‘The call that sets me free!’

(Reflecting on newness of life Christ brings into me)

FRESH OUT of college, I had just started to work. I remember vividly the day I picked up my first pay cheque. I started to plan all the clothes and shoes I would buy, and all the parties I would attend. Little did I know what God had in store for me. Two questions surged within me. Isn’t life more than material things? What about the call Christ placed within you: isn’t it a call to be different? As I opened my Bible to the call of Samuel, I was convinced of the call to a new life, to a new beginning!

The call to priesthood is a call to leave all the attractions of the world that would pull one away from Christ. It is a call to a deeper and lifelong relationship

with the Saviour. It is a call to a total surrender of self, knowing that God will fill that gap. I say ‘gap’ because it is only human, as a young person, to feel the need to fit in; it is only human to want to ‘shell down the party’. Thanks be to God, along with the call, God sketched Matthew 6:26-29 on my heart, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to

you.” What a sense of freedom God gives to the soul when we fully seek His Kingdom! Having gone seven years of formation for the sacred ministry, I implore young people to consider opening themselves to God working in their life. Do not be too attached to the things of the world. Instead, taste the experience of new life that Jesus brings to you as you say yes to the call, be it priesthood or religious life.