On Patrol: A Night At St. Peter's

I first discovered St. Peter’s Church on Capitol Hill one evening in an MPD cruiser while on patrol with the police radio rattling into my ear. I pulled over and parked in front of the Church and walked in. I turned the radio volume down low, yet its pitch still seemed to softly disturb the silence that permeated the peaceful atmosphere. Seeing the flickering candle beside the tabernacle signing to the presence of Our Lord, brought me a sense of refreshment. St. Peter’s became a place of recourse throughout my job as a cop. A few years after leaving the police department, I parked my civilian car at my old police station a few blocks away and scuffed the sidewalk up towards St. Peter’s for the Archdiocese of Washington’s Young Adult Mass and Discernment Dinner. 

Seated sporadically in the front pews were a handful of other men. I took my seat and joined the group. As Mass was celebrated and the evening continued, I reflected upon how this church serviced me in the past and now the present; here I was again in such a different circumstance. I thought of the times and places I had been, and pondered how Jesus was present with me throughout it all. I continued a plea that was on my heart, “What do You want from me, Lord? Help me to want what You want.” 

What I remember to be a freeing experience while at the dinner was realizing that I was not the only man with this plea upon his heart. Listening to the vocation stories of the priest and seminarian, acknowledging the openness of the other discerners to the Will of God in their lives, provided a sense of support. I could see the visible response to the invisible promptings of God within the hearts of these men. I was shown that this desire of wanting to know how to make a gift of oneself––particularly the desire to make a gift of oneself as a priest––was shared by others. 

A year later, my adventure with the Lord brought me back to participate in the dinner at St. Peter’s as a seminarian. The most astonishing thing to me this time was not only a joyfulness that filled the rectory as it had done the year before, but was that discerning men filled it too. The room was packed! So many men surrounded me who were trying to decipher the promptings of the Holy Spirit in their hearts to discover their unique gift of self. 

I was funneled to the back of the room for a seat before the talk began. As stories were told, my eyes were continuously drawn to a painting of Jesus across from me. His eyes seemed to mirror his heart. Their pale red and hazel color appeared to be aflame and glistened as they gazed across the filled room. I felt a burning in my heart and could imagine well what the painting invoked: Our Lord’s eyes filled with a passion and excitement, a love and desire, a calling to adventure for each of His children, for each of those men, for me.