What’s it like during the first year of priesthood?

This week’s guest is Rev. Brendan Busse, S.J. Fr. Busse is associate pastor of Dolores Mission in Los Angeles and a contributing writer for America. We spoke to him about his most recent article, “The urgent, lonely, relevant, humbling, joyful, experience of being a newly ordained priest.” 

Fr. Busse, who wanted to be an architect when he was young, looks back at his discernment and said, “it was very clearly a call that came from outside of myself.” Part of his journey to the priesthood included accepting and valuing the qualities that other people saw in him and seeing this process as “being consecrated by the hands of people in my life over many years.”

His first year of priesthood has included many joyful moments, thus far, including simply walking into Mass and turning around on the altar “to look at the faces of people looking for God.” And, despite many years of formation and training, he speaks candidly about not always feeling fully prepared for sacramental ministry: “If we’re serious about how God’s grace works through those symbols and sacraments, how can we possibly be prepared for it?”