A friend’s invitation leads one young man to change his life and discern his vocation

Mercedarian postulant, Scott McLeod tells his journey from living in the world for himself to striving for holiness as a seminarian:

I was raised in a suburb north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My family was only modestly Catholic, so when I got to college the practice of the Faith was not something immediately pressing on my conscience. This changed sophomore year, when a friend challenged me on my living the faith and started what would turn into a conversion.

While this wasn’t something that took place all at once or without a significant fight, it was a deep change in both lifestyle and outlook.  Now, I struggled not to live my own life, but to live the life of Christ in me. This is a challenge, of course, but with the eyes of Faith, it is the only rewarding way for a Christian to live. I started serving Masses and volunteering with the Pittsburgh Oratory and the Pitt Campus Ministry around this time.

By serving Masses, I grew closer to the liturgy and the worship of the Church and fed an already growing desire to for more complete consecration to God and a life focused and centered around the Sacraments and the example of the Saints.  By the end of college, I had also begun to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, which became an important part of my dailyprayer life and also my discernment.

I visited several mendicant orders, even volunteering with onefor a summer, but eventually found that the combination of community life, Marian devotion, liturgical life, and (most importantly) redeeming charism of the Mercedarians attracted me in a unique way. If Christ came among usin order to redeem us, what greater imitation of Christ can a religious offer than the imitation of His redeeming mission?