It’s about saying yes to God
One of the topics during our 2024 summer program challenged the current socially promoted idea that we create ourselves and our futures. Several members of the community, including Steve, gave talks on this theme.
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I meet people these days who are kind of sitting down and hoping for God to tell them what to do. They say: “I’m discerning my vocation and God is going to tell me what it is. And until that happens, I’m just going to go to a number of discernment programs.”
But we don’t live “outside of God” until, eventually, we ask him, What do you want me to do? The Lord is with us all our life, and the direction in which he is leading us sometimes starts very early in our childhood.
I didn’t really grow up Christian, though I was baptized Catholic. I didn’t really practice my faith until my teenage years. My story could be called a life outside of what we call the life of grace, the life of God. But God doesn’t waste anything. He uses all the events of our lives and transforms them, starting from when we were very young.
Little children have an incredible capacity for the inner life. Even as children, we are all on a path to God, and he gives us little seeds or glimpses as our “vocation” is getting worked out in us. And if they don’t give a practical direction to our lives, they do give a direction to our inner life in some way.
Here are a couple of those little seeds in my life. I was maybe ten years old and not exactly practicing my faith, but I had a real sense of God in my heart and a sense of life with him on some level.
One day, I watched a TV documentary about people living on the street. There was this particular fellow who was drinking Lysol. We know that people on the street get their fix wherever they can. So this guy was drinking Lysol, and they were talking about all the ill effects of it. And I could see this man was really broken, broken, broken.
And in my little child’s heart, I prayed for him, a little prayer. I said, “Lord, let me take this man’s place in hell and bring him to you.” And now, as I think about it, this is what Christ did for us. He suffered in our place and he brought us to his Father. Of course, I wasn’t really asking God to send me to hell, but I didn’t know what I was asking. It just came out.
So I already had a seed of compassion or a desire to live a life given to others or for others.
Another one of those seeds was that, about age sixteen or seventeen, I started going to prayer groups. It was part of the strong wind of the charismatic renewal. Many of my friends were new to the faith as well, and we were thrilled with this new thing. Wow! People were prophesying and praying over others, and people were falling down and resting in the Spirit. This was really cool; God is powerful, amazing!
But inside of me something said, “I come to this prayer night, and all these wonderful things happen, and I go back home and it’s just regular life all over again. Is this what the Christian life is? Just to prophesy and slay people in the Spirit?”
We were all young: “Wow, you’ve been converted for how long?” “Three months.” “That’s amazing.” “Well, I’ve been in this for two years.” “Two years?”
The Christian life is a lifelong thing, right? And you don’t measure progress like you would, say for a woodcarver who, after 25 years really knows his craft. There we were, thinking that after three months of saying yes to God, we were like saints.
There was some sort of competition amongst this little group. To me, it became a kind of game, some sort of status-seeking. I’m not saying that the prayer groups I was going to were a gimmick, but the spirit I was nurturing there was really a spirit of self-seeking.
This status-seeking thing can creep in anywhere. Am I a good member of Madonna House or a bad member of Madonna House? What makes a good member or a bad member? God knows. We all have our own criteria, often some sort of illusion coming from our expectations. Well, if I were a good staff member, this is how I would look right now. This is how I would live.
Then you branch out into the wider church. Are you a good Catholic, a bad Catholic? Good Catholics do this; bad Catholics do that. And we’re always pointing fingers and looking at each other and saying, who’s doing better at it? And for me, that became really wearisome.
Meanwhile, Christ walks in the crowd to comfort the sick, to heal the wounded, to offer compassion. And that’s the Christ who spoke to me.
I found myself crying out to God. I said, “Lord, is this what life is? And is there anywhere in the world where I can just love you as a human being, a simple human being, give you my whole life and love you simply, without having to be a doctor of theology, without knowing all the ins and outs of the spiritual life?” This is fine for some people, but it certainly wasn’t for me.
The thing that most moved my heart and gave me life in reading the Gospels was to see Christ carrying the cross, Christ giving his life for his enemies. There are many stories of miracles, but somehow Christ giving his life and offering himself was what touched my heart and my soul.
What I wanted was just to love God in an ordinary way as probably 80% of humanity has to do. People have to struggle in life. They have to wake up in the morning and put bread on the table. And does that exclude them from the kingdom of God? Do you have to be a professional liturgist to be in God’s kingdom? These were deep questions for me.
I was studying computer science in college in Quebec, a three-year program, and planned to go to university for computer engineering, because there was a future in it. There was money to be made.
When I was younger, someone had told me I needed to find a life for myself to survive in the world. So I thought, “Wow, this is opening up, and I’m going to be successful, and I’ll have it made.”
Is this what the Christian life means, “to have it made?” I don’t think so. It seems that the less you’re “made,” the better Christian you can be.
