Fr. Michael Williams

– Vocations Sunday

Because it is vocations Sunday I thought I would share something of my own journey to the Priesthood with you today. When I was wondering what to say I went to look at this Sunday’s gospel for some inspiration. The sentence that struck me was the first one where Jesus says, “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me”. I suppose to respond to any vocation one would have to listen to Jesus. With so many distractions in the world today it’s not always easy to listen. But to understand what God is asking of each one of us, we need to listen to him. We can listen to God at Mass and in the scriptures, in other people, in our conscience, in the natural world, in all sorts of different ways. Someone once told me that the reason God gave us one tongue and two ears, is because God wants us to listen twice as much as we talk. The Lord wants us to listen more than talk.

For a good deal of my life I’d have to admit that I didn’t listen to the Lord. I didn’t even talk to him. I left school at the age of sixteen, got a job installing CCTV cameras and earned enough money to enjoy myself. I got into that culture of living for the weekend. Looking back on that time of my life now I can see that I had a few idols. Idolatry is described as giving undue honour and worship to something other than God (C.C.C.2113). I certainly did that. Rather than listening to God I listened to my own desires and whims. I listened to what I wanted to do, rather than what God wanted me to do.

So what brought me to be where I am today? Well I suppose I began to ask a few questions about my life. Ultimately what I was doing was not making me happy. I think I was not happy with my life, there must be something deeper, and there must be more to life than what I was doing, which was being selfish. I was not too bothered if I upset anyone along the way.

In the Acts of the Apostles we’ve just heard that “the word of the Lord spread through the whole countryside”. It was “the word of the Lord” that provided me with an escape route from the life-style I was pursuing. I’d been given a Gideon bible at school, which I kept, I’d never read it, but I’d kept it as some sort of memento from school. Well, I began to read it and I devoured it, for some reason it came to life for me. God was speaking to me through this tatty red book. God spoke to me in other ways too. For some reason I went to the art gallery in town, and I fell in love with some of the religious pictures there, or rather I fell in love with what these signs pointed to. One particular picture of the Virgin and child used to fascinate me.

All my mates thought I’d gone ‘gaga’ of course. And I had to distance myself from some of them, to get my head together as they say. But I can look back now and say that my life began to change direction. It didn’t happen overnight, more like years. It’s like trying to turn an oil tanker around in the ocean, turning our lives around is a similarly long and arduous process. It can be painful to, but it’s necessary. ‘No pain, no gain’.

Part of that change in direction was that for one reason or another I’d stopped installing CCTV cameras in Sainsbury stores up and down the country, and I returned to education. I ended going to York to study History, graduated and returned to Liverpool. It was on my return to Liverpool that I began to seriously consider the priesthood. I began praying a lot more and going to daily Mass when I could and getting involved in the parish.

The disciples in the early Church “were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit”. I had often looked for joy in illusory things, but they never fulfilled me. St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God”. Only God can give the deep peace and joy that we are all yearning for. Whatever our vocation may be, God has to be the bedrock of it. I think that means we have to be people of prayer. Only prayer leads us to “springs of living water”. Prayer refreshes us and allows us to listen to God’s designs for us as individuals and as a community. Without prayer we are left floundering. It was only when I began to pray that that I learnt what God wanted of me.

Pope Benedict has asked that we pray for vocations this weekend. Through prayer we will be able to listen to the Lord of the Harvest. I’m convinced it was other people’s prayers that helped me to start getting ‘tuned in’ to God. Maybe people whom I will never even meet in this life. We can pray, for both ourselves and for others in helping getting ‘tuned in’ to God, to find out what God is asking of us as baptised Christians. Prayer alone will help unearth the vocations that God is asking from people. So please make a commitment to pray for vocations to the priesthood, religious life, lay apostolate. Your prayers may just help someone ‘tune in’ to God and help them respond to God’s call. I’ve left some prayer cards for you to take for this purpose.