"God chose to call us": the story of two brothers ordained Catholic priests on the same day

Peyton and Connor Plessala are brothers from Mobile, Alabama. I am 18 months away, a school year.

Despite the occasional competitiveness and the bickering that many brothers experience growing, they have always been best friends.

"We are closer than best friends," Connor, 25, told CNA.

As a youth, in elementary school, high school, college, much of their life was focused on the things one might expect: academics, eccentrics, friends, girlfriends and sports.

There are many paths that the two young people could have chosen for their lives, but in the end, last month, they arrived in the same place: lying face down in front of the altar, giving life to the service of God and of the Catholic Church.

The two brothers were both ordained to the priesthood on May 30 in the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, in a private mass, due to the pandemic.

“For whatever reason, God chose to call us and did it. And we were lucky enough to have the basics of both our parents and our education to listen to it and then say yes, "Peyton told CNA.

Peyton, 27, says he is very excited to start helping out with Catholic schools and education, and also to start hearing confessions.

“You spend so much time in the seminar preparing to be effective one day. You spend so much time in the seminar talking about plans, dreams, hopes and things that one day you will do in this hypothetical future ... now it's here. And so I can't wait to get started. "

"Natural virtues"

In southern Louisiana, where the parents of the Plessala brothers grew up, you're a Catholic unless you say otherwise, Peyton said.

Both of Plessala's parents are doctors. The family moved to Alabama when Connor and Peyton were very young.

Although the family was always Catholic - and raised in the faith Peyton, Connor and their sister and younger brother - the brothers said they had never been a type of family to "pray the rosary around the kitchen table."

In addition to taking the family to mass every Sunday, the Plessalas taught their children what Peyton calls "natural virtues" - how to be good and decent people; the importance of choosing their friends wisely; and the value of education.

The constant involvement of the brothers in team sports, encouraged by their parents, also helped educate them on those natural virtues.

Playing football, basketball, soccer and baseball over the years has taught them the values ​​of hard work, camaraderie and setting an example for others.

"They taught us to remember that when you go to sports and you have the name Plessala on the back of the shirt, which represents an entire family," said Peyton.

'I could do it'

Peyton told CNA that despite going to Catholic schools and receiving "vocation talk" every year, neither of them had ever considered the priesthood as an option for their lives.

That is, until early 2011, when the brothers traveled with their classmates to Washington, DC for the March for Life, the nation's largest annual pro-life rally in the United States.

The companion of their McGill-Toolen Catholic High School group was a new priest, just out of the seminary, whose enthusiasm and joy made an impression on the brothers.

The testimony of their companion and other priests they met on that trip prompted Connor to start considering entering the seminary as soon as he left high school.

In the fall of 2012, Connor began his studies at St. Joseph Seminary College in Covington, Louisiana.

Peyton also heard the call to the priesthood during that journey, thanks to the example of their companion - but his path to the seminary was not as direct as that of his younger brother.

"I realized for the first time:" Dude, I could do it. [This priest] is so at peace with himself, so joyful and having so much fun. I could do it. This is a life I could really do, "he said.

Despite a tugboat to the seminar, Peyton decided that he would pursue his original plan to study pre-med at Louisiana State University. He would later spend three years in total, dating a girl he had met at LSU for two of those years.

His final year of college, Peyton returned to his high school to accompany that year's trip to March for Life, the same journey that had started the priesthood shoot several years earlier.

At some point in the journey, during the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Peyton heard the voice of God: "Do you really want to be a doctor?"

The answer, as it turned out, was no.

“And the moment I felt it, my heart felt more peaceful than it had been ... Maybe never in my life. I only knew that. At that moment, I was like "I'm going to seminary," Peyton said.

“For a moment, I had a life purpose. I had a direction and a goal. I only knew who I was. "

This new clarity came at a price, however ... Peyton knew he was going to have to leave his girlfriend. What did he do.

Connor remembers Peyton's call, telling him that he had decided to come to the seminary.

"I was shocked. I was excited. I was extremely excited because we would be back together again, "said Connor.

In the fall of 2014, Peyton joined his younger brother in St. Joseph's seminary.

"We can count on each other"

Although Connor and Peyton had always been friends, their relationship changed - for the better - when Peyton joined Connor in the seminar.

For most of their lives, Peyton had drawn a trail for Connor, encouraging him and giving him advice when he arrived in high school, after Peyton had learned the ropes there for a year.

