"... when that object is God."

What discernment looks like.

Here is a supplement to my recent post about Thomas Sherman, General Sherman's son.

In 1878 twenty-two-year-old Thomas discerned a vocation to the priesthood.

General William Tecumseh Sherman was not Catholic,¹ but his wife, Ellen was and all eight of the couple’s children were raised in the faith.

Thomas was born in 1856, educated at Yale and was practicing law and attending to family business in St. Louis when he discerned his vocation. His father was in Washington, DC serving in the War Department as Commanding General of the Army and relied on Tom to look after family business and the home in St. Louis and was confident that he would become a prosperous lawyer and provide for his siblings—both materially and otherwise.

When the General learned of Tom's decision to enter the Jesuit novitiate “his grief, anger, and bafflement scarcely knew no bounds.”²

He wrote, “He was the keystone of my Arch and his going away lets down the whole structure with a crash.

“I think he owes his own sisters the attention and duty which a brother alone can give at this time of their lives.

“I think he owes me some return for the time, money and affection I have bestowed upon him.

“He leaves us forever and casts his lot among those with whom I have no intercourse. Why should he desert me thus, and leave me convinced that his whole life had been a deception?”³

After all this, Tom wrote to his sister, Minnie, "I felt overwhelmed by Papa's grief ... my step seems rash and hasty to all who do not know what it is to watch and wait and pray and doubt and despair until a young heart grows old and can face anything to attain its object—especially when that object is God."⁴

That’s what discernment looks like.

1. Or was he? He had been baptized Presbyterian at birth, but William Tecumseh Sherman was raised by a family named Ewing. A Patheos blog post reads: “Born Tecumseh Sherman, his father died when he was age nine, one of eleven children, leaving the family in dire straits. The family of Ohio Senator Thomas Ewing, nearby neighbors, took him in and raised him as their foster child. Mrs. Ewing, a devout Catholic, had one condition: the boy had to be baptized Catholic. On June 25, 1829, he was baptized by a Dominican priest from Youngstown who christened him William Tecumseh, for the saint whose feast was commemorated that day.”

However, in Joseph Durkin’s biography General Sherman’s Son, the historian writes “Though General Sherman was not a Catholic and never became one, he agreed that all their children should be raised in the faith of their mother.” (p. 10)

There is much written elsewhere about the controversy. Articles and Letters to the Editor questioning the General’s religion were plentiful following his death.

2. Durkin

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.