Love God and find your calling

For more resources about National Vocations Awareness Week, go to https://www.vianneyvocations.com/

Homily: 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Friends, today our scriptures ask us to consider the question: “What is our response to God’s love?”  Perhaps this begs the question, however, “Is there any need to respond?”  The answer to that question (and I’m going to ask you to trust me on this one) is “yes”, of course.  The love of God demands a response from us, so much so that responding to God’s initiative toward us is something we model right here in the liturgy.

          Perhaps a number of you know this already, but the “Responsorial Psalm” is not called “responsorial” simply because we “respond” by repeating a verse or phrase after each stanza.  Rather, it is called “responsorial” because the Psalm itself is a response to the first reading.  The idea being this: when we hear God’s word, it moves us to respond.  Sometimes, it moves us to respond in praise: simply singing of God’s wonderful attributes and about how great it is that he has revealed himself to us.  Other times, it moves us to respond like the scribe did in today’s Gospel: who recounted back to Jesus his teaching to demonstrate his understanding.  In fact, if you’d like a summary of the first reading from Mass, one that gives you a little more insight into its meaning, just look to the Responsorial Psalm.  If the reading was one demonstrating God’s power, his glory, or his mercy, then the Psalm might be one of praising those attributes of God.  If the reading contained a lesson, then the Psalm might be one that demonstrates our understanding of that lesson.

          Case in point: today, in the first reading, we hear the teaching that Moses gave to the Israelite people as they were on the cusp of entering the Promised Land: “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”  Then, in our response with the Psalm we sing: “I love you, Lord, my strength.”  In the reading we are reminded of our need to love God; and in the psalm we respond, expressing our love for Him.  All of this is to remind us that, when we experience and receive God’s gracious initiative toward us, we are called to respond. ///

          Many of you heard my homily for All Saints’ Day this past Thursday.  If you did, you heard me talk about how the idea of becoming “great”—that is, becoming that person we dreamed about becoming when we are kids—is something that’s written into our DNA; and that the greatest greatness that we can achieve is to become a saint.  I also said that our inspiration for pursuing this greatness comes from God Himself: that is, it comes from the fact that we are beloved by God.  This is because when we know that we are someone’s beloved, and when we desire to be loved by that person, we strive to make ourselves better for that person: in a sense, to make ourselves more “worthy” of their love.  This is a response to their love; and it is the response that we are called to give to God and His love for us. ///

          This weekend we kickoff the annual “National Vocations Awareness Week”, in which we focus intently on raising awareness of the need to promote and encourage vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 50 years or so, you’ll know that we are in great need of more men and women who will take up the call to greatness in a religious vocation.  Our beloved Fr. Ziegler, who we laid to rest this past week, used to say to seminarians: “We need you young guys to get ordained because us old guys aren’t going to be around much longer!”  Although I am still yet on my way to becoming one of the “old guys”, I keenly feel the need now to promote vocations among our young men, so that I don’t have to feel the same anxiety that Fr. Ziegler felt in his waning years.  Still more, part of the flourishing of Catholic culture here in the United States in the last century was due to the presence and witness of religious women and men within our parishes and communities.  I believe that, in large part, a new flourishing will occur when more and more young women and men hear God’s call to the religious life and respond.  Thus, our celebration and work this week to raise awareness of these vocations is of great importance.

          Friends, God’s call to the priesthood or religious life is not something arbitrary that comes to a person out of the blue; rather, it is something that is discerned when a person makes a response to God’s love towards him/her.  In other words, God’s love comes first.  That is, we must first experience God’s love for us.  Then, we must give our love completely to God.  It is there, within our response, that God will make known to us the vocation to which He has called us.  Anything else is our invention.  Knowing this, how then do we go about encouraging young people to consider God’s call to the priesthood and religious life?  Although it sounds counter-intuitive to what I’ve just said, we must invite them!  We must look at single men and women among us and ask them “Have you considered being a priest?”  “Have you considered whether God may be calling you to be a religious sister or brother?”  If they respond “no” and they ask you “How do I do it?”, this is what you tell them: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!  Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

          In other words, tell them to open their hearts to encounter God’s love, which is constantly present to them, and then to respond, loving God with their whole hearts, with their whole souls, and with all their strength.  Tell them that they should strive to be the best beloved that they can be for the God who loves them and that it will be in that striving that God will reveal his vocation to them.  To put it simply: when they shema, when they listen, ready to respond to the love God pours out to them, they will hear it.

