“When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him” (Lk 5:11).
In one of his many parables, Jesus describes the kingdom of God as being like a man scattering seeds. He goes back later to find the seeds sprouting and growing, he knows not how (cf. Mk 4:27). When we think about how plants grow, the change is imperceptible (maybe with the exception of Kudzu). You can stand outside for hours in the summer watching your lawn and it looks like nothing is happening. But go back after two weeks and the grass is up to your knees.
The spiritual life can be like that. We can practice the faith for years and it might seem like not much is happening because the change from day to day is imperceptible. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. So it’s a good exercise for us to look back from time to time to remind ourselves of how God has been guiding and transforming us.
When I do that for my own life, and go back to the late 1990s, I see a heathen boy who was in many ways lost in the wilderness. I was lost, but I was also searching. I was searching for truth, for meaning, and for love. When I found that love from a Catholic girl I also discovered truth and meaning in the Catholic Church. And eventually I came to discover an even greater love in the God who is revealed and worshiped by that Church. So I converted. I went through the RCIA process (which just got a new name, the OCIA, or Order of Christian Initiation for Adults), and I was baptized, confirmed, and received my first Eucharist during the Easter Vigil of the Jubilee Year 2000, twenty-five years ago this year.
I remember at the time being so full of gratitude for all I had received from the Catholic Church that I was determined to give back to the Church in whatever way God would permit me to. The next year I was asked to serve as a confirmation sponsor for someone, and I said yes. The year after that I was asked to help teach RCIA, and I said yes. I also started singing in the choir and eventually I was asked to teach adult education here at the parish. I enrolled in an online program to earn a Masters degree in theology to help me be equipped to do these things. And then one day I received a phone call from the outgoing campus minister at Western Carolina University saying that she was moving and suggesting that I submit an application for that soon-to-be-vacant position.
After talking with my wife, I said yes to that call. Even though I had a job that I enjoyed at the time, we felt like this was God opening up a way to further serve the Church. It had never entered my mind to work in college campus ministry, but now, seventeen years later, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I truly feel that I am exactly where God wants me to be.
Working every day in ministry also helped me to discern the call to the diaconate. I actually began discerning diaconal ministry way back in 2004 — that’s a story for another time — but I was not ordained until 2018. Before I submitted my application for formation, my wife and I attended an information meeting for those interested in becoming deacons. I remember, after hearing about what the formation process entailed, my wife and I sitting down and talking about how the demands of the formation program would impact our family and whether we thought we could do it. We knew it would be challenging, but we decided together that I should go ahead and submit my application and put it in God’s hands. If God were truly calling me to this ministry, I wanted to say yes to it, and I trusted that he would work out the details. It’s like St. Paul says in first Corinthians; it wouldn’t be because of me, but the grace of God (1 Cor 15:10). I said yes, and God took it from there.
Throughout formation, whenever I reflected on whether I was truly called to this vocation, one of the affirming things I kept coming back to is that this wasn’t something I was choosing for myself. What I mean by that is not that I didn’t want this vocation, but that it wasn’t something I had set out to do on my own. I felt led here. All I did was say yes to the call, like Isaiah saying, “Here I am, send me” (Is 6:8).
Now I am not Isaiah. And I am certainly not St. Peter (I don’t even know how to fish!). But I am a man of unclean lips and unclean heart, and just like God used Isaiah and St. Peter to do great things because of their willingness to say yes to his call, I am humbled that God has also chosen me to do much smaller things for the glory of his kingdom.
And that’s the message I want to convey to you all today. You are not Isaiah. You are not St. Peter. But that doesn’t mean God is not calling you to labor in his vineyard. Most of Jesus’ disciples were not called to be Apostles, but that doesn’t mean they were not called. It doesn’t mean they didn’t have a role to play in building up the Body of Christ. Jesus told Simon, “I will make you a fisher of men.” Jesus told the rich young man to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. Jesus told the man he delivered from demonic possession to go back to his family and tell them what God had done for them. They all had different callings, but they were all called by Christ. It is very unlikely that anyone at this Mass today will be a bishop or a cardinal. But that doesn’t mean you are not being called to build up the Body of Christ in your own unique way.
The Church teaches that we all have a universal call to holiness. We are all called to be like God. That means we are all called to love, to give ourselves in some way for the good of others. We are all called to carry our cross and follow Jesus. In fact Christ says we are to do this daily. That means every day we have a new opportunity to tell the Lord, “Here I am, send me.”
That’s really all that’s expected of us: to show up ready to do the Lord’s work. You don’t have to know ahead of time what that work will be. You just have to say, “Here I am, send me.” I meet with students frequently who are trying to figure out what God might be calling them to do with their lives: do I marry, do I become a priest, do I enter religious life? The key to vocational discernment is not to try to figure out on our own exactly what God wants us to do. We don’t need to do that. Your life’s purpose is not a puzzle to be solved. Jesus tells us what he wants us to do — love one another as I have loved you. Start by doing that, and see where it leads.
The key to vocational discernment is simply to put yourself at the service of God every day: to be faithful to the commandments, and to say every day to God, “Here I am. What do you want me to do today, Lord?” And then trust that when it comes to your life and its purpose, God knows exactly what he’s about, and the same God who gave you your gifts, talents, limitations and weaknesses, also knows how best to use them in the service of his kingdom.
Put yourself at God’s disposal. If you are open to saying yes to God and trust in God to guide you along the way, whether that means entering the seminary, exploring consecrated religious life, joining the choir or volunteering at the food pantry, I can’t tell you where that path will lead. We all have different roles to play in building up the Church. But I can tell you that if you practice saying yes to God, then he will lead you exactly where wants you to be, and ultimately that will be the road that will lead you to heaven — and you’ll be helping others get there along the way. That is the mission of the Church, and we all have a part to play in it.