About the Salesians / John Langan

The first time I ever thought about becoming a priest was in my early teens or just before my teenage years. I remember I was sitting in the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot waiting for my mom to finish shopping. The thought just kind of jumped into my head. I could be a priest, I could say mass every day and then the rest of my day would just be free time. It was a pretty naive thought, but that was my first thought of me as a priest.

John Langan

I didn't think about the priesthood for a long time after that. I continued to go to mass in high school and as I entered college, but it was more out of respect to my parents more than anything else. Then the summer before my twenty-first birthday I was dragged to a Steubenville East Youth Conference by my older sister. There I came to realize who God had made me to be and how lost I had become over the years. This began my journey of making my faith my own. Rather than going to mass because I didn't want to lie to my parents. I went because I wanted to come to know my God more and become the person He made me to be. The years after this were difficult because before this I had been searching for joy in all the wrong places. It was especially difficult at college because at home I now had a community of people to encourage me to grow in my faith life, but at school the friends I had made were not trying to live the life that I now wanted for myself. In the beginning it was a lot of going to school falling and coming back home and trying again.

A few years later I started to hear the call. I can remember waking up one day with the thought on my mind, is God calling me to the priesthood. I went to one of my close friends at the time and told him and he just told me not to worry about it, that happens to everyone as they return to their faith. So, I let it go and continued to work on the temptations in my life. My local pastor was always encouraging the men involved in youth group to think about the priesthood. He would always say something to me as I shook his hand after a Sunday mass, but again I didn't think about it to much. I just laughed and smiled whenever someone said it to me.

Then in my last year on campus at ECSU I was living with four of my friends in a house off campus. This was a decision I made at the end of the previous year and was regretting all summer long. But, as the school year progressed I was starting to develop a daily prayer life and keeping up with it at school. God was giving me a lot of help with things that I had been struggling with in my life. I began to go to daily mass as often as I could. Again I remember just having days where the priesthood would be on my mind, or the thought would just come into my mind out of nowhere sometimes. That summer I went to another Steubenville East retreat as a counselor as I had been doing every year since the first summer. I listened to a priest give a talk about prayer and at the end he asked if anyone had any more questions to come up and ask him. So as everyone left I went up to ask him a question. I saw there was a line forming to ask him so I waited and went last. As I went up to him to ask my question he pulled out a card and handed it to me and told me I was called to the priesthood. This knocked me off guard, I just wanted to ask a question and he tells me something like that. I talked with him for a bit and listened to his vocational story and I remember being surprised at a few of the similarities in our lives. After talking to him I went back to my bed to think and just thought about the past few years and all the times this had seemed to be popping into my life. I finally started to accept the idea that maybe I was called to the priesthood. After we came home we had a parents night for the families of the kids that were on the retreat. I was a little overexcited about what had happened and I got up and told everyone and said after graduating school next year that I would be entering the seminary. The next day I was freaking out about what I had just done. I continued to pray for God's guidance if this is what he wanted for me. But, thoughts ran through my mind as I was very scarred about what had just happened. I went to another retreat a few weeks later and again in a conversation with an older woman had a bit of guidance that I just needed to let go of the things in my past, and answer the question in my heart. I was still scarred about this and I just focused on my final year in college.

The next year I commuted to school and lived with my sister and my niece about an hour away. I kept myself busy with work to pay for my share of the apartment and my bills. I continued working on staying strong in my daily prayer life, going to mass as often as I could, and just again trying to live a good moral life. While I was living with my sister and niece I got a glimpse of what life as a father would be like. I remember one time in particular that both of them were sick with a stomach virus and I woke up to hear my sister calling to me to help my niece as she had just thrown up in her bed. I went in and brought her to the toilet and held her as she threw up. In that moment I remember feeling a sense of joy come over me and the thought that this is what it is like to be a father. To be there for the ones you love in their moment of need. For a while after that I was convinced that I was called to the married life. I stopped thinking about the priesthood for a while and graduated college. Then just continued to work the painting job I had every summer and took some time off the next winter and went skiing in Vermont. I then returned to my painting job the next spring. But, the thought calling me to the priesthood came back. I finally just told myself okay I have to do something about this or else I'll always have this question on my heart. I called up the vocational office of the CFR's, a religious order that I had been learning more about over the years, and set up a time to just go down and visit. I went down and after going to adoration I remember going back to my room and just meditating on the events of the past few years. I came to the conclusion that God had been saying the same thing to me every time, but I had been reacting to it differently. At first I was scared and wouldn't even think about it, then more accepting but still very scarred, and finally just starting to accept that okay yes maybe God is calling me to the priesthood. I spoke with the vocational director after that weekend and told him about myself. He gave me a lot of good advice that I needed to hear, the biggest thing I needed was a spiritual director. Also, I was still working on getting rid of some things I needed to in my life and he told me to work on these things and come back and talk after some time had passed. I returned home ready to work. As soon as I returned home I noticed a progression of my spiritual life. Just things like staying consistent in my prayer life and getting to daily mass were going better than they ever had. I felt that God had given me an enormous amount of grace right away. I asked my local pastor if he would be able to be my spiritual director and he agreed. My summer continued with all of this in my mind. At the time friend of mine had also been discerning and had gone down to south orange new jersey to check out the Salesians of Don Bosco. When he returned he introduced me to this order. He told me that at the end of the retreat they asked if they could think of anyone else who might be interested in this order. He said my name just popped into his head. At the time I was pretty set on the CFR's and I did not think about it to much.

At the end of the summer I went back to the vocational director of the CFR's and spoke with him again. I was told to continue to work on living a moral life, work on paying off my student loans and then come back. This is what I started to do during this year. This was a very good year for me. Looking back I know God was helping me out a lot during this time. As time went by though I realized I had never really looked into any other orders other than the CFR's. I thought back to my friend who had told me about the Salesians. He had told me a little about the order and I was intrigued. So, I spoke with him about them and he gave me a book on Don Bosco. I read this book during lunch and breaks at work. As I read I kept thinking about my own progression back to my faith. It all started at a high school retreat with the youth. I started going to the youth group, that I attended the retreat with, and continued over all these years. All this time I had been working with the youth. As the years past some of the people I had been in the group with grew out of it, but I stayed close to the group and started to get into more of a leadership role. In my own struggles I turned to the outdoors and having fun to get myself away from sin. I started going to bed early instead of going out at night at college so that I could get up and go skiing the next day. I bought a mountain bike and a kayak because these were ways to have fun without sinning. So then I made the call to the vocations office and set up a time to come down to visit on a discernment retreat. I learned more about the Salesian spirituality and Don Bosco. As I learned I kept thinking how the past few years had been leading me to the work that Don Bosco had been doing with the youth. Soon after the weekend I put in my application with the Salesians. I was accepted began of my year of candidacy teaching at Salesian High in New Rochelle, NY. I am presently a pre-novice in formation at Orange, NJ. I still have times where I wonder about what my vocation is and think about the future, but I do know that I feel confident that this is where God wants me now.

The Salesian House basement is very familiar to John since he's an avid bicycle rider.

For John bicycling around the neighborhood is a great way to engage in the community, self reflect and get in a little exercise.

Like most men in the Salesian House John appreciates a little bit of r&r whenever possible.