          Friends, this model of “listen and respond” doesn’t end when we’ve discerned our vocation and begin to live it.  Rather, it continues throughout the rest of our lives.  Even if we’ve seemingly completed the path of our vocation, we must still shema, we must still listen, and strive to respond.  In other words, we must never stop striving to become the best beloved that we can be for the God who has demonstrated his love for us.  This, too, will be a powerful tool to promote vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.  A Christian life, lived mediocrely, can only discourage young people from discerning their vocation, since all they see is that the Christian life leads to a mundane existence.  A heroic Christian life, however—a life striving for greatness, that is, saintliness, regardless of the vocation—will inspire young people, since they will see that a life of loving God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength, is an adventurous life, full of meaning and purpose.

          Therefore, as we respond today to God’s love, poured out to us in this Mass, by loving Him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and with all our strength, let us re-commit ourselves to strive for greatness, that is, saintliness; and, thus, to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life both by our word of invitation and by the witness of our lives; and, thus, to grow God’s kingdom: the kingdom that even now is here among us.

Given at St. Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 3^rd & 4^th, 2018

Race for Vocations: Accomplished!

"I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith."
- II Timothy 4:7

Although the trip was only for a good 26 hours, I feel like so much was accomplished.  Friday night's Mass for Vocations at St. John the Evangelist Church in downtown Indy was awesome.  We had many priests and seminarians, religious sisters and one Franciscan Friar, lots of married folks and folks living out the vocation of sacred single life.  The big pasta dinner afterwards was delicious and there was a lot of beautiful sharing between the various vocations we were honoring!

And, this morning was the big race.  I was really worried that I might not be able to finish it because of soreness that I had been having in my left hip.  To add to that, it was very humid this morning and I really hadn't done any training in humid conditions.  So I didn't know what to expect from my body going into the race today.

Given last year's experience, I was able to get downtown and parked plenty early enough so that I could get to my starting corral (what are we, cattle?) and focus before the race began.  The start felt really good.  It took no time for the soreness in my hip to go away and I was running a great pace at the start (probably a little fast, but I didn't feel like I was pushing myself).  Even though I knew that it would slow me down, I didn't pass up any of the water/Gatorade stations.  I wanted to be sure that I didn't dehydrate before the end.  I was still going pretty strong when I entered the track, but that's when I started to fade.  It can get very crowded when going in and out of there and so it makes it difficult to keep a good pace, which can also be frustrating/discouraging.

Coming out of the track we wind through a couple of side streets which have the same effect and so by the time that I got out of all of that, I was a little frustrated and had completely lost my early stride.  By that point, I was also facing the sun, making it more difficult to focus.  In mile 10, I ran by a couple of people who went down and were receiving medical attention.  By mile 11, I had convinced myself that I just needed to let my legs rest a bit to be sure I could finish the race.  My pace at that point wasn't good enough to beat my two-hour goal, so I decided to be conservative and walk a little.  I did the same after crossing mile 12, but only so I could push for that last mile (I had passed four or five more runners receiving medical attention at that point).

I picked it up for that last mile, however, and finished strong with a time of 2:08:03, which was three and a half minutes faster than last year (in which the temperature was much cooler).  Even though I didn't meet my goal time, I did meet my goal again this year of completing my training and offering up tons of prayers for vocations.  Win one for God and for vocations!

Thanks to all who supported me in prayer throughout my training and especially today!

Verso l'Alto!

P.S. Just think, next year I'll be a priest and I can guilt all of my parishioners into running, too :D

God rocks my socks off...

One experience from the Destination: Jesus retreat has stayed very close to my heart in the past week (and by "very close" I mean "sitting on it like ten-ton elephant"). When Fr. Brian gave us seminarians the chance to introduce ourselves, I decided to take the opportunity to point out that it was at this same time last year that I had just received my final chemotherapy treatment for cancer and that now, in part because of the prayers from those who attended DJ last year, I was standing before them nine-months cancer free. The response to this was another standing ovation and, with tears in my eyes, I thanked them all and assured them that God indeed does hear and answer prayers.

After the closing mass with Bishop Doherty, I was standing outside of the worship space (i.e. the gym) just hanging out and greeting folks as they were leaving. A triad of young ladies came by me and one of them asked if I was "the seminarian who has cancer." I said yes and she proceeded to tell me that she had prayed for me during mass. Humbled, I thanked her deeply. Then she leaned in and in a quivering voice said, "My mother passed away from cancer this past Monday." Somewhat shocked, my first reaction was to express my sympathy and, given that she had just prayed for me, to offer prayers for her and her mother. With tears in her eyes she thanked me. What followed was a few awkward moments as I thought she was going to walk away, but then her and her friends stood near me for a while. I tried to figure out if I should say something else, but I was literally frozen and couldn't think of anything that wouldn't seem trite. Soon, though, they did walk away and it wasn't long after that I had the thought that would haunt me for the next week: Not two hours previous I was proclaiming that my healing is proof that God hears and answers our prayers. Without doubt, this young girl had prayed, and prayed hard that her mother would be healed, yet she wasn't. Did I let her walk away thinking that God hears everyone's prayers but hers? I had the opportunity to say something more to her and I didn't. Did that just make it worse? And if that isn't enough, I had asked her what her mother's name was so that I could pray for her by name, but I hadn't gotten her name, nor did I know what parish she was from. "Excellent pastoral ministry, Petan..." I cynically thought to myself.

