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It is my pleasure to be here and to speak to you, to tell you my vocation story.
I am a cradle priest, my recollection of my first expressed desire and intention to become a priest was in 3rd grade. I was 8 years old. I was fascinated by the Mass, which, being in a parochial school at that time, 1941, meant daily mass. I remember being encouraged by the nuns who taught me, especially my 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade teachers. And, of course by my mother and my aunts, of which there were nine: 3 of my father's sisters, and 9 of my mother's sisters, one of whom was a nun. Two cousins were nuns. There was a cousin who was a priest in the diocese of Pittsburgh, and two cousins my age who had also, by the time they were in 7 or 8th grades, stated an interest in priesthood. And eventually were ordained.
I had never seriously wanted to be anything else. I did not go thru the policeman, fireman stage. The only pother profession that had some attraction to me was the medical profession, and during my seminary years I collected a rather good medical library, and read a lot of medicine, followed developments in medicine. Once in the seminary, and what was one of my motives was a desire to be a Missionary in Equatorial Africa. And from missionary lore and stories I learned that often the missionary had to play doctor…that is getting ahead of my story.
In the 40's vocation recruiters from various Religious Congregation and Order visited catholic parochial schools and spoke to 7t' and 8t' graders. In 7th grade I had taken an interest in the Divine Word Society. They had many African Missions. And they had a seminary just 100 miles from Pittsburgh, my home. So I just presumed that is where I would go.
God had other designs. In 8th grade in early spring, 1946, a Priest of the Sacred Heart came to our school. He made his presentation, and asked if anyone was interested. I said nothing and he left the classroom and said he would be in the principal's office. My 8th grade teacher thought I should speak with him, and so I did. Discovered that he was related to one of my aunts by marriage, my father's sister-in-law. I invited the priest to come visit my parents, which he did that very evening, and 7 weeks later, I had a laundry number and a letter of admission to Divine Heart Seminary, Donaldson, Indiana (which is 30 miles from Notre Dame University)
High School seminary was enjoyable. I got a good education, dutifully entered novitiate at the mature age of 18, made vows a year later and completed college and undergrad theological studies at Sacred Heart Monastery, Hales Corners, Wisconsin. Was ordained at the end of my third year of theology in 1958. Completed my studies and in June 1959 was assigned to go to graduate theological school at Catholic Univ. of America in Washington, DC. There went my missionary ambitions. I was sent to the Univ., and the intent was that I would get my degree in theology and come back to the seminary to teach. But I still had hopes.
After completing degrees in theology and Libra Science, I taught one semester at the Monastery Seminary, and then by God's providence, our Indonesian Province asked if we had some teachers that we could send because they wanted to open their own seminary in Sumatra. My Provincial Superior was a good friend; he had been Prefect of Discipline at the high school seminary and knew that I had wanted to go to the Missions, and he asked me if I wanted to go to Indonesia.
I did, but it was an aborted career. I opened the seminary in August 1963, and had to close it at the end of the academic year: we had just 6 students for philosophy/theology, and just a few in novitiates, and we did not manage to get a faculty. It was a dream, but an impractical, and at that times an impossible situation. Well and good, I thought. Now I can be a "real" Missionary-in the mountain-jungle of So. Sumatra, but was called back to the Monastery faculty in Hales Corners.
Short though it was, it was a wonderful experience, and one I treasure to this day.
The next 17 years was spent teaching theology and liturgy and Church History at the Hales Corners Seminary. I was also the Librarian and for four years the Religious Superior of the Community.
But I was active in so many other ways: Weekend assistant at a parish in Milwaukee, preached retreats in the U.S. and Canada, and one in Finland. From 1967 to 1983 1 was also chaplain at a convent - a juniorate of Sisters who were students at Alverno College, Milwaukee, and I had begun to write while being associate editor of a monthly magazine which we published then-THE REIGN OF THE SACRED HEART. The Sisters at the Convent asked me to publish my sermons. That was a beginning, and to date I have 15 titles to my credit.
After 20 years at the Monastery and in the Milwaukee area, I asked to be assigned to parish ministry. I was pastor in Victorville, CA, for three years, then came to Florida to take charge of our retirement facility in Pinellas Park for 6 years, then to Northern Mississippi to pastor in small mission parishes, and top do fund raising. That is where I spent the previous 13 years. I am now back in Pinellas Park, semi-retired, busy as ever.
My 48 plus years as a priest had been and is a wonderful adventure. I treasure every day of those years. I can truthfully say that I have never looked back, and wondered, "what if..." Being a priest in a Religious Community has been an additional grace and blessing. I have had opportunity to do a great variety of ministry in many places and cultures. During these years I have been a teacher, a foreign missionary, a pastor, a Religious Superior in all of the places I've been stationed, a business man dealing with finances, a retreat preacher. a counselor and spiritual director. I have traveled extensively; seen most of the U.S. (but for three states) and the Province of Ontario, Canada, and continue to enjoy that as a Chaplain on Cruise ships when time permits (and it does now permit).
I had wonderful parents, who are now with God, and have a great relationship with my siblings, 3 brothers and 1 sister, and their families, and a very large extended family. I have made friends whom I treasure; all of them have been a great support (more than they know or realize) in my priesthood and religious life. I love them and pray daily for them, as they do for me.
If I could have written a script for my life, I doubt if I could have done better than what has been the reality of my life experience as a priest.
I pray that our loving and provident God will entice and bless many young men with a desire to love and serve him in the ministry of priesthood, and I know that you do as well, as members of the Serra Club, in more than just an ordinary way, in the way that you pray for, encourage and support those who are studying for the priesthood in our beloved Catholic Church.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to you.
Father Charles E. Yost, SCJ 
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