JOHN LEIDY, OCDS

CHOSEN VESSELS

FAITHFULLY RESPONDING TO CARMEL'S CALL

2004 OCDS Conference

Flint, MI

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Mike tells us we're supposed to help in the Father's plan. How do we do that? Holy Father tells us we're supposed to cast our nets out into the deep. How do we do that? We're supposed to become schools of prayer. How? We're supposed to contemplate the face of Jesus. How?

Scripture asks us how can one believe without having heard? How can one hear unless someone preaches, and how can someone preach unless he is sent? Our secular order is encouraging us to be involved in apostolates. To get involved. We've always been encouraged to be involved in apostolate at a personal level, but recently we are being encouraged to do it at a community level, ah, perhaps as a regional, or even as a provincial level. So who's being called to be active in apostolate? Isn't it you? So you're smiling, you know its you don't you? (Laughter)

Certainly each of us is called in some way to be invested, intended in some way to be a vessel for God's use. We've got to avoid that, we can't avoid that call because of fear or because of a false sense of humility. I think many of us who have felt the call to Carmel, may be the type of people who like quiet. We don't want the boat rocked too much. We like our personal quiet time with the Lord. We like it simple. We may also be the type of people that want to be obedient to the church, and we're good followers but maybe not great leaders at all times. But what Mike has been talking to us about is stretching. Mike likes that word. Ah, he likes to tell us to stretch, and I think the Holy Father is saying the same thing. He is calling us to stretch beyond our comfort level. We've got to avoid the extremes of you know, not wanting to do anything. Wanting to sit back and do nothing. We've also got to avoid the extreme, probably for fewer of us, of wanting to run out and build the house of God without the Lord. I can do it myself God, just tell me and I'll be there and do it. That's the hard one. That's a hard one. Its easy, give me the ball and I'll run with it Lord. But to have the ball and continue to listen to the Lord all the time we're running, that's a little harder. Prayer helps us. Ah, as the Holy Father said, as Mike quoted, "Prayer is our key to getting in touch with the Lord". It's the fire, the energy that starts us but we've also got to have an openness, and perhaps an obedience to serve. That's the main, my main part of this message here is that many of us need an encouragement, to openness to stretch beyond our comfort level, or what Mike was calling minimalism, I guess is what I'm kind of referring to as comfort level, in our service.

The rest of what I am going to say here, is I'd say by way of personal testimony, or personal sharing, about my experience in the community here in Flint, that I was a part of for a number of years, in being called to stretch. Mike was my formation director for six years of that time, and as Teresa said, Mike is sort of like a tornado. Ah, entering your life or entering your room.

Mike Kotarski: You're going to (? 069 can't make it out).

Audience: Laughter.

John Leidy: You put me up here. (Laughter) Now I'm gonna tell it like it is. (Laughter).

Audience: Laughter.

John Leidy: Yeah, Mike's kind of like a tornado. You never know which way he is blowing, he's coming and going, and he's always grabbing you into that tornado. You are in the middle of that whirlwind with him, and I can't imagine, I've never seen him in his lawyer job. I can't imagine what that's like, and I'm not going to become a criminal to find out. But, you can sense, if you've worked around Mike very long, oh, his Mother's got some stories she can share with us. Ah, you can sense Mike's enthusiasm. But it doesn't take long, being around him, to sense his enthusiasm, and Mike has a real zeal for evangelism, for getting the gospel out, for getting the Lord's word out, for getting us involved in helping that to happen.

And when I first got involved in the community here in Flint, in O.C.D.S. which was about ten years ago, um I saw some great differences. I had been involved in other christian endeavors before, and I would say when people got involved in service you often looked for. It's typical that people look for someone who seems to have a gift. In other words somebody is doing something or other, they speak and it sounds good, or they're a musician and it sounds great, and you grab them and say "Okay, lets put this person into service, they're showing gifts."

My experience in Flint was somewhat the opposite, that Mike and the brothers and sisters there were actually seeking out people who didn't have any experience in some area. I know one brother that we know well, that did not like speaking. Ah, he didn't like reading, and he was a lecture in our community. I know another sister who is here today, who plays the organ for us, and I think when she began, she didn't know how to play the organ. She learned in front of us all, and was willing to step out and try that for us, and sometimes we'd get a wrong note, and we loved her just the same. We knew what she was doing for the Lord. I mean, it kind of sets your heart on fire to see someone who is willing to put themselves out to serve God in a way that may cause some humiliation for them. Ah, I'm used to speaking to elementary kids. I'm a fourth grade teacher. I am not comfortable speaking in front of all you adult dudes here. That's not my comfort level. But Mike's, see he's trying to give me a kick in the pants here, and make me get up here and talk and stretch my comfort level. Um, in fact he told me that I could sit right here and at the end of his talk, if I didn't have anything to say, I could say "I don't have anything to say."

Audience: Laughter.

Mr. Leidy: The problem was that wasn't what Father Dubay told me this morning.

