Posted on 12/27/2015 5:06:14 PM PST by Diago
Young Sean Kilcawley faces a choice — the Army and the girlfriend or the priesthood?
By COLLEEN KENNEY | Lincoln Journal Star
Little boys think magical thoughts, especially when they’re Irish.
Years ago, a little Irish boy in Michigan named Sean Kilcawley thought the only way to meet his mom was to become a priest, because all priests go to heaven.
His mom lived in heaven.
She died when he was 2.
He felt God wanted him to be a priest. What else would have brought his dad to Michigan all the way from Ireland to meet his mom just in time for him to be born?
She died of cervical cancer.
Irish people are superstitious. They look for signs.
This was a sign.
I will be a priest, he promised. I will meet my mother.
He promised this to God and his mother when he was 7 or 8.
In high school, at a retreat, he felt this calling again. Only this time, it was more than magical thinking, it pulled him spiritually.
His dad came from Ireland’s west coast, a small town called Enniscrone with a beach that drew people from the area.
The Kilcawleys of Enniscrone ran the post office, which also was the place to buy eggs and milk, kind of like the town’s general store. The family lived on one side of the building, like a duplex.
His dad got married because there was a child. They divorced. He came to America to start over and got a factory job and met Sean’s mom.
His dad rarely talked about her after she died. Sean liked to hold her photo. Some people said he looked like her. She had dark hair, too.
No one pressured him to be a priest. Go to college first, every priest told him.
He got accepted to Notre Dame but had no money. So he entered West Point. It was free, but he felt like a fish out of water because he had no desire to be career Army.
He studied Arabic language and Mideast policy. He had two years before he had to commit to the military.
But a strange thing happened. He grew to love it.
Was God calling him to be a military officer?
He graduated from West Point with honors and joined the Army for five years. He became a battalion leader, rising in the ranks, doing a captain’s job while still a lieutenant. He stopped going to Mass.
He started feeling unsettled: If God was calling him to be a priest, why didn’t those doors open for him?
In the military, he reasoned, he could still lay down his life for friends, still serve the public good. But he wouldn’t have to stay celibate.
There was a woman in his life at this point. She managed a bar. She was fun-loving. One day she asked him: Will you move in with me?
He said he’d think about it.
On a long drive, he started to pray.
What do you want me to do?
Sean Kilcawley pauses at this part of the story — a story his flock at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Trendwood Drive have heard him tell.
“I could hear him telling me, ‘I want you to be a priest, stupid.’â€
His Irish eyes smile at this.
He’s seated at his desk. There’s a photo of the pope, a photo of his mother.
On that long road trip, he said, he asked his mother for help. Back home that night, he found a statue of the Blessed Virgin, Jesus’s mother. He asked her for help. That was a Sunday.
Three days later, a military chaplain walked through the office. Sean asked: Do you know any way I could get out of the military early to be a priest?
The paperwork appeared on his desk a few days later. #video-ad-asset-container, #video-ad-asset-container-played { max-height: 0px; overflow: hidden; -webkit-transition: max-height 1s; -moz-transition: max-height 1s; transition: max-height 1s;} #video-ad-asset-container.expand { max-height: 800px; }
Now I’m going to have to do it, he thought. Two weeks later, he met a priest who told him about a good seminary near Lincoln, Nebraska.
Lincoln, Nebraska?
He wanted a sign. Before visiting the seminary, he prayed another superstitious Irish prayer:
“I prayed, ‘At least let me meet some Irish people when I get there.’â€
It was Christmastime. At a party in Lincoln, he heard a booming laugh coming from the basement. He heard a familiar Irish brogue, so much like his own father’s.
Sean, someone said, meet Father Liam Barr.
When the Irish priest heard Sean’s last name, he told him he knew of some Kilcawleys back in Ireland, in a little town on the west coast called Enniscrone. They lived just a few miles up the road from where he grew up, the Irish priest told him.
And they ran the post office.
Sean entered the seminary in 1999. He was ordained last May. Father Liam Barr is now Father Sean Kilcawley’s pastor at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
“I think every single person has a calling, a vocation. But the main vocation everybody has is to love as Christ loves … and if we don’t follow that calling to love, we’re miserable.â€
He’s 31 now. He knows he chose the right road. He knows he still could have made it to heaven as a military man. He knows not all priests get to heaven.
But heaven’s still his goal, just as it was when he was a little boy.
Once in a dream, he thinks, God showed him his mother.
“I was in my room at West Point, and someone came and knocked on my door, said he needed to take me someplace. I went out and walked down the hall. He took me to another room, opened the door. My mother was sitting at a desk.
“I walked over to her and felt all this anxiety. I had all these questions I’ve always wanted to ask her. I sat down.
“She grabbed my hands and said, ‘Sean, don’t say anything. I just want to look at you.’â€
Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.
Thanks for the message.
Great story! Thanks!
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