Memorial of Saint Josaphat, bishop and martyr

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111211.cfm

Sand dunes

... they ranged about like horses,
and bounded about like lambs,
praising you, O Lord! their deliverer. (Wisdom 19:9)

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. (Luke 18:7-8a)

God chose me as a Catholic, Franciscan and priest a long time ago, but it has taken me almost as a long a time to understand that. I accepted being Catholic as a given early on. I pursued a vocation as Franciscan almost by accident when I entered the Franciscan seminary. It was close to home and it had a lake for swimming and fishing. What more does a boy need? 

Upon entering the seminary I learned I should discern if God was giving me a vocation to the priesthood. These technical words did not describe the challenges and trials I survived. I thought of myself more like a drafted cipher than a favored son. I hoped what I had to offer –talent, intelligence, energy – would meet the minimal requirements.

Perhaps it takes a lifetime to notice that my initiatives were only in response to God’s. My courage, generosity and sacrifices were only half-hearted answers to the invitations God shouted at me with such eager enthusiasm.  During the darkest hours and most idiotic adventures I did not feel God’s hand on my shoulder. I was too absorbed in what I thought, wanted and needed to notice how doors, gates, roads and highways opened before me.

It is only on reflection in the later years that I see how God secured the rights of his chosen one through three different nations and a dozen assignments. If I cannot range about like a horse or bound like a lamb, I can be grateful for the green pasture in which I live, and praise God, my deliverer.