Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”
John 14:4
Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
My experience has taught me two essentials for relying on my faith in Jesus when I haven’t known the way; community and prayer. I went on a Cursillo weekend in October, 1992 where I experienced God’s love for me, in Jesus Christ, through the witness of a community of men who shared their walk with Christ. Afterwards, I joined one of their small faith sharing groups called A Group Reunion. We met every Saturday morning for breakfast where we shared our struggles and successes in living out our journey with Christ through prayer, study, and action.
Over years of this sharing and support, I became increasingly aware of not being fulfilled in what I was doing for a living. At the time, I was in retail management for a convenience store chain. I began to think and pray about what changes I wanted to make to be a better disciple of Christ. I had several great ideas of what I could do: get into HR, train other managers at my company to change the culture to be more Christian, I also explored opening my own business with a close friend. However, way in the back of my mind I had this inkling that Jesus might be calling me to something more radical, to give up everything, and enter the seminary. I didn’t bother to explore that one.
In January, 1997, I was a part of a team of men putting on a Cursillo weekend. On that weekend, the spiritual director’s talk was about discernment of God’s will in our lives and how we need to stop asking in prayer what we want to do and start asking God to show us what he wants us to do. It was as if he was speaking directly to me. I began that day to ask God to show me very clear signs of what he wanted me to do to follow Jesus as his disciple.
Within the next several weeks, all of my great ideas fell apart; the HR position dried up, I was demoted from training mangers to being a store manager, my friend and I found a wonderful location to open up a coffee house café but, at the last minute, the deal fell through. We lost five thousand dollars and I didn’t hear from my friend for two weeks. All of this would have devastated me, if it were not for my small group and my daily prayer for God to show me clear signs of what he wanted me to do.
One of the men of my small group asked me, “ok, what’s left?” The only thing left was the one thing I had discounted, to explore entering the seminary. The next day I called the same spiritual director from the Cursillo weekend and we subsequently met. I told him everything and when I got to the part about exploring the seminary he began shuffling through some papers and said, “Yep, there is a discernment experience down at the Seminary this weekend.” He made a phone call, wrote me a letter of referral and the positive signs began to guide me in the direction I would have never chosen on my own.
Through six years of seminary and nearly 19 years of priesthood, there have been many times I wasn’t sure which way to go. I continue to pray for God to show me clear signs of his will. Then, I rely on my faith and the faith of the community supporting me to see and follow those signs with courage and Easter joy. Although there are still good days and bad days, I can honestly say that I am fulfilled and secure in the fact that I’m where I’m supposed to be. Jesus has never failed me. My faith tells me Jesus will never fail you either.