As a result, all week I've been praying for her hoping I could find some way to get in touch with her so I can at least acknowledge that I know how hard she must have prayed for her mother and that I, too, am baffled by the mystery of why God chose me to live and her mother to die, but that I am nonetheless confident that God heard every one of her prayers. I was brought to tears at what I felt was the real possibility that she would begin to doubt if God really cared for her and her mother and that my fear of engaging her in the moments of awkwardness might have let her come to that conclusion. This really came to a head today as I approached to receive Holy Communion. As I did, I begged for God to be merciful on me for being so weak-willed.

I picked up my mail after lunch (as I usually do) and in my mailbox was a letter whose return address was in a city in Michigan that I did not recognize. As I walked back to my room I racked my brain trying to figure out who it could be from. I finally made it to my room and opened the letter and that was when God rocked my socks off. It was a letter from this young girl! Not only was she not upset about what I had said or baffled by the mystery of God's providence to the point of real doubt, but she expressed how happy she was to hear that I was in remission from cancer. But wait, there's more... She also expressed how she has come to see cancer as a gift from God (and this girl just lost her mother!) and that she feels called to consecrated religious life! Finally (could there be more?), she said that one of her friends had described to her that I "looked like Jesus" as I expressed my care and concern for her... Good Night! I am glad I made it back to my room before reading it because as soon I did, I dropped down into my chair and wept. All of the pent-up feelings of anxiety, sadness, helplessness, and fear all came pouring out as I thanked Jesus for his merciful answer to my prayer.

In the Archabbey Gift Shop here on the Hill, they have a lot of real "kitch-y" stuff. There is one thing, though, that I saw with a saying that I thought was nice and which stuck in my brain. It was a small placard (probably a refrigerator magnet) and it reads: "God answers prayers in three ways: 'Ok,' 'Not yet,' or 'I've got a better idea.'" Watch out for #3, you might get your socks rocked off :)

P.S. I'm not the only one... check out this incredible story (she must have seen the same magnet!).

Destination: Jesus

This past weekend, I was able to participate in my diocese's annual youth retreat weekend, entitiled Destination: Jesus. It is a Eucharistic retreat built off of the model of the Youth 2000 retreats. This is year is the sixteenth year that our diocese has sponsored this event and it has grown every year. Nearly 950 youth attended this year's event and I came away exhausted (and all I did was support all of the people that were making everything happen) because the experience of being around so many young people who are being lit on fire for Christ, who are finding healing in the Sacrament of Confession, and who are allowing Christ to touch their heart, possibly for the first time in their lives, inspired me to pour myself out for them in anyway that I could think of.

Listening to some of these youth tell me about the great experience that they had, about some incredibly difficult situations that they are dealing with, and then worshiping our Eucharistic Lord with them made me want to be a priest more than ever. Part of the last day of the retreat is reserved to ask the youth to consider vocations to the priesthood and religious life. They've seen the seminarians and nuns running around all weekend, but on Sunday we get officially introduced. Our Director of Vocations, Fr. Brian Doerr, introduced us and bragged that our seminary rectors all agree that we are some of the best men studying for the priesthood that they've seen. I was feeling a little embarrassed by this, but then the entire crowd of 950+ people erupted into a standing ovation for us and I was brought to tears. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love. I am invigorated to continue to give myself to completing formation and to being ordained a priest. I am also hopeful that our witness this weekend will inspire a few young men and women to consider whether or not God might be calling them to a religious vocation.

Fr. Brian has an e-form that anyone can fill out if they are considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life up on our website. It can be found at http://www.priestforever.org/DJ. Click and submit the form if you are interested in getting information about discerning a religious vocation. Or, if you know someone who participated in the weekend, please send them the link in case they forgot it after the weekend.

Most of all, let us continue to pray for vocations, both that we may have the courage to fully live out our own and for others to courageously accept their own, and for the youth whose lives have been changed forever by their encounter with Christ this weekend, that in all things God may be glorified!