“I had thought about a vocation to the priesthood or religious life at times earlier in my life but by the time I entered college any serious thought about such a vocation had more or less faded. After college I struggled in the midst of a difficult economy and wasn’t sure which career path to pursue. It felt so important in that period to ‘find’ myself. Finding myself was, in hindsight, personally crucial in terms of heightening my self-esteem and in furthering my sense of coming into my own as an adult.
There was a Franciscan church near where I worked for a time in the financial district of Boston known as St. Anthony’s Shrine. It’s still there today. Sometimes I would try to catch a weekday Mass there on my lunch hour before returning to work. After going to one such Mass while praying for a few minutes afterward, I felt a tap on my shoulder from behind. It was one of the friars and he asked to speak with me in a side parlor. He introduced himself as Father Alexander Wyse. He had been ‘watching’ me for a while, he said, and wished to know if I had ever considered a religious vocation.
Fr. Alexander’s tap on my shoulder rekindled an interest I realized still lay within me. In the following years I discerned the possibility of a religious vocation while keeping in contact with Fr. Alexander. In this same period, I also made a move professionally into the promising fields of computer programming and eventually consulting.
Things improved for me financially, but driving to work one day I came to the conclusion that a nicer paycheck, a new car and other trappings of success I was enjoying were all in the end just for me. Was there perhaps something more to life? Was there a greater purpose or meaning that might be experienced by traveling another path? I realized then that I wanted to apply to the Franciscans. I wasn’t sure if I’d be accepted. I wasn’t sure that, if accepted, I would feel that that life was right for me or if those overseeing my training would feel I was a good fit for the friars. One thing I did know as I drove to work that morning was that I didn’t want to end up asking myself ten years later: What if I had tried applying to the Franciscans? How might life be different?
Vocations come in many forms and have a dynamic, rather than static, quality involving not just one but potentially many moments of discerning the Spirit’s call. May the Lord help you discover which path or paths may be for you.”
Submitted by Fr. John Leonard, O.F.M.