God wants you to be a saint

BY FR PAUL NULLEY

“GOD expects something from you. Have you understood this? God expects something from you, God wants something from you. God hopes in you. God comes to break down all our fences. He comes to open the doors of our lives, our dreams, our ways of seeing things.

“God comes to break open everything that keeps you closed in. He is encouraging you to dream. He wants to make you see that, with you, the world can be different. For the fact is, unless you offer the best of yourselves, the world will never be different. This is the challenge.”

These are the words of Pope Francis at WYD in Poland this time last year and they get to the heart of the mystery of vocation.

As Blessed John Henry Newman wrote, each of us has been created for a specific purpose, to carry out a particular work that only we are capable of doing.

Perhaps some might have the impression that if they choose to follow Christ they will have to reject their own dreams and their life will in some way be fundamentally empty.

Nothing can be further from the truth! With Christ, our horizons are opened up to eternity. He who created you, who loved you into existence and has willed you to live at this particular point in time, in this particular place, has a plan for you.

He will leave you in complete freedom as to whether you choose to see what that plan is, or if you choose to create your own plan for your life.

But what God offers is always much more than we’re capable of creating. He desires you to be a saint and to change this world for the better.

The call Jesus issued to his first disciples, he also issues to you: “Come and see” (John 1:39).

‘Man Overboard’ is run every first Friday evening at Archbishop’s house for those discerning a call to the priesthood. If you are interested in learning more about vocation to the priesthood and religious life please feel free to get in contact with me, Fr Paul Nulley (Archdiocesan Vocations Director) on 0422 038 565 or paul.nulley@cg.org.au.