Good fathers and mothers are indeed necessary in the world to raise children for the Lord, and the sacrament of Matrimony is a means of sanctification, but let us not forget that the consecrated life is the most perfect way. I remember reading the words of a Saint (it might have been St. Alphonsus), who said that the vacant thrones of the cherubim and seraphim who fell away (that means the places of the highest angelic choirs), will almost all be filled by consecrated souls who lived their lives worthy of their religious vows.

We must do whatever God wants us to do, but people often forget to mention the above. This is one of the reasons why I agree with Vladimir that a religious vocation should only be discussed with your spiritual director. I learned this the hard way.

Do not worry. Cultivate a deep interior life of prayer and put everything in God's hands. If you co-operate with His grace, He will lead you to where He wants you to be. And indeed, work to overcome your contempt for people. Even a christian solitary life is not anti-social, because you offer your hidden life as a sacrifice in union with that of Christ for the benefit of souls.

We all need to overcome those tendencies to extinguish charity towards our neighbour. We are all selfish, hedonistic sinners and we must mortify the works of the flesh with the Cross of Christ, so that the flames of divine charity may move freely in us, and so that we may love all without being loved, be merciful to all without receiving mercy from them. This is true christian freedom and liberty.

We are often so hypocritical. It gives us more reason to weep for our sins.

While I am no authority, this is my understanding:

Mortal sin, if committed, brings about spiritual death.  However, the soul can be revived.  Once the soul is revived, my understanding is that all of your merits are returned to your 'account', so to speak, although you seem to be asking about the work God has done upon you, not your merits.  Depending upon the intensity of your contrition, it is entirely possible that you could not only be restored where His previous work is concerned, you could, in fact, move to an even higher degree of charity, etc.

While there are solid principles involved, how they apply in each case will vary.

Tell God you are deeply sorry and confess your sins when you are able.  Trust in His love for you despite your weakness and/or infidelity.  If you knew what I was doing at your age (and well beyond), you would thank God for His loving solicitude in your regard.  Be truly sorry, but be at peace, too -- as much as that is possible.  Do not dwell upon what is past, whether good or bad.  Godspeed, my young friend.

The sin I committed was something that I confessed at the NO parish I would usually go to. I could not wait to have this sin confessed. After I had committed it, the dawning "what have I done?" realization came upon me, and I confessed it within 3 hours. I might make it sound like I'm being scrupulous but really it's not like that. I was just curious. I know how bad of an effect cutting off God's grace from your life can have, and I was and am sorry for that reason. I was bothered that I gave myself to sin and offended almighty God for a few seconds of pleasure. Ughh  

Even if it was an N.O. confessor I still trust that my confession was valid. The form and everything was correct and while the priest's advice was (unsurprisingly) lacking, I feel good to have God's grace with me again, even if I am being tempted to return to the sin quite mildly by the Devil shortly after confessing.

Daegus,

If you are not already doing so, pray 3 Hail Marys every morning and every night for purity and for the grace to know and fulfill your vocation.  Make the time also every day to pray 5 decades of the Rosary. Make this a life long habit and Our Blessed Mother will always take care of you.

As to discerning your vocation, I did a bit of googling and found 2 sites that may be helpful to you or other young men in the quest to seek to know God's Will in this matter:

http://stas.org/vocations/do-i-have-a-vocation.html

and
http://www.cmri.org/cmri-vocations.html

Best wishes to you and be assured of my prayers.
Ora pro me

Perhaps you have your reasons.

I do.  However, some people get uptight about these things, mentally working themselves over.  The bulk of my advice centered around developing a solid prayer life, etc.

I would prefer to praise a young man for giving his vocation serious thought at this age.

Please do.  I won't stop you, but I'd rather just encourage him, especially where the cultivation of an actual and solid interior life is concerned.  You cannot give what you do not have, priest or layman, and you cannot hear what God is saying to you if you do not set apart some quiet time to listen to Him.

FWIW, I agree with and appreciate the advice you gave to Daegus.  Now, he should talk to a solid, trustworthy priest about the matter.  Talking to a bunch of folks on the internet is not going to get the job done.

 

There's no need to chill.

There is no need to perpetuate a (possible) misreading of my meaning.

Traddies tend to act as if simply because some minor seminary exists somewhere it is remotely similar to those that existed before the council.  Not so.  Many are, IMO, not up to snuff.  Still, whether one enters such an institution or not, one will certainly need to cultivate an intense interior life in order to fulfill God's will.

IMO, far too many people act as if the various institutions of Traddieland are, necessarily, fundamentally sound in the way such places were in the old days.  However, it is no longer 1958 -- sorry to be the bearer of bad news.  IMO, many of them are decidedly sub-standard and it is wise to proceed with caution, all the while taking the necessary measures to grow in the knowledge and love of God.

Quote from: SpiritusSanctus

There's no need to chill.

There is no need to perpetuate a (possible) misreading of my meaning.

