to the diocesan priesthood and not a religious order based on my sense of loyalty to the people in this area and the fact that priests are needed to fill positions in local parishes. I also began to realize that the sacrifices that I would have to make as a celibate person were not as difficult as the grace and happiness I would receive in return; and I also prayed about the fact that I was just one person giving up one aspect of his life for the benefit of many. This spurred me on to remember the oath I made several years prior and realizing that I was approaching the age of 24 I decided that the time I would have to spend in seminary should not have to wait for me to live another year of unhappiness and unfulfillment. Basically I had not found my path; my path had found me after all of those years since sitting in that pew in grade school thinking it would be ‘neat’ to be a priest.

What finally sealed my decision to start the process towards priesthood was a trip I took by myself to Saint Meinrad. I was interested in this place that I had heard a little about and I wanted to see if I could imagine myself there, to get a sense if I belonged there. I remember walking along the main walk in front of the school, it was a warm day and there was a slight breeze blowing, I just stood there, closed my eyes and felt a sense of peace in just being there. I figured that if I could feel that peace in a visit what kind of peace awaited me if I was to enter the seminary there. The next week I contacted the vocation office for the Archdiocese and began the process towards entering seminary and I have not looked back since. I truly am happy with where I am. I feel equally challenged by the task ahead and at peace with the assurance that God will help me through. I would like to reference the introduction to this series on vocations where I said that God’s call can be found in the silence. For me especially I had to let go of all my thoughts, anxieties, and preconceptions to allow God’s peace access to my core and open me up to the strength necessary to commit myself to answering the call.