One Call: Two Responses

By Reverend J. Ronald Knott

"When he called James and John, they dropped everything immediately and followed him."

I got my "call" when I was about six years old. No, God did not speak to me from the clouds. Mary did not appear to me in church. But something happened that I have never forgotten. Since I lived in the country where there were no barber shops, an elderly man up the road cut my hair. One day one of his nephews who had recently been ordained came for a visit. I just happened to be there for a haircut. The new priest paid no attention to me, and I don't even remember talking to him that day. At some point, he took off his Roman collar and coat and laid it on one of the beds. I don't know what possessed me, but I sneaked into the bedroom, held the collar up to my neck and looked at myself in the mirror. Not knowing what got into me, I put it down like a hot potato as if I had broken every religious taboo in the Catholic church. I never forgot it.

Throughout grade school, I did not dwell on the idea of being a priest, but it was always there in the back of my mind. When it came time to go to high school in 1958, I found out that the church would accept young men to start their seminary training out of the eighth grade. Against the advice of everybody who knew me, from pastor to parents, I left home at thirteen years of age to begin a twelve-year program to become a priest. It was very hard, an uphill battle most of the way, but I never looked back. I have never been through an identity crisis and, even today, I would not trade with anybody. I love doing what priests do. I hope to finish my life as a priest.

Even though going to seminary at age thirteen is no longer allowed these days for many, many good reasons, I can say that it was certainly good for me. Young men today are encouraged to attend college first, even though there are few college seminaries. Unlike my own experience, most seminarians today are second-career vocations. In their thirties or forties, they took their time, checked out a few things, sowed their wild oats, and explored a profession before answering their calls to priesthood. There are lawyers, doctors, teachers, carpenters, social workers and many other professions studying to be priests these days. Most of them say the same thing: "I knew it all along, but I did not act on it. I ran from it. I was afraid."

Today we have two other vocation paths that are similar to the two paths I just talked about. God called Jonah to be a great preacher to the city of Nineveh. Jonah didn't want to be a preacher, in Nineveh or anywhere else, so he ran. He got on the first boat out of town heading in the opposite direction. He ended up being thrown overboard in a storm and swallowed by a whale. Guess where that whale spat him out? Right there on the beach in front of Nineveh. When God calls, he doesn't give up easily.

In the gospel Jesus notices four fishermen, two sets of brothers, fishing. He calls them to follow him, to become his disciples. We are told they immediately dropped their nets, two of them even their father, and followed him. Unlike the resistant and foot-dragging response of Jonah, these guys are decisive and passionate.

Different people respond differently to God's call. Abraham and Sarah were old, one foot in the grave as the scriptures put it, when they were called to be the father and mother of God's people. Sarah was even caught snickering in her tent about it. Moses, who had some sort of speech impediment, tried to beg off when God called him to lead his people out of slavery. Because of his youth, David wasn't even called in from the fields for the selection process, yet God chose him over all his older and wiser brothers.

Isaiah tried to beg off because he had a foul mouth, but God chose him to be a prophet anyway, after washing his mouth out with a hot coal until it was clean. Jeremiah also tried to beg off, using the excuse that he was too young and pathetic at public speaking. God chose him anyway. Mary was barely a teenager when God called her. Paul was a fanatic Christian basher, but God called him to make a 360-degree turn and convert thousands to the Christian way of life.

Sts. Francis of Assisi and Augustine of Hippo were playboys of the worst kind. St. Dominic's nickname was "dumb ox," and he was so fat that they had to cut out part of the table so that he could reach his plate. He became one of the church's most brilliant theologians. Elizabeth Ann Seton was a married Episcopalian when God called her to convert to Catholicism, become a nun on the death of her husband, start schools, orphanages and hospitals all over the eastern coast of the United States and, finally, become one of a handful of American saints.

These men and women join a long list, not only of very ordinary people, but also a long list of misfits, adulterers, losers, weaklings, incompetents, thieves and idiots that God has called to important work.

You are also called to called to carry on some part of Christ's ministry to the world. Yes, you! God has a special job for you to do in your life that no one else can do. You cannot use the excuses that you are too young or too old, too unworthy or too short on talent. One of the most regular themes in scripture is this: God does not use the world's standards for choosing those he calls. No, he "chooses the weak and makes them strong in bearing witness to him." Even Jesus himself was the "stone that the builders rejected that became the most important stone, the cornerstone."

As you listen for your call, a call that is revealed to you in your heart of hearts, know this: If God calls, God will see that you will have what you need to do what he calls you to do, and if you do it, you will know an inner peace that you could not have imagined! The happiest and richest people in the world are those who are doing what God has called them to do. The happiest and richest people in the world are those who follow their passion. As the title of one book about discovering your true vocation puts it, "Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow."

I often smile at people who talk about all that they would have to give up by becoming a priest. The truth of the matter is, what I have given up is nothing compared to what I have gained. Even after a very rough year last year, I still wouldn't trade my life with anyone I know. I would do it again. I have many friends. I have freedom. I have all I need. I am fundamentally very happy. I hope the same for you, whatever that call may be! When it comes to calls, it is well worth trying to find out what your call is. You happiness, I believe, depends on it. Don't look for ease or money or fame. Look to what gives you life; follow your bliss; get into something you have passion for. Whatever that is, that is your vocation, not matter how unlikely it might sound to you or how unlikely you may think it is that you would fit!