N.B.: What follows is the text of the homily I preached on the Fourth Sunday of Easter in 2007, in which I shared the story of my vocation at Annunciation Parish - more commonly called "St. Mary's" - in Shumway, Illinois.
The Fourth Sunday of
Easter (C)
The 44th
World Day of Prayer for Vocations
Today, on this 44th
World Day of Prayer for Vocations, the Holy Father Benedict reminds us: “The
Good Shepherd … invites us to pray to the heavenly Father, to pray unitedly and
insistently, that he may send vocations for the service of the Church.”[1]
We know that vocations, callings
to the service of the Church, do not simply arise within vacuums or in the
silence of individual hearts alone.
Vocations very often arise within families and within parishes. Future priests do not simply drop out of
heaven; they arise from within the people of God.
“My sheep hear my voice,” says
the Lord Jesus. “I know them and they
follow me” (John 10:27). It was within
my home parish of St. John the Baptist that I first heard the call of the Lord
to serve him and his people. It was
because of the prayerful and loving encouragement of my fellow parishioners
that I was able to discern his call; without them, I would not be standing here
before you today. Of this I am certain.
The vocational story of every
priest is different because the Lord calls men to serve him through the very
personal experiences of their lives; no two priests are the same. The Lord continues to call men to his own
priesthood so that, as he says through his prophet, “I will appoint over you
shepherds after my own heart” (Jeremiah 3:15).
I want to share with you today
how the Lord called me to his sacred priesthood, both to encourage those whom
the Lord is calling to the priesthood in this parish right now, and to help you
support them as well.
We must go back to the beginning,
or nearly there. When I was about five
years old my Mom developed a brain cancer that confined her to a hospital bed
in our home. Dad stopped working to care
for Mom, my brother and I. Even so, it
was a happy childhood and I was carefree like most children.
On the morning of 20 February
1986 my brother and I awoke and got dressed for school as we always did. Something was different, though: Dad was not
up and breakfast was not ready for us. I
went to his bedroom to wake Dad, but he wasn’t there; apparently, he fell
asleep on the couch. I walked over to
wake him, tapping him on the shoulder and calling to him. Thinking he must have just been sleeping
heavily, I woke Mom and asked her to rouse Dad.
She failed, too. We called the
ambulance and when they arrived my brother and I were taken outside to wait
with the neighbors in the gently falling snow.
When the paramedics came out of
the house, one of the two looked at me and said not a word. He simply shook his head and I knew that Dad
was dead. My happy and carefree world came
crashing down around me.
My brother and I then moved in
with Dad’s sister, her husband and their four children and Mom was placed in a
nursing home. We visited her every
Sunday after Mass and during the week.
On 18 January 1988, as we were playing with Legos in the living room,
building a bigger and better castle than the day before, the nursing home
called: Mom had just died. At not quite
ten years of age I was an orphan and filled with profound pain and sorrow. My life, personality and thought would
forever be marked by these two events.
At this tender age, I yelled at
God and asked him, “Why me? What have I
done to deserve this?” How could God
allow the two most important people in my life to be taken away from me? I never blamed God for their deaths but I
demanded an answer.
To this day I have not received
an answer, but as I continually questioned him, I slowly found myself praying
and in the midst of this prayer I heard him say to me, “It is I. Do not be afraid” (John 6:20). “I am here.
I love you.” “I will not leave
you orphaned; I will come to you,” and come to me he did: through the
Scriptures, prayer and the sacraments (John 14:18). I slowly came to know that “the Lamb who is
in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of
life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”
(Revelation 7:17).
I
began to feel his loving presence and I began to ask him – subconsciously, but
I asked him nonetheless - “Who are you, sir?”
As I listened to him in prayer I came to know him and I recognized him
as “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
In
high school, I began to feel him stirring within my heart, calling me to his
service. I heard his voice “in a tiny
whispering sound” in the stillness of my heart (I Kings 19:12). I came to realize that his love that I had
experienced and came to rely upon required me to give it to others; I could not
keep it to myself. I heard him calling,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
(Isaiah 6:8). As he called to the
Apostles so he called to me, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of
men” (Matthew 4:19). But unlike the
Apostles I did not immediately leave everything to follow him. I said, “I am too young” (Jeremiah 1:6) and
he responded: “Follow me” (Mark 2:14).
Even
so, I thought myself unworthy of so generous a calling; indeed, I am unworthy
of it. There were others in my parish
more fit for his service, I thought.
There were others more popular, more intelligent, more talented, more
loving than I, and so I at first declined his invitation, choosing instead to
teach history. I could not see why the
Lord wanted me, wounded as I was. I did
not yet realize that “In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve.”[2]
At
this time, I told no one about what the Lord was saying to me, which made even
more remarkable what soon happened after: parishioners approached me before,
after, and during Mass and told me, “You should think about the priesthood;
you’d make a good priest.” I was
stunned. Within a matter of weeks, it
was not simply a handful of my fellow parishioners saying this to me, but
dozens, and the number grew with each passing week.
Pope
Benedict XVI has said of seminarians: "His
soul is filled with amazement, which makes him ask in prayer: 'Lord, why me?'
But love knows no 'why'; it is a free gift to which one responds with the
gift of self."[3] I knew this to be true. I was left with only one question: Why not
me? I had no answer and so I knew that I
must give myself to his service.
Finally,
I decided that my fellow parishioners must see something in me that I did not
see and so I took another look at the priesthood and realized that God created
me for it and only in following his call would I ever find fulfillment,
contentment, joy and peace.
My dear young men in this parish,
if you feel or hear the Lord calling you, listen to him and follow him.
There is an urgent need for
the emergence of a new generation of apostles anchored firmly in the word of
Christ, capable of responding to the challenges of our times and prepared to
spread the Gospel far and wide. It is this that the Lord asks of you, it
is to this that the Church invites you, and it is this that the world - even though it may not be aware of it - expects of you!
If Jesus calls you, do not be afraid to respond to him with generosity,
especially when he asks you to follow him in the consecrated life or in the
priesthood. Do not be afraid; trust in him and you will not be
disappointed.[4]
Let each of us cry out to the Lord:
Lord, look upon these
troubled times, which need preachers of the Gospel, witnesses to you, persons
who can point the way toward life in abundance! Look upon our world and
feel pity once more! Look upon our world and send us laborers!
With this petition we knock
on God's door; but with the same petition the Lord is also knocking on the
doors of our own heart. Lord do you want me? Is it not perhaps too
big for me? Am I too small for this? Do not be afraid, the angel
said to Mary. Do not fear: I have called you by name, God says through
the Prophet Isaiah (43:1) to us - to each of us.[5]
[1] Pope
Benedict XVI, Message for the 44th World Day of Prayer for
Vocations.
[2] Thornton
Wilder, The Angel that Troubled the Waters.
[3] Pope
Benedict XVI, Meeting
with Seminarians, 19 August 2005.
[4] Pope
Benedict XVI, Message to the Youth of the World on the Occasion of the 21st
World Youth Day.
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