Benjamin Keating, Immaculate Conception, Fort Smith

Attends Saint Meinrad Seminary in St. Meinrad, Indiana

It’s tempting to say that my journey toward priesthood started on a hot summer day in Fort Smith. I was 10 years old, sitting with my mother in the food court of Fort Smith’s Central Mall, and happily feasting upon what seemed to me a quite delightful mountain of orange chicken. I remember my mom had asked me, “So, Benjamin, where are you going to work when you grow up?”

A great question, my 10-year-old self thought. Pondering for a moment, between impressive mouthfuls of mall-chinese food, I responded gleefully, “Well, Mom, I’m not going to work for a living because I’m going to play music!” Just the answer every mom wants to hear, right?

Yet somehow, as I grew up in a family who supported all of my many and varied interests — through countless sports and new books and especially music — my childhood dream seemed to become reality the day I got the call that I was admitted to study trumpet performance at The Juilliard School in New York City.

I played trumpet in Carnegie Hall and Radio City, places from my childhood dreams. To attest to my 10-year-old self, it didn’t feel like work; I loved what I did, yet I discovered a growing feeling there was something more. I ventured “off-broadway” and found there a passion for music ministry in hospitals. I also put on community classical music concerts at Catholic parishes.

Still, it felt like that little voice in my heart was telling me there was something else, that my life might not be what I once expected, something different than Broadway or even a musical career. I thought, “Well, so much for 10-year-old me’s predictions." I grew hungry to find the purpose of my life, and I was confident that finding the mission would help me realize it.

Finishing my music degree, I sought the mission — the first as I stepped into the U.S. Marine officer recruiting station on 5th Avenue, was accepted to the Marine officer candidate program, and shipped to Quantico, Virginia, for military training. It was exhilarating — the brotherhood, the challenge, the idea of being God’s warrior — yet, this fire kindled in my heart only grew hotter.

I went on the search again and, inspired by my family of physicians and my experience in hospital ministry during music school, I spent nearly two years of pre-medical studies until I held an acceptance letter to my dream medical school. Mission: physician. A moment of victory! Well, at least that’s what I expected it to feel like. Instead, my reality was more of a deja-vu feeling of that "whatever-it-was” growing stronger. Music, marines, then medicine — all kindled the whatever-it-was, but nothing gave me the answer I desired.

This all led to the day when finally exhausted from the search, I made a last-ditch effort. I prayed: “O Jesus, I surrender everything to you, take care of everything.” Immediately, I felt drawn to the local perpetual adoration chapel, and I remember I went that night to the chapel, and the next night, and then night after night with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

In the quiet of those nights, a grace-laden realization changed my life forever. I realized I had everything backward. I was looking for a mission that would give meaning to my life when the true reality was that it would be and always will be the love of Jesus that gives me meaning.

I realized that I put mission and work before this love, and I discovered that whatever-it-was feeling was the desire to put absolutely everything I have and everything I am into following Jesus. At the same time on those nights, another thought crossed my mind, something I had never thought before or stopped thinking about since — that is, in a word — priesthood.

Now, as I continue my studies at Saint Meinrad Seminary, I am grateful for all the different experiences in music, marines and medicine that led me to where I am today. I look back on my 10-year-old self and think perhaps he was more right than I first thought. I believe God granted me my wildest childhood dreams, but in his signature fashion, just in a different way than I expected. I think he planted one of his tiny mustard seeds in that 10-year-old me, the seed of faith that my vocation was indeed, not to work … but to love.

Please be assured of my prayers for you, and whenever you remember, please pray for me!

Benjamin Keating is in the discipleship stage of his priestly formation. During this stage, seminarians grow their relationship with Jesus Christ through meditation, contemplation, philosophical study and training in Christian virtue. It lasts at least two years. Benjamin is the son of Bill and Janice Keating of Fort Smith. His birthday is Nov. 16. If you wish to offer your prayers, mail a birthday greeting or provide other support to Benjamin or any of our seminarians, please contact Georgina Pena in the Vocations Office at (501) 664-0340. This article was published Sept. 11, 2024. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher.