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| Fr. Robert Havens LC | |
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“I want to do something more important with
my life than becoming a priest.”
I was born the first
child of three in a practising Catholic family, and this
is what I thought whenever I was around priests. Which
was often enough, since I eventually became an altar server
at my parish. I quite liked priests, and I was
blessed with some really wonderful ones; I can’t think of
any of them giving bad examples. But it was as
simple as that: priests are really nice, I used to
think, and really quite useful. But I’m destined to do
something with my life.
I thought the same when I met
my first Legionaries of Christ. I couldn’t have been much
older than eleven. Two brother religious visited my school and
invited us to a fun weekend at their novitiate only
twenty minutes away from my home in Connecticut. I went
and had a wonderful time: their “lake,” which we went
swimming in, was really little more than a mud hole
in those days and thoroughly enjoyed playing with the frogs
in it. I remember the neat chapel and the music
and not too much else; and for ever after that
visit I was unquestionably aware of something: they are great
priests, and if ever I were to become a priest,
I would be one of them. But I am going
to do something important with my life.
In Pursuit of Importance
And so I went about doing important things with my
life. I spent all of my high school years crisscrossing
the globe - as much as I possibly could, alone
- doing important things. I went to Africa to learn
French, to Russia to be at the centre of all
the goings-on there in the late eighties; I went to
Hong Kong, Delhi, and just about anywhere. I finished high
school and decided to study what I thought was the
most important subject at what I thought was the most
important University: I went to Oxford and studied economics. The
travels continued and I diversified my meaningful pastimes: sport, art,
opera, etc., etc.
I was certainly not unhappy; in fact,
life was very exciting. Granted, most of it was lived
in the future: quite a lot of time spent imagining
what the next voyage or country would bring, what I
wonderful job I would get, what new friends I would
discover, what a splash I would make... It’s only with
hindsight that you realise how much of the present you
miss by yearning for the future.
In all of this, God
was by no means absent; but I had clearly made
him take up second place. I continued going to Mass
on Sunday, and I have a great debt of recognition
to the priests at my parish in England for their
example and holiness throughout the years. Where would I be
without them!
I also made a point of visiting the
local Catholic churches just about everywhere I went, lighting a
candle and saying a prayer in front of the statue
of Mary. And good catechism as a child - which
I owe to the dedicated sisters and priests that the
Lord sent along my way as a little boy -
made sure of two things for which I will never
be grateful enough: first, that I never started calling evil
things good; and second, that I never stopped going to
confession (despite some generous breaks). But I have to admit
that I had little time for anything else as far
as God was concerned: you see, I had more important
things to do with my life.
Now if you are
a little more believing than I was then, you may
be a getting a bit annoyed by my saying so
often that I had “more important things to do.” I
apologise if that’s the case; but, you see, from the
very moment I came into contact with the world outside
my immediate family, just about everyone and everything in that
world told me all about the important things that could
be done in it: making lots of money, being good
looking, spending as much time as possible having all sorts
of fun, being popular or powerful, being considered cleverer or
more stylish or just generally better than others. According to
just about everyone you talk with when you’re a young
person, that is the recipe for happiness. “Buy this, and
you’ll be happy.” “Get this job, and you’ll be happy.”
“Go to this island, and you’ll be happy.” “Marry this
woman, and you’ll be happy.” And so on. Do you
mean to say that you have never heard those voices?
I
certainly heard them, and I was gullible enough to believe
them for twenty-one years. Until one day...
Finding the Real Rose
in New Orleans
Until one day just after I had
finished university. I had decided to move somewhere nice and
warm, with a nice cultural backdrop, to pass the winter
after many cold and wet ones: I went to New
Orleans. My “plan” - a very important one - was
to have a pleasant winter before beginning the rest of
my life in some London or New York bank (which,
I assure you, was the pinnacle and the natural course
of the aspirations of the enormous majority of people who
graduated with me; I’m afraid it’s also the lot of
a great many of them).
And then... I still don’t
really know. Perhaps it was because I had a bit
of time to think - I had gone to New
Orleans with the idea of writing a book - but
I think it was principally because God decided to act
then, and that’s how it is. God doesn’t show his
cards all at once, and I am still discovering why
he played the ones he did twelve years ago. But
the fact of the matter is that he played them.
