In the world of professional sports there is always excitement in a city that accepts a team that they can support and encourage to do well, and hopefully, win a championship in that sport.  The excitement of winning a championship after much effort and perhaps years of waiting, will usually be over-the-top for some true fans of that team.  There was, no doubt, much excitement last Sunday at the 10:00 a.m. Mass when Jonathan Semmler made a commitment to be a seminarian for the Diocese of Little Rock with Behop Taylor presiding at Mass and Monsignor Friend being present to affirm the diocese's decision to accept Jonathan as a seminarian.  I wish every parishioner could have been present to witness this happening and the joy that was felt by Jonathan, his family, and his parish family.  Of course, unlike a professional football team's fan base that never knows when or if they will ever experience the joy of their team winning a championship, our parishioners can anticipate that, in about seven or eight years, we will experience tremendous excitement and joy when Jonathan is ordained a preist.  I honestly should have used the words "can anticipate" when it comes to Jonathan's ordination.  We cannot say for certain that he will be ordained a priest in the future.  The years ahead will be a time of formation, ministry, and discernment for Jonathan, and I'm sure most, if not all of us, hope and pray that it will reach the point where he and the bishop decide he is ready for his ordination to the priesthood.  In the future, he will continue to need,  and I'm confident will receive, the support and enouragement of our parishioners and others.  If, however, he and/or the dioese decides at some point that preisthood is not God's calling for his future life, I (and hope many of you who know Jonathan) am confident that he will be open to God using him in a way or ways that will be a blessing to the Church and to others.  I say this, not to throw cold water on anyone's enthusiasm about Jonathan being the first "native born" parishioner of Sacred Heart to be a seminarian (and maybe one day a priest), but rather to be realistic that just as a city getting a professional team to back, does not know with any certainty that they will, at some point, win a championship; so the journey to priesthood that many start (especially those who are young like Jonathan) does not always end in ordination to the pristhood.  I have been surprised over the years at how many men I have met who once were seminarians, and did not finish and become priest, but rather became successful in their careers, good husbands and fathers AND active members of their Catholic faith and the church communities in which they lived.  I thank our parsihioners who, in any way, have affected some or all of our young people who have grown up or are growing up in this parish in the ways of Christ, especially His love, charity and mercy.  We have much to thank God for in this and in other areas as well.