As a young man, Brian McAllister considered several career
paths for himself, including serving in the military, selling
real estate and working as a defense contractor. One path he
never anticipated was becoming a priest.
“I’m the last person I would have thought should be a
priest,” said McAllister, who is now in his fourth year of
study at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. “But
I’m happy and I feel it’s some sort of fortuitous gift from
God.”
McAllister, who is only 33, grew up Lutheran. For him, the
journey to seminary was a long and messy road.
Originally from Virginia, McAllister lived in Richmond until
his senior year of high school when his family relocated to
Indiana. After high school, McAllister attended Centre
College in Danville, Ky., majoring in English literature.
After college, McAllister attended the U.S. Army Airborne
School in Fort Benning, Ga., before being commissioned into
the Army as a second lieutenant. He then attended the U.S.
Army Advanced Airborne School in Fort Bragg, N.C., while
assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. While in the Army, he
was deployed twice – first to Afghanistan and then to Iraq.
Over the years, McAllister kept finding himself drawn to the
Catholic Church. When he was in high school, he watched his
mother become Catholic.
“When she converted, through her conversations and her
example, she really showed me there was a profound change in
her, a general movement toward something greater, and I saw
that in her,” he said.
Other relatives also joined the Church, including
McAllister’s brother and aunt. Impressed by the changes he
saw in them, McAllister began exploring the Church for
himself by attending Mass and reading about the Faith. Still
undecided, he would switch back and forth between Mass and
Protestant services.
While serving in Afghanistan, McAllister was introduced to a
Catholic chaplain. The chaplain, a green beret, instantly won
McAllister’s respect. Yet, after completing his service to
the Army, McAllister was still unsure of his faith.
“I really had to do some hard searching and I just tell
people that I lived selfishly for a while. I lived for me and
that didn’t bring me any of the happiness I thought it would.
I felt very entitled, but that didn’t make me happy,”
McAllister said. “And then I entered a place where I opened
my heart up to God.”
Although he still had doubts, McAllister knew it was time to
let go of his reluctance and join the Church.
“I thought, I’m gonna be like an airborne op,” he said. “I’m
just gonna jump and hope my parachute opens.”
For the third time in his life, he began the Rite of
Christian Initiation of Adults classes, where he found the
sense of meaning he had been looking for since college.
Looking back, he says becoming Catholic was like falling in
love.
“It was just as much romantic as spiritual and it was a long
and haphazard route,” he said. “God is an artist and an
artist can be messy because He’s working with messy
subjects.”
While he was still a catechumen, McAllister was able to
receive the sacrament of penance for the first time. He took
the opportunity very seriously, and, after an extensive
examination of conscience, McAllister filled six pages of a
college-ruled notebook with things to confess. The priest
listened with a smile on his face. As McAllister finished
reciting his long list, the priest asked if he had ever
considered becoming a priest. The surprising response ended
up being the seed that would grow into McAllister’s decision
to enter the seminary.
“Ever since then, I just couldn’t shake the idea,” he said.
Immediately after entering the Church, McAllister began
discerning the priesthood with a spiritual director. After
two years of being Catholic, with the support and
encouragement of his family and friends, he entered the
seminary when he was 28. There, he has continued to discern
his call to the priesthood.
“Some people think by going to the seminary that it
automatically locks them into the priesthood, but really it’s
a place of ongoing discernment, a greater frequency of
sacraments and exposure to the Church’s teachings,”
McAllister said.
So far in seminary, he’s learned to know and love God more
and appreciate the Church more deeply, spiritual gifts he
says that are “priceless, but not flashy.” He also has been
challenged.
“Faith is a theological virtue, but it’s like a muscle that
can be deepened and strengthened over time,” he said.
For other young men discerning a possible vocation to the
priesthood, McAllister insists the most important thing is to
pray and frequent the sacraments.
“I would just say that you have to pray, and if you don’t
know how to pray, you have to learn and God will teach you if
you ask Him,” he said. “You need to frequent the sacraments
as much as possible, particularly the Eucharist and the
sacrament of penance. If you do that, you’re clearing the way
for God to speak to you.”
And lastly, if one feels called to the priesthood, he must
act.
“God cannot work with a parked car,” McAllister said. “You
have to start talking to your pastor and your vocations
director and not be afraid of them because the last thing
they want is to send someone to seminary who doesn’t want to
go.”
Today, McAllister can look back and see how entering the
seminary was not his own idea at all, but rather something
God was calling him to do.
“I really thought that only saintly people got called,”
McAllister said. “It’s just such a great gift to be able to
say this was something I really felt that God called me to
do. I didn’t come up with this on my own.”
