Bro. John Shearer, OSJ

Hello, my name is John Shearer, and I am a seminarian in formation with the California Province of the Oblates of St. Joseph.  First of all, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read about my journey so far towards becoming an Oblate of St. Joseph and eventually a priest.  At first glance, my experiences of discernment seem very simple and really not all that interesting, but when look back using my renewed “eyes of faith,” I have come to realize that all throughout my personal journey, God has always been at my side.

When I think back on my childhood I guess that I can honestly say that God had planted in me a desire to serve Him from an early age.  This doesn’t mean that I always followed this desire, but I’ll get to that in a bit.  My parents are both converts to the Catholic Church, and they experienced their conversion shortly before I was born.  So as you can imagine, I was raised in a very Catholic Home where the sacraments were given priority and honor.  This strong conviction and faith that was a part of my childhood was the primary foundation, apart from God’s grace and mercy of course, that enabled me to make such a radical vocational decision. 

When I was in high school, my parents decided that it would be better for our family if my father were to accept a different job that was approximately 5 hours away from where we lived in Southern California.  Moving is hard on a high-school student, and moving from a city to the country just makes the transition even harder.  After I started at my new high school, I started to make friends with kids who were also experiencing troubles in their lives.  The only bad thing about these relationships was that instead of trying to help each other in healthy ways, we just decided to numb our woundedness by using alcohol and drugs.  This started me down a path that was very dangerous and that also lead me away from our Lord.  I never quit believing in God or in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but I quit going to church because I knew that my behaviors were wrong.  About four years after I graduated from high school, I finally reached a point in my life where I hit rock bottom and I had to make a decision to either change my life and return to God or continue down the other road and end up in prison, or even worse, DEAD!!!  I begged God for the grace and courage to change, and he gave it to me.  

I have to admit that after I returned to the Church, I was very content with the life that I was living because I was going to college and helping a lot in my home parish.  One day my mother asked me if I would like to attend a vocation retreat, and I was like, “Are you crazy??? Me a priest??  HA!!”  That was the last time I’ll ever call her crazy.  I went on the retreat, and when it came time to go home, I didn’t want to leave.  I loved being at the seminary and being with my brother Oblates.  I loved how I saw them striving for that Ordinary Holiness that our Founder, St. Joseph Marello told us about.  I finally was able to understand that to become holy is to learn how to do what God wants us to do.  St. Joseph teaches us that when God asks something of us, we have to do the best we can without complaining.  

Before entering the  seminary, I told God that I wanted to be able to turn my previous sinful life into a witness of how change and conversion are possible by His grace and mercy.  I wasn’t sure how this desire was going to be put into action when I first started, but God heard my prayer, and I have been able to share with many people how Jesus has taken this poor sinner and called him to be His priest.  Please take the time to ask God what he wants you to do with your life, and when you find out, follow it.  God made you for a reason and in order to experience true happiness, we need to follow His Will and trust in His loving and divine providence.  May God bless you!