Catholic Business Exchange, October 19, 2012 – God is calling you to something special. You may be on the path already!

Below is the text of presentation on October 19, 2012 to the Catholic Business Exchange. A video is also available.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today.  The topic of today’s discussion is “God is calling you to something special.  You may be on the path already!”  This is a story about the path that led me to the Diaconate.  This is not the story about how to become a Deacon, but about how God can work in your life, and prepare you for who he has called you to be.  Sometimes it’s without you knowing what He has in store for you.  The key element to determine what He has in store is keeping the Faith and taking time out to listen Him.  Sometimes we are too busy with our own plans and don’t really bother to ask God what he wants us to do. 

Last week we started the year of Faith as called for by Benedict XVI.  One of the primary messages to the Catholic faithful of Vatican II was the Universal Call to Holiness.  What comes to mind when you think of someone who is holy?    Do you think of someone who is on their knees praying all the time, always at Church, or tirelessly serving the poor?  These may be signs of someone who is holy, but it depends on if God is calling them to these activities.

Holiness is becoming the person that God wants you to be.  It’s not just for someone who is an ordained minister or a professed religious.   It’s for all vocations in life: Married, Single, Religious, And Ordained.   It’s also for all types of occupations, be it homemaker, businessperson, janitor, teacher, priest, corporate executive, scientist, food service worker and many others.  It’s also for those who may need our care, those who have disabilities and illnesses.  God makes each one of us unique with our own special purpose.   He also calls each one of us to a unique role in life and to use the special talents that he has given us.   The call to Holiness is to become what Matthew Kelly calls becoming the best-version-of-yourself.  How many people hear have heard of Matthew Kelly and read his book, Rediscovering Catholicism?  If you have not read it I would strongly encourage you to do so, especially during this Year of Faith

Now I’d like to share with you some background about myself and the path that led me to listen to God’s call to the diaconate.  If someone were to ask me 30 years ago if I was going to get up in front of a church full of people and preaching about my faith Jesus or even speaking to a group like this I would have told you were crazy.    But God led me to a path that brought me to this point.

I am a cradle Catholic, went to public schools, attended CCD and received all my sacraments at St. Mary’s Church in Griffith. My Mom usually took us to Sunday Mass on a weekly basis.  Growing up I spent a lot of time on the golf course as a kid as my dad was golf pro at a local public golf course.  I became a pretty good golfer, played a lot of junior golf tournaments, and also worked at the golf course starting at about age 12 till until I got married. If you ever saw Caddy Shack that was a lot like many of my early years.   You’d be amazed at how real some of those characters in the movie were.

  

Upon entering high school I strayed a bit, getting mixed up with the wrong crowd.  Thankfully the Lord brought my high school sweetheart, Linda, into life during my junior year of High School, which brought me back in line.  If she had not come into my life at I probably would have ended up being one of the persons in jail that the Deacons would be visiting!

I played golf in high school, and college, and had ambitions of being professional golfer. As the relationship with Linda got more serious my priorities eventually changed and was focused on getting through school and landing a decent job so we could get married and have a family.  God had planted the seed of marriage and family in my heart and following the Holy Spirit’s guidance I was called to propose to Linda early during my first year in college. My wife and I were married in the Church between my junior & senior year in college.  A year later I landed my first job as an engineer in Evansville, IN.

We had our first child, Nicole, and shortly thereafter I decided to take another job move in a different part of the country.  My wife and I were young adventurous.  I found a job in South Carolina working as an engineer for Michelin Tire Corporation, and we had our second child, Katie.   There were not very many Catholics in South Carolina, but we fortunate to live in a community that had two Catholic parishes.  We of course joined the new parish, which celebrated Mass in the basement of the rectory or borrow spaced in the Chapel at the local Methodist College.  We did not have any family in the area so we relied on friends at our parish to help quite bit to help with our young children. I began becoming a bit dissatisfied with my engineering job at the time and was beginning to search for something different to do career wise.   There was a local campus of USC that offered some career counseling. This pointed me in the direction of higher education or healthcare in a helping people use technology or possibly teaching. Teaching somewhat appealed to me but I had a great fear of public speaking. To help get some teaching experience I found a part time job as a teaching assistant at USC, which was more working one on one with students.

A few years after moving to SC my wife’s mother suffered some illnesses and we decided to move back to Indiana to be closer to family.   I targeted a job search in Indianapolis as I had heard good things about the area and it brought me closer to home.   I eventually landed a job at IUPUI working in IT support services.   I really enjoyed working with people helping bridge the gap between information technology and people.  I was good at working one on one with people, and one of the campus staff training instructors noticed this.  She asked to teach a class an upcoming class on computer networks and I told her she was off her rocker.    I was completely terrified, but she had confidence I could do it.  She had so much confidence in that she helped me develop the course and allowed me to teach it one on one to her to help get me over my jitters.  This was a great help to me getting over my public speaking fears.  It eventually led me to teaching the computer-networking course on a regular basis to outside businesses through IUPUI continuing education. 

I began to get the career change bug again and it led me to more searching and led me to look into sales.  This was the time that the Internet was just taking off (Al Gore just got finished inventing it).   I happened to be working on a project integrating Apple and Windows computers to access libraries all over the world using the Internet.  Apple turned out way easier to do this so I wound up working for them as a Sales engineer.  This gave me further exposure to speaking in front of people first small groups, and later to larger audiences. I eventually moved into being a sales representative because the money was better. I really enjoyed working for Apple, as it was technology that I really believed was helping people.  This was a time that Apple was struggling and people even talked about them going out of business.  With a young family I had to look elsewhere and moved into sales for computer networking companies.  This is when things were really taking off with Internet.  It was a wild ride while it lasted and but then the dot.com crash happened. The pressure at work was really heated up because sales were way down and it was getting very stressful.   At the same time the Lord blessed us with our third child, my son Ryan.  This was a real joy for my wife and I, but the stress from work really distracted me from the gift of my family.   On top of this my Father was diagnosed with colon Cancer, and shortly thereafter my Father-in-law had a stroke.   Then September 11, 2001 hit and it really caused me to ask questions about whether I was really on the path that God was calling me.    I had really put my work up as the top priority in my life and it was consuming me.   God was still in the picture as my family and I were still attending Mass on a regular basis, but I was mainly there out of Sunday obligation, and was not really engaged.  I felt so much pressure from my work that I felt the only time of peace I had was about 10 minutes a week when I was at Mass with my family. 

I really felt that I needed a change.  This is when I really needed Jesus.

Matthew 11: 28-30 “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,^* and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

Shortly after this time I was invited to attend a Christ Renews His Parish – I had been invited several times, but turned down because I was too busy.    It was the best thing I ever did.

CRHP really helped me reprioritized by life.   Previously work was the god that everything centered around; family, friends, personal interests, and God were secondary. God now was at the center of my life.

Wow.  I really got my life in order!  

Three months later I was unemployed.  This was somewhat of my own doing.  The money good, but my heart was not in it.  I felt God calling me to something else. I had my review with boss and knew he was coming down on me hard for lack of sales.  Filled with the Holy Spirit I told him I needed to leave.  I was prepared financially to do this on my own, but was surprised that an exit package was provided.  This gave me the opportunity to start up business.

Very shortly after that my Father in law became very ill.  The flexibility of not having the full time job gave my wife and I the ability to take care of the needs of her father.  This was another blessing.  Prior to this I was very uncomfortable visiting people who were ill and in hospitals and nursing homes.  This experience made me more comfortable in these situations.

