The following account was written by Paul Solomon, a senior studying at the St. John Vianney College Seminary.

Many of us are familiar with the famous “Quo Vadis?” account from the Acts of Peter. St. Peter is fleeing the city of Rome to avoid persecution and death, and as he is departing along the Via Appia he encounters Christ. Peter questions Him, “Where are you going?” Christ responds, “I am heading to Rome to be crucified once again.” Ultimately, St. Peter rethinks his decision and returns to Rome, becoming a martyr for the faith.

 One average weekday morning when I was 12 years old, I was altar serving during Holy Mass at my home parish in Illinois. I had just returned to my seat after receiving the Eucharist when all of a sudden I heard a voice from within quietly say, “Come, follow me.” I was unsure at the time what these words meant, but I prayed about them and thought to myself, “Maybe God is calling me to become a priest?”

 The next year I visited Mundelein Seminary near Chicago. I was quite nervous what this visit might entail, but I discovered a normal group of very zealous and holy men, and I desired to be like them. I was certain that life as a priest was what God was calling me to and I assured myself, and everyone I knew, of this for the remainder of my grade school days.

 However, going from a smaller Catholic grade school to a large public high school was a very difficult transition for me. During this period, I began to spend most of my time and energy playing sports. Thus, my priestly vocation, along with my faith life, took a back seat.

 For the following two and a half years, until my junior year, I went along partaking in the secular high school lifestyle. I realized that although so much was going well (athletics, friends, girls, popularity, etc.), there was nevertheless a void in my life. The reality of St. Augustine’s famous saying, “O Lord our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee,” sunk in and one day I had a revelation that the Lord was what was missing in my life.

 At the end of my junior year I began to go to Eucharistic Adoration once a week and returned to the Sacramental life of the Church. I found myself spending a lot of time in the Adoration chapel.  It even got to the point where I would leave from parties and time with my girlfriend to sit in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It was during this time that Christ reintroduced thoughts of the priesthood to me. I knew that I needed to give God a chance, so I applied and was accepted to St. Thomas for the fall of 2007 to live and discern at St. John Vianney Seminary.

 Upon my arrival to Minnesota the summer after my senior year, I was completely overwhelmed by all that had just taken place (moving 400 miles up to St. Paul, leaving behind loved ones, etc.). During my first week of seminary, I was expressing my feelings to the Lord in the chapel and paused for a moment to listen, when I heard His words once again, “Come, follow me” and a spirit of peace and joy flooded me and I knew that God had led me to the right place.

These past four years have been the best of my life. I have received countless blessings and had so many incredible experience and opportunities. One of the greatest blessings during my time here at UST was the opportunity to study abroad in Rome with the Catholic Studies program in the Spring of 2010. The blessings received during the semester and the semester, as a whole, is somewhat ineffable. Some of the major highlights of the semester included prayer, study, and fellowship. It was an opportunity unlike any other, to come to the heart of the Church–a heart that is so closely linked to the heart of Christ. St. John Vianney once said that, “Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” It was during this time in Rome that Christ invited me into His own heart and into the heart His Church and confirmed me in my vocation to the priesthood.

 However, the Lord’s generosity did not end with that semester. Once I returned to the U.S., I began to think about major seminary plans and surprisingly my Bishop was appointed to a different Archdiocese. A short time after the appointment, I received a phone call from my vocation director informing me that the Bishop’s intention was for me to return to the Eternal City for graduate studies at the Pontifical North American College. In July, I will be moving to Rome and beginning Italian studies before school officially begins in October of 2011.

 When I began seminary four years ago, I wasn’t actually “where I was going,” but the Lord and His Church have been generous and now call me back to Rome. I pray that like St. Peter, I might return to Rome and pour myself out whole-heartedly for the Church, so that I can fulfill the mission that Christ has called me to, a mission that He has stated so explicitly: “Come, follow me.”