Traddies tend to act as if simply because some minor seminary exists somewhere it is remotely similar to those that existed before the council.  Not so.  Many are, IMO, not up to snuff.  Still, whether one enters such an institution or not, one will certainly need to cultivate an intense interior life in order to fulfill God's will.

IMO, far too many people act as if the various institutions of Traddieland are, necessarily, fundamentally sound in the way such places were in the old days.  However, it is no longer 1958 -- sorry to be the bearer of bad news.  IMO, many of them are decidedly sub-standard and it is wise to proceed with caution, all the while taking the necessary measures to grow in the knowledge and love of God.

GV,
On what information do you base these opinions of your regarding Minor Seminaries?  I do not even know how many minor seminaries there are in the Traditional Catholic world and so I did a very small google search and only came up with a CMRI Minor Seminary.  Do you know of any others?  Were you ever a member of a Minor Seminary?  I know that you have mentioned being in a seminary, but for the sake of this discussion I am particularly wondering about Minor Seminaries, meaning a seminary for High School boys.  

I consider a good Traditional Catholic minor seminary to be a wise choice for a teenage boy who is considering the priestly vocation and an applicant's parents would be wise to accompany their son to such a seminary to see for themselves what it is like.  If their son then enters a minor seminary the parents should continue to closely monitor his education.  Naturally this would not be easy, but can be done. If it is a good seminary it will foster vocations, particularly by fostering a spiritual life as you discuss.  Your discussion on this topic of fostering a spiritual life is certainly good advice but a young man needs a good spiritual advisor to truly build a good spiritual foundation.  If this particular young man is attending a NO parish, I don't expect him to find such a spiritual advisor there.
 
To further clarify, I would never ever advise a young man to go to a V2 seminary due to the infiltration of perverts, Communists and Freemasons and so I am particularly talking about Traditional Catholic seminaries, but I am not so naive as to believe that the devil will leave the Traditional Catholic seminaries alone.  On the contrary, he will send more of his agents of evil to tempt these good men and thus comes the need for us to pray for our bishops, priests, clergy and seminarians!  Thus also comes the need for parents to continue to monitor their sons in any seminary as closely as possible.

ora pro me

Quote from: SpiritusSanctus

Hopefully Daegus has a good, Traditional priest to talk to on the matter.

I agree, however, with ora pro me that Daegus is right to be thinking about his vocation at such a young age. There's no need to chill. I think about my vocation nearly every day, if not every day. There's nothing wrong with that regardless of your age.

I thought of asking Daegus if he has a good Traditional Catholic priest for a confessor and spiritual advisor but he mentions attending a NO parish and confessing to a NO priest and so I refrained from asking him this question, but perhaps Daegus has since found Traditional Catholicism so on 2nd thought I'll ask:

Daegus,
Do you currently attend a NO parish?  

For a long time I was, but obviously I have been very far removed from the NO Catholic mentality. The parish that I go to is much better than most NO's, where you're unsure of the validity of the Mass because of clowns or whatever crap they come up with today. (Believe me, I've been to "Masses" where there were people in costumes dancing around. I was actually so confused, and was wondering if that was a part of the Mass. *sigh*) This parish is the oldest one in the city, and seldom (when I say seldom, I mean I've never seen them do it) do they ever host ridiculous Masses, so I suppose that's a plus. At my N.O. parish, they have altar rails and even encourage people to receive on the tongue! (Wow, right?!). However, that's still not enough and I'm still sure that the TLM would be better, especially from what I've seen.

Anyways, I've had a very high interest in traditional Catholicism, and I associate myself with such beliefs. The only reason why it's taken me so long to switch over to a traditional Latin Mass is because for the longest time, I wasn't even aware that my city had any (and fear of the unknown)! Also, soon after I found out, I was a little afraid to go because it's in a part of town that I've never been to before. I checked the place out about a week ago (I think) and now know where the place is for sure, but the last time I checked I was late for Mass, so I didn't bother going (it was on a Thursday morning and the bus schedule is quite slow.. I don't have a car). I also saw a bunch of people walking in with suits and everything, dressed all nicely. I know this isn't too too much of a big thing, but I don't really have many nice clothes. I would say that my clothes are decent for Mass, but I really don't have any suits that fit (I am 6ft and 1/4 tall and weigh like 230. I'm a big person..), and I don't want to look weird among people who are dressed like slobs or like they just got out of a brothel.

But anyways.. As of Sunday, I will be avoiding the N.O. parish and going to the TLM hosted by the FSSP. This is the moment that I've much anticipated for a long time and I won't let a little crisis of clothing stop me. I've never actually been to a TLM before.. So I don't quite know what to expect. I think I'll sit at the back and get a feel for what everyone else is doing. Maybe I shouldn't receive communion til I understand what's going on. I don't really know any Latin besides a couple of phrases, and I'm not even sure of how I should confess there (and they have confession there every day from what I understand). Anyways, wish me the best!