Is God calling you to be a priest?

God's call comes to different people in different ways. If you are seriously asking yourself the question "Am I called to be a priest?" you need to find out the answer.

If God is calling, you need to be listening to him. And that means that the most important thing is to tackle your spiritual life earnestly and seriously. A good priest can help you with this but some of the basics are:

• Daily Mass whenever possible
• A period of mental prayer each day
• Regular Confession (at least once a month)
• Spiritual reading
• Determined effort to keep the commandments

As you grow in your spiritual life, it will be much easier to discern God's will. If he is calling you to serve him in the priesthood, that will become clearer to you.

Get in touch with the Southwark Vocations Team and you will be invited to various events for young men like yourself. There is no obligation - you will have an opportunity to meet various priests and seminarians and to find out more before you commit yourself to anything.

Also, get to know your own parish priest and try to help out in the parish where you can. If you don't serve Mass already, learn how to do so and perhaps see if you can help out with training the younger servers. Ask your parish priest if there is some opportunity to do some service in the parish such as visiting the elderly or sick in their homes or perhaps contacting a school to do some voluntary work there.

(Before doing any of this work, you should be asked to obtain a Criminal Records Bureau check. This is quite normal - anyone working with children or vulnerable adults nowadays goes through this process.)