Kristina Valente, Author at Brooklyn Priests

22 Jul Discerning with a Screen

Posted at 17:30h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

You can’t discern totally online — you need to talk to a person! The Internet has made it really easy to find all kinds of information about discerning a vocation, and that’s great! Information about religious orders, seminaries, and discernment in general, is available with just...

12 Jun What St. Joseph Can Teach Us About Discernment

Posted at 16:07h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

We know almost nothing about St. Joseph. Scripture tells us relatively little, and pious tradition should be taken with a grain of salt. But what we do know about his life can be a great help and consolation to one who is in the turmoil of...

22 May Wait & See

Posted at 16:49h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

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12 Apr Discernment & Desire

Posted at 17:37h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

When Pope Francis was a young seminarian in his twenties, he had to think about celibacy very carefully. A few years ago, when he was a cardinal, he recalled in an interview: "I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle's wedding...

22 Mar Priestly Courage

Posted at 18:25h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

The extreme heroism of a few priests is well known. You've heard stories of priests who were martyred, or sacrificed their own lives for others, or endured great hardships for the sake of the Gospel. Imagine a man who comes home to see his house on...

27 Feb How to Pray

Posted at 15:50h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

In a previous E-Newsletter, we talked about what prayer is (and is not). This article focuses more specifically on how to pray. To begin, here are some important points to consider: Rely on God. We can’t develop a relationship with God by ourselves. We must rely on...

22 Jan Climbing the Mountain

Posted at 17:03h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

Becoming a mountain-climber is not a one-time event. You don’t just “go climb a mountain” without ever having done it before. It takes knowledge, hours of practice, patience and perseverance. It’s hard work! But what compels a man to climb a mountain? If he’s never been...

15 Dec St. John Vianney

Posted at 17:45h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

Can you imagine the Church today without the influence of one of the greatest priest-saints of the 19th century, St. John Vianney? It easily could have happened. The world could have been completely unaware of the existence of the man named Jean Marie Vianney, if he...

22 Nov Fear of Commitment

Posted at 16:28h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

We live in an age when life moves fast, information comes nonstop, and sometimes it may seem the best way to deal with millions of options is not to lock into any of them. That’s the consensus of a number of studies on fear of commitment,...

31 Oct Saints Not Superheroes

Posted at 17:11h in Vocation Director's Corner by Kristina Valente

Many saints struggled with temptations; some even led very sinful lives prior to their conversions. As St. Paul said, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom 7:15). What does this tell us about holiness? We become holy...