Now, for the first time, Connor somehow felt like his "older brother", being more experienced in the life of the seminar.

At the same time, although the brothers were now following the same path, they nevertheless approached the life of the seminar in their own way, with their ideas and facing the challenges in different ways, he said.

The experience of accepting the challenge of becoming priests helped their relationship mature.

“Peyton always did his thing because he was the first. He was the oldest. And so, he didn't have an example to follow then, while I did, "Connor said.

"And so, the idea of ​​breaking:" We will be the same ", it was harder for me, I think ... But I think that, in the growing pains of this, we have been able to grow and we really realize mutual gifts and mutual weaknesses and then we rely more on each other ... now I know Peyton's gifts much better, and he knows my gifts, and therefore we can count on each other.

Due to the way his college credits were transferred from LSU, Connor and Peyton ended up in the same ordering class, despite Connor's two years of "initial advantage".

"Get up from the way of the Holy Spirit"

Now that they have been ordained, Peyton said their parents are constantly bombarded with the question, "What have you all done to get half of your children into the priesthood?"

For Peyton, there were two key factors in their education that helped him and his brothers grow as committed Catholics.

First of all, he said, he and his brothers attended Catholic schools, schools with a strong identity of faith.

But there was something about Plessala's family life that was even more important to Peyton.

"We dined every single evening with the family, regardless of the logistics needed to make that work work," he said.

"If we had to eat at 16:00 pm because one of us had a game that night when we all went, or if we had to eat at 21:30 pm, because I was coming home from football training to school late, whatever it was. We always made an effort to eat together and prayed before that meal. "

The experience of gathering every night in the family, praying and spending time together, has helped the family to coexist and support the efforts of each member, the brothers said.

When the brothers told their parents that they were entering the seminary, their parents were of great help, although the brothers suspected that their mother might be sad that she would end up having fewer grandchildren.

One thing Connor has heard his mother say several times when people ask what their parents have done is that "she got away from the Holy Spirit."

The brothers said they were extremely grateful that their parents had always supported their vocations. Peyton said that he and Connor occasionally met men in the seminar who ended up leaving because their parents did not support their decision to enter.

"Yes, parents know better, but when it comes to your children's vocations, God is what he knows, because it is God who calls," said Connor.

"If you want to find an answer, you have to ask the question"

Neither Connor nor Peyton would ever expect to become priests. Nor, they said, did their parents or siblings expect or predict that they could be called that way.

In their words, they were just "normal kids" who practiced their faith, attended high school and had many different interests.

Peyton said the fact that they both felt an initial priesthood regret isn't all that surprising.

"I think every guy who really practices their faith has probably thought about it at least once, just because they met a priest and the priest probably said," Hey, you should think about it, "he said.

Many of Peyton's devoted Catholic friends are married now, and asked them if at some point they had ever considered the priesthood before discerning marriage. Almost everything, he said, said yes; they thought about it for a week or two, but they never got stuck.

What was different for him and Connor was that the idea of ​​the priesthood did not go away.

“He got stuck with me and then stayed with me for three years. And then finally God said, “It's time, friend. It's time to do it, "he said.

"I'd just like to encourage the kids, if it's really been a while and it just attacks you, the only way you'll ever understand that it's actually going to the seminar."

Meeting and getting to know the priests, and seeing how they lived and why, was useful to both Peyton and Connor.

"Priests' lives are the most useful things to induce other men to consider the priesthood," said Peyton.

Connor agreed. For him, taking the plunge and going to seminary when he was still discerning was the best way to decide if God was really calling him as a priest.

“If you want to find an answer, you have to ask the question. And the only way to ask and answer that priesthood question is to go to seminary, "he said.

“Go to the seminar. You won't be worse off for this. I mean, you are starting to live a life dedicated to prayer, training, diving into yourself, learning who you are, learning your strengths and weaknesses, learning more about faith. All of these are good things. "

The seminar is not a permanent commitment. If a young man goes to seminary and realizes that the priesthood is not for him, it will not be worse, Connor said.

"You were trained in a better man, a better version of yourself, you prayed much more than you would have if you weren't in the seminary."

Like many people of their age, Peyton and Connor's paths to their final calling have been tortuous.

"The great pain of millennials is sitting there and trying to think about what you want to do with your life for so long that your life passes by," said Peyton.

“And so, one of the things I like to encourage young people to do if you are discerning, do something about it.