I was good at my studies and I loved them. But I found that although I was scoring very high marks, there was something missing in my heart, because I was totally obsessed with my work, with being successful in whatever I was doing. That was the only thing that mattered.
I’d be going around with my friends, we’d be going to pubs and whatever, I’d be drinking and dancing. But I wasn’t really there; I was still working on my computer program.
I thought, this is what I have to do for a living, and so I’m just going to stick it out. I’m gonna keep at it. It was deeply unsatisfying but fun at the same time, like an ambivalent relationship.
Then one of my cousins suggested I apply for a bursary to study English. I’m from Quebec, and I grew up in a separatist Quebec; we’re proud of our heritage and language. So I thought, “Who needs English?” But then I saw this pamphlet about English studies being paid for by the government, so I sent my application in, and was accepted.
I had just finished my three-year program. I went to study English for six weeks in St. Catherines, Ontario. Maybe it was just that I was away from home, but I said, “English is really fun. I think I can speak it someday. I’m really interested in it, and I’m going to stop computers.”
Whatever had happened in my heart, I knew that I had to stop computers. I cancelled my university application and I wanted to come back to Ontario for a year.
I wanted to be married, too. I spent maybe five years struggling with the idea of being a priest, and I felt guilty having a girlfriend, because I might just have to break up with her someday if God was calling me to the priesthood. It was a real agony.
At some point, I said, I’m tired of the whole discernment process thing. I’m just going to get married, have a big family, and live on a farm. This was my dream thirty years ago.
I remembered that somebody had talked to me about Madonna House when I was sixteen or seventeen. I had said in my heart that someday I would go there, but of course I had forgotten all about it.
I wrote to Madonna House, saying I wanted to spend one year there to learn English and get ready for marriage. I thought living in a community for a year would be a good way to get ready for marriage.
When I came to Madonna House, we used to stay week by week. Every week I would go to the registrar and say, “Can I be here another week?” Eventually he said, “You know what? You can just stay here.” I was sent to live at the farm. I was in the bush crew for a bit and on animal care. I lived at the farm for almost two years.
I thought about the world, which is in a mess now just as it was thirty years ago, as it was eighty years ago. I prayed to the Lord, asking, “What can I do to make the world a better place?” And in my heart I heard, “Give me your life.” After eight months at Madonna House, it became clear that God was inviting me to give him my life.
I didn’t know what that would mean. It could have been anywhere in the world, in any kind of shape or form, but to me it was clear that God meant: “Give me your career, give me your wife, give me your children, give me your dreams. Lay it all at my feet. Just throw yourself there and give it to me.” And I said yes to that.
I still have to do this every day. Some days I do it better than others. Some days I just want my life back, whatever my “life” is. My life is Christ, but sometimes I want other things. But then I hear: “Can you give that to me, too?” So I try to say yes as best I can.
I decided, I’m going to sink my teeth into this life and try to live it as best I can. I became an applicant, hoping I would come back to the farm right after promises. I thought, this is the life I’ve been dreaming of; I’m not on a homestead with my wife and kids, but here’s a farm. This is what I wanted. But it took thirty-five years for me to come back to the farm.
Our life is not about climbing the ladder. It’s not about status. It’s about doing God’s will. It’s about saying yes to God, to whatever he’s asking. And throughout those thirty-five years, I was called to work in this department, that department, in this field house, that field house, Brazil, seven years in Edmonton, and now I’m back here in Combermere.
Some of my assignments were really challenging, and these challenges formed my heart. I could have said, “You know what? This is too much. I’m bailing out.” But I got the grace to say yes and persevere.
Perseverance goes a long way, because God is faithful. If I learn to trust him more than myself, more than what I want, I can let life carry me. I have to be like a leaf in the wind. In my heart, there is a little sense of direction, but, in the end, I’m not really in control.
Why do our guests come here? Our Lady lets them come because there’s something for them here. A lot happens in your heart while you’re here, all the struggles, the yes’s and no’s, the rebellion, …this is awesome, this is terrible.
We spend a lot of time judging the world from outside, like evaluators and critics. We can spend our whole lives doing this.
You work somewhere for three weeks, it becomes a little tough, I’m out of here. You work somewhere for two years, it becomes a little tough, uncomfortable, I’m out of here. You’re married, it becomes a little tough, I’m out of here.
What about the call that God is giving to our hearts in these struggles? “God, I find this really tough.” This is different from saying, “It’s tough for me; I’m out of here.” Why leave when God is saying, “Come, and let me form you in this situation and let us live it together?” I won’t become an icon of Christ by doing only what I like.
Go to him and say, “Here’s my list of accomplishments and ambitions, God Almighty, who created the billions of stars. What do you think of it?” He might just say, “I love you. Your little list doesn’t mean much to me, but I love you. Why don’t you just throw your list out, dive into my heart and let me take over?”
