At my New York high school in the 1970s, Brother Andrew would tell a joke to incoming freshmen: “I used to know a little Greek  . . .  but he died.” As street-smart teens, we rolled our eyes, but he knew better than we did. At class reunions, even 50 years on, we all remember Brother Andrew and his corny joke.

In minor seminary some 20 years after high school, I did come to know a little Greek, the koine kind of the New Testament. Every time I opened the book, I thought of Brother Andrew, long since passed to his reward. In his honor, I came up with a little pun of my own and asked the class: “Why did the evangelists write in Greek?  . . . They wanted to koine phrase. Get it: ‘coin-a’ phrase?” Not missing a beat, our ancient, legally blind Jesuit professor said, in dismissive tones, “We think Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic and was translated into Greek.” My classmates thought that putdown was even more hilarious.

Yes, you had to be there.

My time in minor seminary was a pivotal period of my life. I had entered in response to an appeal from Cardinal John O’Connor, who wrote in his Catholic New York column that he was looking for young men who loved the Church and the Eucharist, and were willing to forego marriage and family life to serve the people of God in a lifetime commitment. He seemed to describe me perfectly, then 30 years old and searching for some heroic quest. Two years in minor seminary and a year in the majors (St. Joseph’s, Dunwoodie) gave me the formation and allowed me to embark on a deep level of discernment that revealed I was not called to the priesthood. By God’s grace and guidance, however, I returned to the journalism career I had given up, this time as a reporter for the very newspaper where I first heard the call to seminary, Catholic New York, which was then a weekly and, sadly, is no longer published. I later met my wife at a First Friday all-night vigil where I had gone previously to discern priesthood.

God is good and faithful, I learned, if you step out into the deep. But like St. Peter in the storm, we need to trust that it is truly the Lord who calls.

A few years later, covering an event at Dunwoodie, I sat with my then-fiancée when my former spiritual director came by to bless our engagement. “I can say with certitude without violating the secrecy of the internal forum,” the priest said, with a smile, “that he is a much better man now than he was when he entered seminary.”

I agreed. Indeed, seminary formation seems to me, to this day, the perfect preparation for marriage. I learned to pray – really pray, not just ask for things, but to offer myself to God, however weakly and conditionally. I was given the great gift of time for reflection which I chose, with God’s grace, not to waste. At 30-something, I had gone through all the angst and doubt of my 20s, and was determined, on best divine advice, to “ask … seek … knock,” taking Jesus at his word. Mind you, my life did not get easier, and I endured even more suffering than before, but it was pain with purpose and life with meaning. A true mission.

In the end, God opened a door which the Holy Spirit dragged me through, like a wrestler subduing an opponent in a spiritual headlock. And, yes, there were wonderful times of joy and fellowship in seminary, and the funniest jokes and pranks that still make me laugh out loud. Plus, I have a number of best friends who are priests for some 30 years. We have accompanied each other along the journey of life, with its ups and downs.

There is a growing movement among Catholic men to marry young, or at least extol the virtues of young marriage. I am all for it. Get off the internet and ask her out, by all means, and work out your young lives together. I know couples who have done this with good marriages and many children. Yet I hesitate to demand this of my two 20-something sons. God has a plan for each and every soul, and certainly I am not one to insist on the college senior “ring in spring,” having married at age 40.

I happen to believe in that old Catholic viewpoint of the higher calling to priesthood and religious life, based on St. Paul’s assertion that everyone would serve God better as a celibate preacher of the Gospel (1 Cor 7:7). “Don’t be afraid to leave everything behind and go to seminary,” I tell my sons and their single friends. “You will learn and grow and suffer enough to discover what God has in store for you.”

Who knows? You may just end up happily married like I am for the past 28 years – and “know a little Greek” to boot.