When I was in high school--that's the place where this dream that I had of
being a professional athlete, specifically a professional soccer
player, became a goal.
When I went to college and I was playing on one of the top programs in the
country, I'd befriended another coach who was
from Chile. He told me that he thought that I had
the ability to play in the South American style, that he could even open
the doors for me there because he knew the game there.
So he did when I graduated from college just two months later. I traveled for the
first time to Chile and had a tryout.
I had to earn my spot and I had to earn respect and I had to show that I
actually could play, which made it all the more worthwhile it made it all the
more worth it when I actually earned my starting job with the first division
team called Huachipato.
When I moved...a huge culture shock
--my friends changed, my family was no longer there
and here I am practicing for two hours a day
and sitting for 22 hours in my own
house.
I had a lot of downtime and a lot of time to think about where my life was
going and all these questions started to come and started crashing in my heart. I
started to ask: "Who am I?" "Why am I here?" "Why was I chosen to play here?" and "Do I
believe the things that I profess that I believe on a weekly basis?"
I was sitting in an ice-cold chapel in the middle of the Chilean winter, which
is a terrible rainy season and I just sat there before the tabernacle and I
remember it was one day that I was just truly praying for comfort.
I didn't feel a great level of comfort--I didn't feel "great"--and I went there to be
a professional athlete--to be great. My heroes were professional athletes.
I thought greatness was everything that I saw other professional athletes being,
and so seeing them excel at their sport--that was greatness to me, that's what it
was to be a great man, to be respected by others, to be known by others was to be
great. To make money was to be great. To have a beautiful woman by your side--
that's what it was to be great. I didn't feel that I was living greatness.
Mix that with a loneliness, and the culture shock... I was before the Blessed
Sacrament in this Chapel, knowing that Jesus was present there, and I was just
praying for comfort: "Lord bring comfort into my life,
bring me all the things that I believe to be great--make that happen for me." And
it was right there, in the silence of that chapel and in the silence of my
heart--the loudest voice that I have ever heard, that's never audibly spoken. At
that moment I heard: "Be my priest." And that shocked me like you wouldn't
believed because it wasn't anything that I was thinking about. I immediately
rejected that thought and that idea and it was not something that I was willing
to live and it wasn't something that I was willing to do for Him.
I continued to live my life as a professional athlete, and things actually
went very well for me.
I began to experience greatness in my definition on the field. I began to
experience greatness in every aspect of my life--I had a lot of friends, I was
becoming well-known, I had a great girlfriend, and even being named the best
player in my position in the league that year.
I remember sitting up in my bed at night, not being able to sleep and recognizing:
"I don't know that it can get any better than this" and right there--in a split
second--I recognized that I had nothing else planned for my life. I recognized
that there was maybe nothing greater that I could do... and it was at that very
moment this call to priesthood was heavily on my heart and I realized that
if God truly does have a plan for my life, then maybe it is priesthood--maybe
priesthood is what I'm really seeking to satisfy the longings of my heart and to
satisfy the lack of peace that I continue to have in the midst of the
greatest happiness that I've experienced as a human.
The church does need good men. It needs faithful men and it needs someone
to turn the tide--not that I'm the one to do that, but
good men who are faithful need to respond to the call of God in their life and to live out
whatever he has planned for us--and if we do that, then people are going to start
talking a different way about the Catholic Church, about Christianity, about
men in general, and our culture.
Nothing is better than fulfilling the role that God has chosen for you.
That is what we are created for, that moves what we are called to do, and truly
nothing will satisfy us unless we do that.