u/leviwrites

I’m about to enter the initial stages of discernment where a committee from the parish meets and discusses my vocation over the next several months. I really desire to be a priest and minister the sacraments. I’ve had some practice in homiletics. But I’m afraid that I’m still prone into falling into sin. For one thing, I’m a bit of a gossip. I don’t know why, but I find myself complaining about family, friends, and colleagues a lot. I have high expectations for others, and when those aren’t met, I feel like I have to say something. Additionally, I’ve never been in a relationship. And the way Gen-Z goes on a first date nowadays is by snapchatting and then heading over to their house. I’m just afraid that I’m not going to be strong enough to keep a holy lifestyle. I don’t want to be celibate forever, but a big part of being holy is to be chaste, at least until you get into a relationship, which I can’t seem to get into. But also a priest (or a deacon) who’s actively hooking up and perusing promiscuous spaces would be terrible optics for the church.

I guess my question is: how do you pursue a holy vocation that affirms sexuality but also sets the boundaries of fidelity and respect for one’s own body?

I haven’t been able to get a good answer from my research. I was just wondering if any altars in an Episcopal church maintained the tradition of embedding relics within the altar. In the Roman Catholic Church, it’s required for the altar to have remains of saints buried in the altar. I know relics have an interesting history with the Anglican tradition being that many of them were erroneously attributed to important figures and sold for indulgences. But surely some prereformation churches still have them within their altars. And with the Anglo Catholic wave in America, it would make sense for some high church Episcopal parishes to have some kind of saintly relic.