{"id":47,"date":"2010-07-15T16:09:10","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T16:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ipsinaction.com\/ips\/?p=47"},"modified":"2024-06-20T15:40:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:40:19","slug":"the-beauty-of-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/?p=47","title":{"rendered":"The Beauty of Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Chris P.<\/em><\/p>\n

In his essay Jesus in Galilee: Proclaiming the Reign of God<\/em>, Robert Ludwig details the role of parables in Jesus\u2019 proclamation of the kingdom of God.\u00a0 He makes it clear that Jesus\u2019 parables, whether in word or deed, \u201c\u2026are stories that shatter the deep structure of our accepted world, removing our defenses and making us vulnerable to God.\u00a0 It is only in such experiences that God can touch us, and it is only in such moments that God\u2019s reign truly takes hold\u00a0(Ludwig, p. 16).\u201d\u00a0 Parables call us to conversion, to transformation, whereby we come to see the kingdom of God before us.\u00a0 I must say that I feel I have been very blessed throughout my life, which can be a scary thought, so I have a hard time coming up with a \u201cshattering\u201d event.\u00a0 I guess the excitement is yet to come.\u00a0 There are two occasions though where the way I put the world came undone.\u00a0 The first happened as a sophomore in high school and the second as a college student preparing to enter religious life, both played a vital role in my understanding of God and in his call to the vocation which I know live.\u00a0 In this essay, I will focus on the experience during my sophomore.<\/p>\n

Brother Ted was a \u201cyoung\u201d Brother and this automatically made him cool.\u00a0 By the way, I had no idea what a Brother was until meeting the Brothers at my high school and even then it took a while to understand who they were and what exactly they did.\u00a0 Anyway, I do not remember my first impression of Br. Ted and do not even remember seeing him around my freshman year.\u00a0 It was during my sophomore year that Br. Ted really made an impression on me.<\/p>\n

As a sophomore, I was looking for my \u201cniche\u201d in high school.\u00a0 I had been very involved in activities and sports throughout middle school and so not to have done much my freshman year was a bit disappointing.\u00a0 Then I heard about a campus organization called Lasallian Youth.\u00a0 All I knew about it is that it involved doing service work.\u00a0 So there I went some random September day and signed up for a Saturday service project.\u00a0 I remember arriving to the campus at 7 am on Saturday not knowing exactly what to expect or who to expect.\u00a0 I roamed the campus and at some point I heard \u201cChris?\u201d\u00a0 It was Brother Ted.\u00a0 I think it was the first time we formally met.\u00a0 A few more students arrived and off we went to the Catholic Worker.\u00a0 We finished the service project and there I was stuck without a ride home, and Brother offered to take me home.\u00a0 He dropped me off and I felt so thrilled to have gone on this service project.\u00a0 Looking back, this service project was the invitation to become involved in Lasallian Youth, which eventually became the passageway to becoming extremely involved on campus.\u00a0 For the next few months, I must have been like glue on Brother Ted, I just admired the guy, and I wanted to be like him.\u00a0 I felt at home in Lasallian Youth, I got to travel to various service projects and gatherings with other schools.\u00a0 Eventually, because of Lasallian Youth I was invited by the school to attend a leadership workshop, travel to Mexico to build a house for the poor, and travel to World Youth Day in Rome.\u00a0 God was very present to me throughout these moments and in the person of Brother Ted.\u00a0 I felt like God would always be there, since Br. Ted was always there.<\/p>\n

That same year, right around Easter time Br. Ted called a few of us into his office.\u00a0 He said he had to share some news with us.\u00a0 He told us that back in December he had received a phone call from the Brother Visitor asking him to move to\u00a0 Washington.\u00a0 He said he would be leaving at the end of the year for his new assignment.\u00a0 It was a sad moment, a moment of feeling lost, what would we do without Br. Ted?\u00a0 It definitely was like losing your hero.\u00a0 Yet, little by little we came to understand that part of the Brother\u2019s vocation was to go where one is needed.\u00a0 So while for a moment it felt like betrayal, understanding about life and vocation eventually replaced that feeling.\u00a0 We learned for the final few months to celebrate Brother Ted and not \u201cmourn\u201d his departure.\u00a0 So, off he went to Washington.\u00a0 Then, the shattering news came.\u00a0 I remember being at my high school the following summer, at the end of my Junior year, gearing up for Senior year.\u00a0 The vocation of the Brothers had really taken a hold of me.\u00a0 I felt like this was the life God was calling me to, and all in part to the inspiration and example of Brother Ted.\u00a0 Well, during the summer a teacher approached me and tells me, \u201cWow, so Brother Ted is leaving.\u201d\u00a0 My initial reaction was, \u201cWhat?\u00a0 Leaving Yakima?\u00a0 Where is he going?\u201d\u00a0 Then, the news, \u201cNo, he is leaving the Brothers. \u201c\u00a0 Leaving the Brothers?\u00a0 No, not Brother Ted!\u00a0 I remember feeling angry, feeling like had he not gone away from Cathedral that he would not have left.\u00a0 I was angry at the Brothers for moving him.\u00a0 I was angry at the school where he was at for not fostering his vocation.\u00a0 I was angry at him most of all.\u00a0 I remember sending him an email expressing my anger.\u00a0 I did not understand why.<\/p>\n

Looking back at that, I think it taught me a lot about vocation.\u00a0 It taught me that God calls us a different ways and that vocation really is a journey of discovery; discovering where God wants us to be at the moment, building up his kingdom.\u00a0 For Ted it appears God needed him to be a Brother for a while, to enter the lives of young people, as a Brother and inspire them.\u00a0 I can truly say that had it not been for him, I would not have discovered my own call to the Brothers as quickly as I did.\u00a0 The fact that I am a Brother today and that I truly feel that this is God\u2019s vocation for me, is something I owe to the impact Brother Ted made on my life.\u00a0 It shows that God is truly incredible and uses us in many ways to build up his kingdom.\u00a0 It shows that our journey with God may take several attempts in discovering God\u2019s plan for us.\u00a0 While Ted is now happily married and has two children, I am happily a Brother.\u00a0 This experience makes my vocation stronger and gives me a deeper belief in the incredible and free ways God works.\u00a0 By the way, I did not remain angry with Ted, we eventually had a conversation and I was able to come to a better understanding of things.<\/p>\n

In promoting the vocations to the Brothers, when I tell my vocation story, I always mention this, saying that the Brother who inspired me is no longer a Brother.\u00a0 Therefore, I challenge young people that if they are thinking about the religious life or priesthood, they should give it a shot.\u00a0 You have to know what you are saying \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d to.\u00a0 This is why any relationship involves a \u201cdating\u201d process, getting to know each other little by little and figuring out if it is going to work out long-term.\u00a0 By saying yes to the initial invitation, no matter what you end up deciding, there is no doubt that God will use us and teach us much in the process.\u00a0 That is the point of our life journey and of faith\u2014responding to invitations and in the process building up God\u2019s kingdom in the here and now\u2014all by God\u2019s doing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chris P. In his essay Jesus in Galilee: Proclaiming the Reign of God, Robert Ludwig details the role of parables in Jesus\u2019 proclamation of the kingdom of God.\u00a0 He makes it clear that Jesus\u2019 parables, whether in word or deed, \u201c\u2026are stories that shatter the deep structure of our accepted world, removing our defenses read more <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4613,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/4613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/ips\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}