{"id":4556,"date":"2022-01-31T23:11:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T23:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=4556"},"modified":"2022-02-28T23:48:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T23:48:56","slug":"for-the-sake-of-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/31\/for-the-sake-of-others\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Sake of Others"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

For the Sake of Others<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Although we may not know the path for ourselves, the desire to know it is itself worthy.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

By Nathan Beacom<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Fr. John Acrea has been a priest for sixty years. Many of those years have been spent with young people, and today he works at the same high school where he began teaching and counseling students in 1962 (he shakes his head ruefully whenever that decade comes up, but he\u2019s loved each chapter). His has been a long faithfulness, faithfulness to a call that came to him, not in thunder or lightning or through mystical experience, but through what seems to have been a quiet, practical process. It was a call that was drawing him to serve the needs of people he had never met and could not imagine, one that would place him at the right place and right time in ways he could never have designed.<\/p>

John Acrea was born in Missouri Valley, Iowa, a small town, as you might imagine, near the Missouri River. It is nestled in the Loess Hills that run the length of the western side of the state. These formations are the result of prehistoric winds that collected Loess from miles around and piled them up into the beautiful hills we see today. Contrary to the vision of flatness that typifies outsider stereotypes of the state, Missouri Valley is nestled in a lovely, wooded hill country. John grew up on a farm outside of town, but his parents, he says, were \u201cpretty faithful . . . they were pretty much into it, you know. Had us say our prayers every night.\u201d They always drove into town for mass and a weekly religious education class, and that was just a part of life.<\/p>

The idea of priesthood first occurred to him in junior high, just as a thought, but then, \u201cwell . . . I hit puberty I guess would be the way to say it, and then you gotta rethink priesthood. I basically just forgot about it until senior year of high school.\u201d He got to know a young guy in the town who had entered the seminary, and his example made the path seem like a real, viable option. Like many young people who take the idea of vocation seriously, he struggled to know which direction was right: priesthood or family life?<\/p>

\u201cDon\u2019t try superstition,\u201d Father Acrea advises those discerning their path in life. \u201cMost of us try that first,\u201d he laughs, \u201cbut it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d And he should know, having observed these many decades of young people looking for their own paths. Throughout his priestly service at the high school, he would continue his education in graduate programs over the summer, gaining competency in counseling and further educational credentials. Across his career, he has also been a pastor, a director of vocations for the Diocese of Des Moines, and spiritual director at the seminary of Saint John Vianney in St. Paul, Minnesota.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

I didn\u2019t know why I was called when I was called. After being a priest for twenty years, or thirty, or sixty, what you find out is that God was thinking ahead of you, and the people I was called for, I didn\u2019t know yet.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The young John Acrea, faced with a fork in the vocational road at the end of high school, decided to place his own future in the hands of fate. He applied to two colleges, Loras College, a Catholic school in Iowa, and the University of Northern Iowa. He decided he would go with whichever school offered him the best scholarship. \u201cI thought, you know, well this\u2019ll be simple. If I get a scholarship to Loras, that means I\u2019m supposed to be a priest and if I get a scholarship to UNI, then I\u2019m not.\u201d\u00a0 Well, wouldn\u2019t you know it, the two letters came back with exactly equivalent scholarships, \u201cto the penny.\u201d<\/p>

He ended up just going to Loras in case seminary was right, though he didn\u2019t enter right away. His description of his discernment process is \u201cwell, I just decided to go for it, and . . . well I liked it, and I stayed that year and the next year and the next year and . . . became a priest. That\u2019s the story. It\u2019s a lot more anguishing than it sounds like, though, because when you drop a letter in the mailbox to sign up for the priesthood, it\u2019s kind of scary, you know. I remember that ten minutes fairly clearly. Going up the steps to the post office. I didn\u2019t really have a lot of difficulty staying in seminary once I began, though, I liked the studies, teaching, and visiting the hospitals.\u201d<\/p>