It’s
difficult to describe what happened. Really quite suddenly I realised
that my life was at a level of happiness that
was about as full as you could get with the
things of this earth; and that God was offering me
an enormous happiness that is incomparably greater and more meaningful
than the kind I had been pursuing for most of
my life. The two have nothing to do with each
other: one is a cheap, vulgar oil-on-canvas of a rose,
done by someone down on his luck who never wanted
to be an artist, and sold to tourists who never
wanted to love art. And the other is the real
thing: the One Rose, the eternal rose, ever fresh and
beautiful, the One by which the beauty of all the
others is measured. And God was offering it to me.
So
what would you say? I probably should have said, “I’m
sorry, God, were you talking to me? You know, I
haven’t been much of a friend all these years. In
fact, I’ve been sort of a... well, you know...”
And yet,
I didn’t say that. It didn’t even cross my mind.
It was so clear that he was offering this happiness
to me, and that all I had to do was
say, “yes,” that I didn’t even look twice. I leapt.
Admittedly,
I bought a little insurance. I immediately went to the
cathedral - just around the corner from me - where
there hangs the venerable image of Notre Dame de Bon
Secours, patroness of New Orleans. She has saved the city
countless times, so I reckoned she could manage a little
case like me. I told her, “You know, I’m really
not up to this being a friend of God business.
But he’s the one who asked. So all those things
about being a good Christian that I can’t imagine how
I’m going to live: I’m afraid they’re your problem now.”
As
simple as that. Not that life has been easy ever
since, oh no! But I am very sure that she
has taken care of the heavy things. When you look
back at the road you’ve travelled and realise that the
only way you could have made it here is by
walking on water, it’s easy to realise that it wasn’t
your own strength that got you to where you are
now.
In New Orleans I spoke to a priest who taught
at the seminary there, someone whom I had never seen
and who had never seen me before. We had a
lot of mutual friends, so I went to talk to
him. He shocked me by telling me that I had
a vocation, and had I ever heard of the Legion
of Christ? I found it somewhat odd, since the Legion
of Christ was really the only religious order I knew,
if vaguely. I got a second opinion: I went to
New York, and spoke to another priest. He was quite
famous, and things like that were still important to me.
I had never seen him before, or he me, and
he shocked me by saying exactly what the priest in
New Orleans had said: “You have a vocation. Have you
ever heard of the Legion of Christ?”
Something More than Castles
of Smoke
What can you do in a situation like
that? I went to Connecticut, did a few retreats, but
the decision was already taken. You see, I had seen
something that I had no right to see, a sight
I owe to the limitless mercy of God and to
nothing else: I had seen that the only really important
thing you can do with your life is give a
free and grateful “yes” to the Person who wants more
than anything that you love Him back. If you miss
that, you have missed the boat entirely: your whole life
is a pursuit of illusions, castles that go up in
smoke every time you get close enough to grasp them.
Nothing in the whole world can make you or me
truly happy apart from the love of Christ. And, of
course, our spreading that love. Nothing. Name anything in the
whole world, search anywhere you like and as long as
you like. You will not find it.
This is something I
began to discover when the Lord let me glimpse what
he was offering me, and how pale my little ”important”
world was in comparison. It is something he calls me
- and you - to discover better every day, and
to help others to discover. What a beautiful way to
spend one’s life: helping others to discover the great joy
that Jesus offers to anyone who will open his heart
to Him!
Father Robert Joseph Havens was born on
November 30, 1973 in New Haven, Connecticut (USA). He has
a Bachelor’s Degree (Honours) and a Master’s Degree in Philosophy,
Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford, and a
Bachelor’s Degree and Licence in Philosophy from the Pontifical Athenaeum
Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He entered the Legion of Christ
in 1996 and did his novitiate in Germany. He was
Development Officer of the Legion of Christ in Germany, Switzerland
and Austria from 2002 to 2005. He now works as
the Prefect of Studies at the Legion of Christ’s minor
seminary near Paris; he also accompanies the apostolic work of
the men’s group of the Regnum Christ apostolic Movement.
More information: http://www.robert-havens.com/
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