MY ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS
Matt RocheSaunders shares his testimony of meeting Jesus in a very special way at a Youth 2000 Retreat and how it has changed his life.
AN OPEN HEART
“I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). This sounds great but if I do get to know Jesus, how will I experience life more abundantly? If Jesus has made this promise to you and to me, we need to ask Him directly: how is it you want to transform my life? When we ask with an open heart God always answers.
THE FIRST CALL
When I was 14 or 15, I felt God was asking me to be a priest. I’d been raised as a Catholic, the youngest of four kids, and each time I heard a priest talk about his ‘call’ to the priesthood it seemed to resonate with me in a way that others didn’t seem to experience. But I didn’t really want to feel this call! Growing up in a rural area, there weren’t many examples of priests around, and it was hard to know who I could talk to who’d take me seriously but wouldn’t think I was committing my life away there and then. So I didn’t do much more about it, and instead looked ahead to exams, career and having a family of my own.
A LONGING
During my teenage years, I felt a real emptiness. I was still going to Mass, still saying my daily prayers, but the way I was living, I knew didn’t fit with the way I felt God talking to my heart. I longed for something deeper and more lasting, something that would make me happy. Without knowing that Jesus had already promised it, I longed for life “more abundantly”.
YOUTH 2000 RETREAT
At 17 I was invited by my brother to a Youth 2000 retreat in Walsingham. Youth 2000 run a number of regional retreats during the year, but this istheir biggest and attracts people from all over the UK. Having come from a small parish that had only a handful of young people going to Mass, I was amazed to find 1000 young people at this event. They were packed into a tent in the middle of a field, gathered around Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, praising Him. I realised during this weekend that there were so many people my own age asking the same questions: what does God want for my life? Is God really listening to me? How do I reconcile my faith with the way I’m living? The fact that they longed to get to know God personally was so attractive to me! What’s more, they were all really normal... perhaps I’d assumed ‘faith kids’ were a bit weird, and this had stopped me taking my faith too seriously.
GOD’S SPECIAL PLAN
But this was all the human stuff. Human stuff is important, but there was something deeper going on in Walsingham that weekend. Jesus Christ had personally invited me to that retreat without me knowing it, and He had a special plan just for me. But as Pope Benedict XVI said in his very first homily as Pope, “if we let Christ fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us... something that makes life so beautiful?” Yes! I was afraid! I was afraid truly to open myself to His plan for my life. I was afraid to go to Confession and be honest... completely honest.
RECONCILIATION
This changed when I heard an examination of conscience being read out during the Reconciliation Service, I realised there were things on my heart which I needed to let go of, and that God longed for me to let go of. I went to Confession honestly and openly for the first time, and had such an amazing experience of God’s mercy that I didn’t know if I was going to start crying or laughing, there was so much joy inside me! Now, if I’d heard someone else say that before that weekend, I’d have thought they were a bit strange. But in encountering Jesus so completely, and seeing how He changed my life so clearly from the very day I arrived home, I just long to share this experience with you. I really hope you have experienced, or will one day be open to experiencing God in the silent intimacy of your heart. Just speak with Him as a friend – He’s already waiting for you!
DISCOVERING MY VOCATION
So did this make me want to become a priest? Well, it made me want to be a Catholic, rather than just finding myself as a Catholic. It also made me want to be a saint, and really take seriously what God was asking of me through the Church. This call to be saints is something every one of us shares – this is our one vocation, our one calling, and God gives each of us a way of following that call to sainthood, to holiness. For some, it will be to become a priest; for others, to become a religious brother or sister; still others, to remain single and live in the world; and for most, to be married, a beautiful way of becoming holy by giving yourself as a gift to your husband or wife, and receiving them as a gift to you.
DISCOVERING YOUR VOCATION
These are the four ‘religious vocations’ – they’re different from a wonderful ‘secular vocation’ to be a doctor or a teacher, for example. God has put into your heart and mine a specific call to put us on the road to holiness, and it is up to us to discover what that call is. How do we do this? First we’ve got to be talking with God! How’s my daily conversation with God? Does it exist at all? Does it need to be more personal? Is it quite strong but I’m not sure where to go next with it? All these questions are fantastic, and we’re each at a different place on the road God has set for us.
DOING HIS WILL
For me, a few years on from my experience in Walsingham, I’m now in my fourth year of training to be a priest. What my encounter with Jesus changed was my desire to do His will. God’s will “is established forever” (Psalm 119) and doesn’t change, but over time we have to pray to share His desire for our lives. God is a loving Father who only wants the best for you and me: that means we can be sure that by doing His will, we’ll be the happiest we can possibly imagine. God bless you as you get to know what He wants for you!
