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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK192 Jack FritscherIn the faraway movie down in the sanctuary, the sixteen new priests in their new robes moved about con-celebrating the mass with the bishop. A thrill passed through my soul, but I would not be seduced by spiritual emotion any more than by physical pleasure. I was not stupid. I wanted every kind of purity possible: physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. I was a syllogism.I possessed my vocation with a surety transcending emotion.The only good Rector Karg had done was warn me off emotion.The Jesuit O%u2019Malley himself had said that my emotion had too much driven the intellectual and moral responsibility I had taken toward my studies, until I could work so intensely no longer.Only by abandoning all feeling had I been able to defeat Rector Karg.I vowed to express my vocation only through clean, clear, intellect.This was the safe path to the distance of holiness.I vowed to be analytical, chaste, and obedient.No one could assail such Jesuitical heroism.A priest could not leave himself open to any emotional compromise.Circumstances of feeling cannot be logically explicated upon questioning.The rationale of intellect can always be examined, clearly, objectively, without suspicion.Rector Karg had taught me that. I learned it from him.I learned about the triumph of reason.My vocation was no longer based on a swell of boyish feeling.God had used Rector Karg to redefine my vocation with reason.I could think.Therefore, I existed, cool, distant, high above them, and I hated Karg.%u201cNever become cynical,%u201d Father Gunn had warned us. %u201cGod knows there%u2019s nothing worse than a cynical priest except an ironic priest. Irony versus sanctity. Like chastity, the choice is not a choice.%u201dI watched my classmates and the younger and older seminarians all swept up in Misery%u2019s chapel and choir loft into the hot May emotion. Ordinations came every year and each class of boys took one giant step toward the altar. I had written a progressive article about %u201cThe Objectives of the Second Vatican Council%u201d for The Misericordia Review, and gotten in trouble. The other seminarians spoke in slogans.They said, %u201cThe priesthood is a sacramental change of your soul.%u201d They said, %u201cOrdination is a metaphysical change of your person.%u201d They said, %u201cWe%u2019ve got to pray for our vocations to feel the totality of grace.%u201d They said, %u201cYou lose yourself to become an alter Christus, another Christ.%u201d