Audience: Laughter.

Mr. Leidy: He saw my notes and he said I should go ahead and say something. Well, I think, you know my experience is that of Mike's continual urging. You can do this, John. Give it a try you know...whatever. You can teach a formation class. You can get up there and give a talk. And, you know through it all it hasn't been comfortable for me. Um, there is constantly that struggle going on inside of me, that I'll bet would be the same for a lot of you, if you're put in a position of leading a formation class or having to get up in front of a group of people and speak. You know, just a christian sense of um, out of humility should I do that? You know, on the one side there is the, out of humility is it really right to get up there and do that? There's the other side of I'm scared I'll get proud if I go up there and, I mean, in front of all those people, and gee what if I like it? What if I like it, and what if they're all looking at me and it goes well, ah, what then? And what does that mean for me, am I, well yeah. That's going to be true, at either extreme we are going to be tempted toward, I mean, anything we do there is going to be some temptation to turn it into something that, that's against God. But, I think if we don't start doing that, how are we going to serve the Lord?

We've got to step out and begin to make choices to serve like that, and you know, if I said, if I called, picked on one of you right now, and said "Come on up here" (laughter) I'd see everybody running for the door I'm afraid. But we've got to be open to that. You know, I see Father over there, now the priests they're used to getting up here and talking to us in front of the, giving homilies and leading the congregation, but for the rest of us, most of us aren't used to that sort of thing, and I think in humility, the humility is to begin to say "Yes" to God without worrying about the self part of it. In other words I've got to stop worrying about whether its going to make me proud, or whether I'm going to humiliate myself. Ah, but I just got to walk out there and do it, and say "Lord, I'm here to serve you. I'm a vessel, I'm here to do what you want. Ah, you know if this doesn't work out well, well the people won't accept it well, and you know I won't be asked to do it again. So what? So what if I fall on my face and humiliate myself. At least I said 'yes' to you, in that situation.

I'll tell you a little story here. Ah, one thing that concerned me in getting up here was ah, yesterday I left home and I got here, and found out I'd left all my clothes, back home. I've got my socks and underwear, but I left all my shirts and pants back home. And you know I wasn't too excited about getting up here today in yesterday's clothing. Of course, you don't know that, but its in my mind. (Laughter). But to me that's a little bit of a humiliation. You know, I feel a little bit like...oh my gosh how could you forget your clothes at home. But, you know, I guess God could have reminded me, but I got here and fortunately, this is the body of Christ. One of my sisters from Ann Arbor, drove my clothes up here today on her way to the conference. So, thank you.

Audience: Laughter.

Mr. Leidy: And now, the body of Christ will move on and someone will bring her suitcase up here, and really I mean. Aren't we supporting one another. I mean that is community. That is community in a humorous way but that's you know, that's part of the way God works in us, so you know, I think you get my point. My point is lets be open to stretch, and if you find yourself saying all those excuses why you can't. You're going to find like I did, that its mostly self. Its mostly self talking and we've got to put that self to death, in order that we can walk out and be ready to do what God may be calling us to do without the self hindering it. Questions? Comments? Concerns?

I'm going to stop here, Mike. Nothing. No cheese, no candle.

Mike: The word is (? 179 inaudible). We'll see you tomorrow.

John: Well, Father Dubay offered me (? 179/180 inaudible) but we knew they weren't going to work.

Audience: Laughter.

Mike: (? 181 inaudible) asked our friend. He said I could use it today. But I asked him what is the least job you like in community? And he said reading. I said why don't you try doing that. And when you overcome that other things are easier. And it was the one that he was least prepared to do. And he knew it and the community knew (? 184 inaudible) sport.

John: Yeah. That's a point I didn't make. If you start with one, you know I mean you wouldn't normally start with the thing we least like to do, but there is truth in that. If we can get over that one, won't the others be smaller hurdles for us.

Mike: (? 187 inaudible).

John: Right.

Mike: (? 188 inaudible) that information, its that heat that they're getting.

John: Right.

And when he gets up there and he reads, and you know he's struggling with it, what do you feel for him? I mean, I don't think most of us, in a christian context, in your communities, are going to sit there and be judging the person. I think you're going to be saying "Praise God, he's serving the Lord. Even though I can tell he is having difficulty from this." And we encourage him and he grows from it.

The tornado strikes again.

Audience: Laughter.

Mike: (? 195 inaudible) give everybody free will. Free reading of the will (? 196 inaudible). Its not hard to do.

John: Now, can we have your Mom come up here and talk to us, Mike?

Audience: Laughter.

Mike: Its' my sister I'm worried about.

Audience: More laughter. A man yelled "Exactly."

Mike: You can go home now.

John: Oh, I'd be more worried about my sister, too. (Laughter) Okay. God bless you.

Audience: Applause.

Lady: Okay, I don't want to take this down. Um, its almost eleven-thirty we're having our lunch break.

Tape stopped @ 205.

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