An Interview with a Lay Catholic Volunteer

This is an interview I did three years ago. Re-posting so this blog actually has some content!

When and why did you decide to become a Catholic volunteer? 

Since I was a teenager, I had a desire to serve God and bring people to Him. I guess there was some amount of idealism, and wanting to change the world... and this was the way I had seen as the most meaningful and effective. Plus I had met some cool lay Catholic volunteers from a different organization who impressed me with their joy and music. But I had no idea what it really meant to be a full-timer. Still, God used even my youthful idealism, to lead me closer to His will.

Why did you decide to serve with the organization you joined? 

I was blessed with wise parents and other spiritual leaders who helped me discern through the years. I held on to my desire for ‘something more’, and kept praying and asking the Lord, “Where, Lord? With whom? When? How?” When I was 21 I met a group of lay Catholic volunteers who had come to my city on a summer volunteer trip. Their love for Jesus and the poor, their holiness and their joy gave me a glimpse of what God could do in me, and through me. I communicated with them after they left, and three years and several miracles later, I nervously boarded a plane for the first time, and left India to be trained with them.

What has been the best thing about being a lay Catholic volunteer? 

I guess it’s the knowledge that my work and my life really do make a difference. I remember working in an air conditioned office, feeling cut off from people, doing work that was interesting, but not very meaningful. Nate Saint, a martyr to Ecuador once said, “People ask me why I am wasting my life. I tell them, everyone is wasting their life on something, and when the bubble of this earthly life bursts, what will they have left of eternal significance?” I remember the eternal significance when I see people GET it- come into contact with God, go to Confession after years, slowly respond to love, fall in love with Jesus... wow. My heart feels like it’s going to burst.

What is the hardest/most difficult aspect of being a lay Catholic volunteer? 

There are different challenges for different volunteers, and also different posts. When I was in the Philippines, I guess it was being away from my family. But now I work as a volunteer in my hometown, so I’m blessed to meet my family almost every day. But I think the hardest thing in this life is that I have to come face to face with my own sinfulness and hard-heartedness. It’s easier not to remember that when I’m working an 8 hour job in front of a computer screen. But when I KNOW that my primary task each day is to love, then it’s so much easier to fail. Thankfully we have a loving, merciful God who picks us up each time we fail.

Who is your favorite saint? Why?

I’m still not sure who my FAVORITE is, but I have a special fondness for Don Bosco, because I love teaching, and have been teaching in different ways since I was 16. His rule of ‘reason, religion, and loving kindness’ is still an inspiration to me as I work with a bunch of high schoolers in a slum close to my home every day. And of course St. Therese, with her Little Way, helps me remember that God is calling me to faithfulness first- to do small things with great love.

(UPDATED: I DO know who my favorite is now- It's Saint Pope John Paul II. More on this awesome man some other time.)

What's not to love?

If you could bi-locate anywhere else and be a volunteer, where would you go? 

Oh, tough one! I have a secret desire to be a volunteer with children somewhere in Africa, which I don’t even allow myself to think about, because with India’s great needs, my heart has no space for the great need and desperation of that great continent. Still, with bilocation, God could work that out, huh?

What advice would you give to the single Catholic girls out there looking for their 'dream job' and vocation? 

Do small things with great love. It’s easy to get caught up with a dream that may have little to do with reality. As you pray and discern what God is calling you to, focus on loving the people around you and being faithful to what God has called you to in the here and now. It is in the here and now that God can speak to you, transform you, use you, and even prepare you for whatever He has for you in the future. . As Mother Teresa said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not yet here. We have only today. Let us begin.”  

Keeping It Salty

So the blog name is an obvious inside-the-Christian-circle reference to that famous bible verse- "Salt is the secret ingredient that makes all my food yummy." Oh wait, no. That's my mum. The one I'm talking about is: 'You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world.' Matthew 5:13

I am a full time Catholic volunteer and I have been for the past six years. When I was a lot younger, I wanted to change the world. I was a born activist (except for being lazy), outraged at injustice, quick to fire up in the defense of the oppressed. (That included stopping two ninth graders from beating up a skinny eighth grader while the other girls stood on the sidelines and cried- yes, obviously a memory I treasure.)

I had a 'normal' job for a while, but I would keep having superhero/spy movie dreams, which involved me saving the world in a dramatic and exciting manner. Oh, the idealism of youth, right? 'You'll grow out if it,' they said.

Whom did I want to save? The lost, the alone, the friendless, the unloved, the ones adrift in what seemed like an cold world. The ones trapped in their own sin, desperate for meaning, "Why don't you just become a social worker?" a friend asked once. But I didn't think social workers could change the world in a way that I thought it needed saving. The world didn't need more social workers, but more lovers.

Growing up in a Catholic charismatic community, I attended retreats and prayer meetings, parish summer clubs and camps. Not everyone who grew up in that world stayed in that world. (In other words, we weren't brainwashed.)

But in my teenage years and early twenties, in the course of all those church activities, I met a Lover, who changed everything. I found the Light that I was sure the world's darkness needed. And I heard a call from Him- 'People are looking for Me. Bring Me to them.'

Again, how? By word and by deed. By witness of life. That's where the salt comes back in. As I started working as a full time Catholic volunteer, I found a world that was hungry for authentic witness. 'Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.' Pope Paul VI

I thought of the people who influenced me in my life, who made me want to take a deeper look into my Catholic faith. They were all people of joy, people who lived differently. They were salt and light in a world that was tasteless without what they had to offer.

“To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” Cardinal Suhard

I've realized through the years that saving the world is not usually something very dramatic. It is living a salty life. It is being fully who I am called to be, and pointing to the One who made me that way. It is living differently, responding differently, and seasoning the world with the Love that changes everything.

I started this blog to share some glimpses into this salty life.

Keep it salty, Christians!