Power in Silence
(This article originally appeared in the Belen Jesuit Magazine, summer 2019 edition.)
“How do I know if I’m called to be a priest?” I was in the ninth grade and we had just listened to a talk on the priesthood; part of the annual vocation day schedule. I had never thought about the priesthood, now I wondered how one received the call. Did I have it? How could I tell if I did? My attempts to answer these questions met with little success, so I pushed them aside, quickly forgetting about the whole thing. Thankfully, it would not be the last time they arose in my life.
When I graduated from Belen in 1993, I thought I knew my path in life. I was on my way to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to study aerospace engineering in hopes of one day working in the space industry. Five years later, I graduated with my degree and, by the end of that year, was hired by Telespazio, a partner of Iridium and their new satellite cell phone. It was all very exciting! However, before my contract was up, Iridium filed for bankruptcy. So, in 2000, I began a new job at Lockheed-Martin. Exteriorly, my life was good; I had a small apartment in North Virginia, a satisfying job that paid well, loving family members and friends, and even a fervent parish run by faithful priests. Interiorly, on the other hand, I was not doing too well.
In the spiritual life, if you are not moving forward, you are going backwards; there is no standing still. When I left Belen, I left a world animated by the Catholic faith and entered the world of Secularism. Although I continued to go to Mass on Sundays and to pray a little each day, I was quietly living two conflicting lives, trying to get the best of both worlds: the spiritual and the secular. I had become like many others who try to walk a fine line between pleasing God and the World, ignoring the words of Scripture that “whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (Jas 4:4) There was little joy in such a life, for I was turning down pleasures of the world out of fear of offending God and losing the happiness of an intimate friendship with Him by running after worldly pleasures. Thank God, this state of affairs did not last long.
I will never forget the day of my conversion. It was September 13, 2000, I was 25 years old and restless. No matter where I looked, nothing seemed to satisfy me. On that day, I came face to face with my misery; I felt despicable in my eyes and the eyes of God. I will not go into details, only to say that, at that point, I felt I had lost God’s friendship; never did I feel more alone. Yet His grace was working in me and gently leading me back to His Fatherly embrace. I hurried to confession and poured out my heart, leaving the confessional with a deep peace and the joy – never more felt – of knowing I was forgiven. That night, I drove home from church crying tears of happiness. Then and there I promised God that I would do things His way from now on, resolving to change my life for the better. It was not an easy resolution to keep, but God’s grace was there for me, especially in the sacrament of confession. Before the year was up, my life would change more drastically.
That December, I was reading Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Story Mountain, which tells of his life as a Trappist monk. When I got to the part describing life in the monastery, my heart cried out, “YES! That’s the life for me!” It took me completely by surprise! Fear then came over me at the thought of abandoning my dreams of marriage and family life. Yet, I could not go back on my promise to God; if this was where He was leading me, I had to follow. So, for months I prayed, researched, and contacted monasteries and religious orders, hoping to discover whether I had a vocation. By Divine Providence, I heard about Most Holy Trinity Monastery while on retreat at a Jesuit house in Maryland. Having been raised in the Maronite Catholic Church, one of the Eastern Rites in union with Rome, this monastery caught my eye. That it was also contemplative and centered on Eucharistic Adoration, urged me to find out more.
I visited the monastery in Petersham, Massachusetts for the first time in May of 2001. Any hope that either an angel or the abbot would reveal if I was called to join quickly disappeared before the end of my retreat. If I have learned one thing about discerning a vocation, it is that nobody can discern your vocation for you; you have to do it yourself. True, God gives signs that help – attraction being one of them – but it is rare that He gives a soul a 100 percent certainty of its calling. Yet, as I left the monastery’s silence and made my way back to Virginia, I felt a growing longing to return. This longing became a deeper desire to join and, two years later, having paid off my student loans, I said goodbye to everything that was dear to me and plunged into monastic life. Nonetheless, the question whether I was called to the priesthood continued to follow me.
I entered the monastery thinking I would stay a brother. After all, both priests and brothers live nearly identical, cloistered lives dedicated to Eucharistic Adoration, the only discernable difference being the dispensing of the Sacraments. Later, an article in the Rule opened my eyes to the deeper reality of the monastic priesthood, saying that, “Priesthood is primarily a configuration to and union with Jesus Christ, the one Priest and Mediator, who offered Himself in obedience to the Father as a victim for the life of the world.” In other words, the priesthood adds a new dimension to the apostolate of prayer and reparation, so necessary for our world today.
Since the question of priesthood kept coming up, I decided to take some time to discern God’s will. I soon learned that the first step to discernment is indifference, that is, being equally happy to do God’s will, whatever it may be. Until then, I had lacked this but now, as I let go of selfish fears and desires, I discovered the great beauty of the priesthood and, more amazing still, that God was indeed inviting me to share in it. It is hard to put into words how humbled and happy I felt when, after several months of discernment, I received my answer. Yet this paled in comparison to the graces poured out on the day of my ordination, October 27, 2013.
Once, a retreatant at our monastery asked me why I would leave a successful career as a rocket scientist with Lockheed-Martin and enter the silence of the monastery. Without any hesitation, I answered that it was because I wanted to go higher! All for the greater glory of God and the good of souls. Please pray for me.
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba, by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the school's property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit is situated on a 34-acre site in western Dade County, just minutes away from downtown Miami.