In today’s first reading we hear about seven sons who are tortured to death in front of their mother because they refuse to eat pork, in keeping with the Covenant.  In today’s Gospel reading we hear a story about seven brothers all dying after they marry the same woman, one after another.  Neither of these readings give me much to work with in this, the second weekend of the “Called By Name” vocations recruitment program in which I am suppose to tell you my vocation story.  So I guess I will just tell my story.
    I certainly have felt “called by name” in my discernment of the priesthood.  When I was a sophomore at King’s College, I learned that my Aunt Ann had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I decided that I would start going to daily Mass for her.  It must have worked because that was in 1983, and Aunt Ann is still with us.  After going to daily Mass for about five months, one of the priests, Fr. Tom, asked if he could talk with me after Mass.  When we went into his office, he asked me if I had ever considered becoming a priest.  I told him that when I was in grade school I had thought about it, probably like so many little boys in Catholic school, but not really since then.  He told me that he saw in me qualities that he though would make me a good priest – I was a prayerful man, generous with my time and talent, caring for people.  I told him that I would think about it, and I did, but by the time I finished college I was planning to go to graduate school to complete a doctorate.
    While in graduate school I fell in love for really the first time.  Her name was Juliann, and for a while we had an amazing relationship.  Then suddenly things started to go bad.  It was her, and it was me, and we had a very hard breakup.  
    It left me very depressed.  I went into counseling, but I also started to talk with one of the priests at the Newman Center.  See, I was still trying to go to daily Mass, but now I was in a very bad place spiritually.  While I knew that God existed, He felt very distant from me, like He did not care about me.  This lasted nearly a year, and I was getting very tired of people just telling me, “oh, you are just in the desert.  Even Jesus was in the desert.”  Yeah, but Jesus was only in the desert for 40 days.  I remember telling Fr. Bob, my spiritual director, about my frustration with “being in the desert,” and he said to me, “Yeah, you are eating a lot of sand.  But have you thought about why Jesus was in the desert?”  I said because He was being tempted by the devil.  Then he asked me to think in terms of what came before and after Jesus’ time in the desert.  When I thought about it, I realized that it was the transition between Jesus’ private life and His public ministry.  I remember staring at Fr. Bob and thinking, “Are you nuts?  I am telling you that I don’t feel God’s presence in my life, and you are asking me if I think God might be calling me to the priesthood?”
    About a month later, God worked in a mysterious way.  The St. John’s Newman Center, where I attended Mass, participated in the exact same “Called By Name” program that we are doing here in the Diocese of Trenton this past week.  People were asked to pray about it, and then put names on cards of men they thought might be good priests.  The cards were collected, and I guess the names were past on to the Diocese (of Peoria).  A week or two letter I received a letter from the Vocations Office of the Diocese of Peoria, inviting me to go to a dinner and presentation at one of the local parishes on a upcoming Sunday.  I remember planning on going, but I was not going to tell any of my friends.  Now a group of us played flag football every Sunday afternoon, and I remembered telling my friends that I would have to leave early because I had something to do that evening.  Three of my buddies said they needed to leave early too.  The four of us looked at each other, and we said, “Called By Name”?  Sure enough, all four of us had received the same invitation.
    My journey towards priesthood would still have some twists and turns.  I had to discern if I would finish my doctorate first, or go immediately into the seminary.  I needed to discern where I felt God was calling me; to the diocesan priesthood, and if so, what diocese, or to one of the religious orders.  First I did decide to complete my doctorate, and I then thought that God wanted be to become a Dominican priest, like Fr. Bob, my spiritual director.
    In fact, I did join the novitiate for the Central Providence of the Dominicans, but after about six months, I realized that they were not a good fit and I left.  At first I felt I had failed God.  I basically just decided to find work, which I did, eventually becoming a professor at Columbia College in Missouri.  I really enjoyed teaching.  While my teaching schedule did not allow me to make daily Mass, I was still active in my parish.  Then God started working in His mysterious ways again.  One weekend, I was in the church early, praying before Mass.  Someone I did not know came up to me and asked, “Are you a seminarian?”  I told him no I was a professor.  He just looked at me and said, “I think you would be a good priest.”  What would prompt a total stranger to say that to me?  A week later, it happened again – this time it was a woman I did not know basically said the same thing to me after Mass.  It became pretty clear, that God was calling.
    I guess the time was right.  I discerned that God was calling me to apply to the Diocese of Trenton, my home.  I was not telling anyone at the college, because I wanted to have a job if things did not workout.  On my birthday, the Academic Dean called and asked to see me.  When I got to his office, he said that he just wanted to wish me a happy birthday.  The next day, I received another message from him asking to see me.  I thought he had forgotten that he had wished me a happy birthday, but I went to his office.  He said he did not want to tell me this the day before, because it was my birthday, but the college had decided to eliminate the graduate program that I was the director of for budgetary reasons, and thus, they were eliminating my job.  There went my safety net.  Needless to say, I was a little nervous, but I said, “Lord, its in Your hands.”  Two days later the vocation director here in Trenton called to tell me that Bishop Smith had accepted my application to become a seminarian for the Diocese of Trenton.
    I went to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, and was ordained a priest on May 15, 2004 – the feast of St. Dymphna, hence my dog’s name.  My first assignment was St. James in Red Bank, a big parish which had its own grade school and its own high school, plus a hospital just a few blocks away.  Msgr. Lowry, the pastor, was a great mentor.  Two months after arriving at St. James I went to see my doctor about a rash, and just happened to mentioned a lump I felt in my throat.  That lead to a bunch of tests, and six months after being ordained a priest I was told that I had thyroid cancer.  I had just turned 40 two weeks earlier.
    I remember returning to the rectory after being told the diagnosis.  The other three priests were out, so I was in the big rectory alone.  I cried out to God, “Lord, I just gave you my life as a priest, and now I have cancer.”  It did not seem fair.  But then I became quiet, and I heard with my heart, “Yes, you gave Me your life, trust Me.”  I fell to my knees and prayed, “All for Jesus,” knowing that He had my back.  A couple of days later, before word had gotten out in the parish, a parishioner dropped a gift for me, but with no name of the giver.  It was a plaque with the following quote, now my favorite, from the Prophet Jeremiah, “’For I know the plans I have for you’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you… plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)
    The past 15 years as a priest has certainly meant carry the cross, but it has also been so full of joy.  I still am amaze at the trust people put in me, just because I am a priest.  What they have shared with me has convinced me that we have saints living right here among us.  Still after all these years I am in awe of the power of God working through me when He exercises His mercy in the confessional when I absolve people of their sins, or when I am holding what appears to be nothing more than a white wafer but I know it is Him, the Lord Jesus Christ.  I am so thankful to Jesus for calling me to the priesthood, and for the opportunity to be your priest.