Dear Thomas,

Thanks for your kind words about the site. It is always good to hear it is being helpful.

Now, about your HELP! part:

Thomas, you're human. Your friend must be a good person, and you must at least find her agreeable to be around if you started to be friends with her in the first place. You have spent time together, and precisely because you have been friends and nothing more you have probably gotten to know and appreciate her much better and in a more healthy way than if the two of you were into heavy dating. And now you find your feelings for her evolving. I see nothing more natural than this, and nothing to be surprised at.

However, no matter how natural it is it tells us nothing about your vocation.

Instead, it does tell us something you need to do if you honestly still want clearly discern it, and it tells us something about decisions you will have to make and be faithful to, if you do discover you have a vocation and decide to pursue it.

I want to emphasize that what is happening to you is natural, because when God gives a vocation he does not take away our nature, but he does give gifts and ask us for things that are way above our nature. Our response to our vocation entails leaving the realm of the natural (affections, attachments, securities, possessions, independence), and entering into the realm of the supernatural: Grace, faith, hope, and love.

You can see right away that if you are going to test your vocation and give it a chance, a deepening relationship with your friend is going to be an obstacle; it is going to focus and gradually monopolize your heart, making it more difficult to consider other alternatives. Since you are a good man it may well happen to you as has happened to others: you find the thought of her hurt at breaking up is more difficult to bear than the sacrifice it would be to you, and this will only increase if the relationship continues to evolve.

So I think, if you really want to test your vocation you need to make a break with the natural level, and enter into the supernatural one. Yes, that means being very honest and practical: you know for a fact that continuing the friendship as it is will lead almost without fail to a natural choice that excludes the vocation. There is not way to avoid it, to test your vocation and respect your friends feelings and freedom, the sooner you opt to leave the relationship the better.

But if you only take the step of severing the natural attractions and do nothing else you will probably be miserable.

You need to enter into the supernatural world. This means prayer. Mass more frequently. It will mean doing other things to relax than hanging out with your friend. Maybe when the wound is still raw your prayer will be like, Lord, I must be crazy to do what I did, it still hurts. I need your help to see my way from here. I know what you did for me, I know you are here in the Eucharist, give me the strength I need to follow you.  Pray with absolute conviction, no matter how you feel, that Christ is worth everything. Dont look inwards too much in prayer, look at him. And what will he see as he looks at you? He will see a man who has made a major sacrifice (he knows what love means to the human heart) in order to seek him, and is now asking for his help. What do you think his answer will be?

God bless.