[CS-FSLUG] Your Mission Dream

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

On 4/2/06, Ed Hurst <ehurst at asisaid.com> wrote:
>
> Let's assume for the sake of discussion you are called to a mission
> field. God is letting you choose the place. Where would it be? Say why,
> if you know.
>
> --
> Ed Hurst
>
>

I don't know why, Ed -- especially given my deeply ingrained interest in
computers, technology, and varied cerebral pursuits such as philosophy and
theology -- but I have discerned and believe down to my bones that Our Lord
is calling me to be a missionary brother and perhaps one day a priest with
the Missionaries of the Poor ( http://www.missionariesofthepoor.org/ ).

There is a special woman in my life whom I love dearly, and who loves me and
wishes very much for us to marry (and both of us think it would be wonderful
to have children); her name is Julia -- still God is calling me to the MOP
and to lifetime chaste celibacy.

I have thought that I must pursue something explicitly with computers lest I
be a poor steward of his gifts -- still God is calling me to the MOP, where
I will be engaged almost entirely in the corporal works of mercy.

I love my family more dearly than I could ever express in words -- still God
is calling me to a mission community that normatively arranges for one home
visit every 10 years.

I love living in the South (southern USA) -- still God is calling me to
cultural and geogaphic environments wholly foreign to me (the MOP are
exclusively in the 3rd world).

Is God crazy?  Can't be.  So I must open my heart to accept this gift that
He is offering me -- a life of poverty, chaste celibacy, obedience to a
superior (I used to run my own business, and my only boss was me), and
"joyful service with Christ on the Cross" to the poorest of the poor, sick
and suffering (AIDS, lepers, the demented, the deformed and mentally
retarded, etc.).

I was pushing His call to the MOP life and work out to the peripheral of my
spiritual discernment for a long time.  I kept making the excuse that I
would devise a plan for doing something grand for Our Lord that involved
computers.  And I tried to do more than just daydream in that regard; but I
believe He didn't permit success or great advancement along those avenues
because that's not what He wanted, and I was going to be too stubborn and
selfish to recognize that on my own.

Advent '05 was a time of particularly intense prayer, especially before Our
Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.  Finally, just after the New Year, I accepted
the grace to make a definitive resolution to pursue a vocation as an MOP
brother.  I hope to enter formation with them later this year, but I'm in
the process of taking care of some things.  It will likely be 3 to 9 months
before I depart the country.  If / when I do leave, I'm not sure if I will
begin my life with the MOP at the central operation in Jamaica (where I
lived with them for 3 months last year) or at their mission in Haiti.  I
feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me it's going to be Haiti, but I'm far
from certain.

Please pray for me, I need it.

In Christ,

Michael Bradley, Jr.

--
My home on the Net ::
   http://www.michaelsbradleyjr.net/

IC XC NIKA
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