Vocation: Who Calls Whom?

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 By Brother Gregory

 

“What would you like to be when you grow up?” I often heard this question when I was a child. I had no idea how to answer, being a little child, and I would shout out, “a teacher!” In grade school my role models were many teachers, and on Sundays my role models were priests and nuns in full habits. Other role models in my early childhood were police officers, firemen, Post Office workers, and more. These were the professions that my neighbors practiced when I was growing up. Then came high school graduation, and I had to decide where I was going. I went to college expecting to become a teacher, but the word got around that there were too many teachers, and I decided to change my major to sociology. After graduation in 1974, I entered the world of social work, and that was a good choice because all my role models had been people who helped others as teachers, police officers, firemen, Post Office workers, and more.

 

Going to the local Catholic parish was a major part of family life. The parish priests made another impact on my life, and they also provided for me that important role model of being of service to others. So here I am, a monk of New Skete. How did I get to where I am now? Did I choose to become a monk, or did God choose me for this life through others and their examples to me? Years after I had become an adult, someone told me that I was programmed to become a monk. But now, I wonder whether this was true. Looking back, I think that God was choosing me to be whom I am today as a monk through others who played such an important role in my life.

 

My biggest role models in my life were my mother and father. Both are deceased now. They came together in love and sacrificed themselves to build a family. They did not know the future, but they moved forward as their parents had done as role models before them. They were called by God to be a mother and father to four children, building a home filled with love and the smell of Italian cooking and Phillies Perfecto cigars.

 

What is your vocation, and who is calling you?

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