During this time I was also in a year of formation for CRHP.  It’s normally 6 months, but we were slow learners.  I started reading Scripture daily at this time from the Bible giving to me CRHP & attending a daily Mass on occasion.  One day I was at Mass at OLG and a lady I did not know gave me Magnificat, which has the daily readings, and MP & EP.  I was also introduced to Rosary, and Catholic literature – Pierced by a sword.  I started to develop a deep personal relationship with Jesus, a mature adult faith relationship, where I took ownership in my faith.   I wanted to learn more and know more.

I also developed a strong Marian devotion and started to pray the Rosary daily.  Soon after did a Marian Consecration.  During Lent over this time I dedicated myself to attending daily Mass once a week and attending all holy week Masses.  These Lenten activities eventually led to the habit of attending daily Mass.

I also started to attend Eucharist adoration on a weekly basis, one hour per week.   Sometimes more.   Spending quite time with Jesus.  Just being.  Just listening. We have so much noise in our lives.  Always doing.  TV on.  Radio on. Talking to others.  No time to be quiet and listen to where God is calling.  My life became more peaceful.

Our Lives change when our habits change

During CRHP retreat presentation I first learned about diaconate through Ron Reimer will on Emmaus walk. Ron told me he was applying to the diaconate. I did not know how to spell deacon at the time or what they did, but I told him I was happy that he was doing this. 

This experience got me first thinking about diaconate

I started listening to Catholic Radio, CD’s, and podcasts while driving between sales calls.

I ran across a program on Catholic Radio about Vatican II’s call to holiness for all the faithful – who God wants me to be.  The program emphasized we all should be on path to holiness and recommended develop your spiritual life by going to spiritual direction and   Monthly confession.  I went to my pastor, Fr. Vince as a Spiritual director and told him I was being called to diaconate. 

A major factor in confirming the call to diaconate ministry came though another Catholic Radio program.  It was a deacon talking about his ministry.  He explained his ministry was being out in the world at work, with family, friends, recreating, and in service to the community.  Many of the people encountered would be those who would never come to a church or do not know who Jesus was. I saw my experience in sales and meeting so many people where I was already actively preparing for ministry.

My wife, Linda, was very supportive, though this process.  She went through CRHP as well, mainly to find out if it was a cult and why it changed her husband so much.  She went in very skeptical came out pleasantly surprise.  She also developed a strong devotion to Mary & Marian consecration, and developed a love for Adoration and Quiet prayer.   We would quite often do our morning prayer together.  

Linda’s Father passed on shortly after CRHP.  Through this experience she felt a calling to volunteer in Bereavement ministry at parish, helping those going through dying process, support during funeral, and support afterward.

Following this I attended the Deacon inquiry information sessions over the next year throughout the dioceses and started discerning if this ministry is what I was called to.

This eventually led me after a lot of prayer, discernment, and discussion with spiritual director and with my wife to apply for the diaconate.

In reflecting on my path leading up to this point I really discovered that God had led me to opportunities in my life that was preparing me for the diaconate.   I just didn’t realize it.  

He first led me to the relationship with my wife and the vocation of marriage, being a husband.  He then gave me the blessings of three loving children and being a father and taught me how to love unconditional.

He then led me to serving people through my experience in work experience.  This led me to get experience working with many different people and situations and also to become comfortable with public speaking. 

He also led me to a point where I realized that I needed him to be first in my life and to come back and put him front and center.   This came out of time when I was feeling stress and frustration, but it led me back to what I needed to have consistently in my life: prayer, a relationship with Jesus, and a strong Catholic faith. Archbishop Tobin told us yesterday at the press conference that, “Faith is having the capacity to be surprised by God”.  By trusting in our gift of faith it will lead us to where God is calling us.   May you be surprised to where he is calling you!

I’d like to close with a prayer by Thomas Merton that was one of the favorites of Fr. Larry Volker, who was the Spiritual Director for the diaconate class, and passed away in 2010.   It’s a prayer that I find myself coming back to often on discerning the path God is calling me.  I hope you find it helpful for the path God is calling you, what ever it may be. 

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
© Abbey of Gethsemani