Fr. Carl Chudy, s.x.

There is No Better Life for Me

From the Xaverian Mission Newsletter

Recently I celebrated my eighteenth anniversary of priesthood, the first eight years spent in service to youth and young adults in Chicago, and the last ten years in the Philippines.

 

There is no better life for me than to live for Christ!

 

In this “age of terrorism,” where violence and uncertainty dampen the best spirits, and bad news of some clergy who misused their call at the expense of others, I cannot help but say, “I love being a missionary.” That very inadequate acclamation is rooted in the experience of my call that is evolving and growing through three important moments: desire, competence, and confirmation.

 

My desire to be a missionary priest has changed over the years. The reasons I chose to be a Xaverian Missionary are not necessarily the reasons I stay a missionary. Life has tempered my desires. With each challenge, difficulty and growing experience I am asked by life to choose my vocation again and again. I find that I said YES to God not only in my first religious profession and ordination, but I need to say YES over and over in the face of each life experience.

 

My desire to be a priest today is slowly rooted in real life, and the more unrealistic expectations of my younger days make way for a courage and confidence in the Spirit that is revealed in everything that life offers, both the joy and pain. My desire today is also based on knowledge of myself that is deeper than the past. I know myself better, both my possibilities and limitations to some extent. Thus my priesthood is more spontaneous and ready to serve, more creative and patient in the face of more and more decisions and choices that must be made.

My desire to be a priest today is slowly rooted in real life, and the more unrealistic expectations of my younger days make way for a courage and confidence in the Spirit that is revealed in everything that life offers, both the joy and pain. 

 

As I journey as a priest, I find my need to become more competent more urgent. I am increasingly given more responsibility. I worked in formation with seminarians, vocation work with those discerning a vocation, counseling, spiritual direction and pastoral work with the poor in the USA, Africa and the Philippines. For the past five years I have been asked to take on the responsibility of leadership ministry as Superior Delegate in the Philippines.

 

In each ministry given to me, I have always found myself woefully inadequate. I am compelled to continue to study, and to seek other opportunities to hone my skills in these responsibilities, to seek the counsel of our older more experienced confreres, and to learn to be more pastorally effective. Becoming more competent does much to bolster my confidence and to more humbly receive the graces of the Spirit as I am used as an instrument of God’s Kingdom.

 

As my desire is transformed and rooted more realistically to what life offers, and I grow in my competence in what I am asked to do as a missionary priest, I am confirmed over and over as to the wisdom of my decision to “leave all in order to follow Christ.”

 

That confirmation comes from the Church, my congregation, confreres, friends and family who feedback to me in a myriad of ways that they are grateful for the missionary priesthood I attempt to offer. In so many words and gestures they offer, they are being given a glimpse of Christ’s compassion in my very inadequate pastoral responses to their needs or in the ordinary love and friendship we share.

 

That confirmation is especially rooted in the core of my strength and vocation, prayer. Without a deep and abiding, habitual prayer life with my Savior, my vocation would certainly die. It is Christ himself that confirms the call he has given me through these instruments that I have experienced in the past eighteen years as a priest. He is honing my desire, competence and confirming me in my call day after day, year after year.

 

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