Testimony - How God has worked in your life - my vocation

 

Last week we heard God’s calling of Jeremiah. This week we hear God calling Isaiah, as well as Jesus’ calling of Peter. They both admit their own sinfulness and their unworthiness to the call at hand, but the Lord,  who knows them better than they do, is not swayed from His choice. They are to be His messengers.

I thought it could be helpful to share some of my own story of how God called me to be a priest. But for me, it is hard to locate one singular event that shifted the direction of my life. My story was more gradual. Unlike Saint Paul or Peter, or St. Francis of Assisi or Ignatius of Loyola, the Lord didn’t have to hit me with a tidal wave of grace. He rather used a slower method of drawing me closer one bit at a time. I will try to look at some of the highlights in my life.

Before I tell that story, I want you to think about the importance of testimony in sharing the faith. The reality is that we are fostered in the faith by the witness of others. The life of Christians is meant to attract and build up new members of the faith. A joyful witness, sincerely given, can’t be easily dismissed, and when coupled with a life that bears the fruits of the Holy Spirit, it is irrefutable. So we must learn how to give testimony or witness – this is ultimately a story of how your life of faith in God allowed Him to transform your life in some way, and it can be thought of in three simple parts: before an event or process, what was different after an event or process, and what happened in the middle.

So you can simply ask yourself: where, when, how was my life transformed? It might be good to think about what instruments the Lord used for that transformation, because that can help you describe the event/process itself.

I will give four examples in my own life of important steps of transformation that led to priesthood.

1.   The event was a summer retreat for youth group leaders at Notre Dame.

Before: sincere but not super deep life of faith.

After: deeper life of prayer. Daily Mass 3x/wk.

2.   Starting to do Holy Hours in college.

A different way of praying.

Before: More of a distant or shallow friendship

After: Very intimate friendship. Feeling close, heard, loved, and summoned.

 

3.   Deciding to apply for seminary with our diocese.

Before: Questions, concerns about future.

After: Peace, and slowly growing joy even as I had to do something difficult – saying goodbye to college friends and potential of more years together.

 

4.   Deciding to stay in seminary and be a priest forever.

Before: Questions about whether this was from God or not.

After: Peace after placing faith in how God was working through the Church (and me).

 

At some point it comes down to this: Jesus proposes, we respond. God calls, we answer.

“Because Jesus asked me to.” In a long, slow way, the Lord drew me to give my life in this way, which is a vocation that fits how He enabled me to love. I could have loved in the vocation of marriage as well, as Bishop D’Arcy used to say, “all priests should be chosen from men who could be good husbands and good fathers.” But God also gave me the grace to love in this way, as a spiritual husband, a spiritual father.

And he asked me to do so. Much like a man gets down on one knee with a ring before a lady who in her freedom is invited into something, but never forced. So too, I had to say yes to the offer to give myself to the Lord and to His bride the Church, to be a fisher of men like Peter. And I said, with Isaiah, “here I am, send me.”