I asked him a bit further about his process of discerning his vocation. How does it work, and how did it work for him? \u201cWell, like I said, you try superstition first, or a lot of people do, and then you find out, well, that doesn\u2019t work. Then you just begin to think about a lot of things. I didn\u2019t know why I was called when I was called. After being a priest for twenty years, or thirty, or sixty, what you find out is that God was thinking ahead of you, and the people I was called for, I didn\u2019t know yet. But then when I think back, I think gee whiz, maybe out of God\u2019s knowledge he said \u2018I\u2019m gonna need you.\u2019 You get high flying ideas about your vocation when you\u2019re trying to figure it out, but you really won\u2019t know until later, when you look back. And that works very strangely sometimes.\u201d For Father Acrea, the past six decades have found him, not by his will, pushed into the right place and time to be of service, like those instances where he has bumped into a random stranger happening to look for reconciliation or been a place of wise counsel and understanding for a struggling young person.<\/p>

\u201cYou know you have lots to think about, when you think about vocation. What is it gonna be like, am I going to like it? The thing to do is just say \u2018well, I\u2019m gonna try it and just get it out of my system.\u2019 So, one way or another. I won\u2019t have to be worrying about whether I answered my call or not. I\u2019ve talked to a number of people, adults in middle age, who feel they missed their vocations. Not that they aren\u2019t happy, but they feel they\u2019ve missed their call.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

This, it strikes me, is a cornerstone of vocational discernment, the chief thing is to give a damn.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

I asked Father what he had learned from working with young people across six decades. How had they changed? Did they approach vocations differently now than in decades past? \u201cI did have a few years where I was at parishes, but then I went back to the high school. The sixties were over, and it was wonderful. eighty to eighty-nine were good years.\u201d In the nineties he served as vocation director for the diocese and then worked at the seminary in Minnesota until he got old enough that he feared somebody would have to go collect his stuff from up there if he died. He moved back to Iowa to retire, but finds himself busier now than when he was working. \u201cI go to the high school, help out parishes, say mass as Simpson college . . . and when you\u2019re older,\u201d he laughs \u201cyou spend about half the day at the doctor\u2019s every day.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cToday the kids are asking a lot of questions, and that\u2019s good. And more of them go to mass now. You used to only get seven, now you get a 150 sometimes.\u201d I asked him if counseling students was different now than in years past: \u201cNo, I think the problems are basically the same. I think there\u2019s a certain openness to talking about things that there wasn\u2019t in the old days. The other thing that\u2019s new is social media is driving kids crazy. It screws up their minds. They think they don\u2019t have what it takes. They\u2019re not happy, they\u2019re not beautiful, they don\u2019t have this, they don\u2019t have that.\u201d I asked whether that makes it harder for kids to listen to what they\u2019re being called to, or does it make them more hungry for a more meaningful life? \u201cI think that\u2019s right. A more meaningful way of life. Because it\u2019s pretty empty otherwise. And then you try to fill it with social media, which is made <\/em>to be addictive. It used to be noisy after class in the hallway. Now they exit the classroom and they just quietly look down at their phones.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThe thing is, with the priesthood, if you get to love people, and they love you back, then that\u2019s all you need in life. It\u2019s as simple as that. I remember thanking God after I once spent a night with an old woman dying in the hospital, with all her family telling her how much they loved her and how good she was to them. And I was driving home the next morning and the sun was coming up and I thought: It\u2019s good to be a priest, you know.\u201d<\/p>

Before speaking with Father Acrea, I asked a few young priests in the diocese how he had impacted their lives. The first of them, Father Max, spoke about Acrea\u2019s fatherly nature, about how he always took the route of gentleness and mercy as a counselor and spiritual advisor. That example, Max said, communicated to him the mercy and gentleness of Jesus, and inspired his own desire to spread mercy and forgiveness as a priest. The second priest, Father Reed, described Father Acrea\u2019s reaction when he was just starting to consider the idea of priesthood. Acrea responded with a typically frank simplicity \u201cthank God you actually give a damn.\u201d This, it strikes me, is a cornerstone of vocational discernment, the chief thing is to give a damn. Desiring to do what one is called to do might be called the beginning of grace. Although we may not know the path for ourselves, the desire to know it is itself worthy, and we may be confident that the good work begun in us will be brought to completion.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Nathan Beacom<\/strong> is a writer and the director of the Lyceum Movement in Des Moines, Iowa.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although we may not know the path for ourselves, the desire to know it is itself worthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":4557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,10,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-essays","category-issue-15","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/anna-hecker-7BKG2g4pM7M-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4893,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions\/4893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}