A Constant question

Why can’t Jesus do to me as He did to Saul?  Flash a bright light!  Make me fall!  Speak to me audibly, tell me once and for all: "Yes, I am indeed calling you to My Priesthood!”   

Saul’s call to conversion, as we read in Acts 9, is indeed filled with extraordinary, astonishing events. That’s what I wanted.  Yet, as I went through High School, college, the workplace, my ‘Saul-moment’ never seemed to come. What kept coming up was this relentless question: Could it be that I am called to the priesthood?  
   
For too long my answer was a list of questions:   How can I be certain Jesus is calling?  What is this “calling” supposed to look like anyway?  What if this relentless question is my way of escaping disappointments?  Can I be happy as a priest?  How do I even go about this?

Eventually, I had to find out.  It wasn’t until I reached out, was accepted and began formal discernment, that I began to see how the relentless question was not my own, but Christ giving me a chance to give everything I am to Him through His Priesthood.  
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A relentless, constant question…that was my ‘Saul-moment’.

- Fr. Jaime G. Maldonado