For the next couple of months, the question of “What do I do now,” seemed to stay with me constantly. I had been found broken and I didn’t know how to fix that; indeed, there was no fixing to be done. I had been denied that which I desired most of all, simply, it seemed, because I was too weak to take it up. I felt like a man in love who was spurned by his beloved.
In my pursuit of my vocation, I had pursued Christ, but instead I found my own personal Gethsemane. I felt that all I could do was to pray and wait for God to answer. Once I had thought myself strong enough to carry on, to pursue my vocation to its next step, but now I felt I had no choice but to simply trust in God, to drink from the bitter cup of obedience, and let Him lead me to wherever I was to go, for I had no idea.
Upon returning to the United States at the end of June, I continued my job hunt while traveling around the Midwest visiting friends. While I vainly searched for a long-term ministry job, I worked as a freelance web-developer to support myself. For the first time in my life, I was not a minister; not because I didn’t have it as a job, but because I no longer knew how to.
During a train-ride between South Bend and Chicago, I decided to read one of my favorite books, The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis. Without getting too much into the book, a key concept is that holiness, perfection, and solidity are all one in the same. When people begin their journey to heaven, they arrive as ghosts, like mere shadows, but as they continued their journey they grow firmer and more solid as they approach God and forget themselves. As the book puts it, “Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows,” and likewise the pilgrims must rely on others and give themselves time before their feet harden enough to walk on heaven’s grass.
Over the course of that four-hour train ride, my understanding of myself and vocation changed dramatically. No longer did I see vocation just as a journey propelled by gifts, strengths, and talents. That was but a small part of the puzzle. My vocation wasn’t about my strengths and my talents; it was about my weaknesses and what I needed to be made holy. Vocation wasn’t about the Path; it was about the Person.
As I continued to reflect on this, I realized just how prideful and foolish I had been. What had once been an email of rejection was now transfigured into a message of salvation. No longer would I judge my weakness as defective or broken. Instead, I would look with the eyes of Christ and see someone who was incomplete, whose feet were not yet firm enough to walk on the heavenly grass.
This revelation would transform my discernment and my call to ministry. No longer would I ask myself, “Lord, what shall I do with my talents?” Instead, I ask, “Lord, what do I need to be holy?” Where once I thought I had the strength to accomplish whatever task God had asked of me, I now realized that my strength was nothing compared to my own weakness and the strength that the grace of God afforded to one who truly depended upon it.
It was during this time I realized why I felt called so strongly to the Congregation of Holy Cross. Their motto is, “Ave Crux, Spes Unica”; literally, Hail the Cross, the Only Hope. I had shirked the cross given to me, both in regards to my relationship with my family and my childhood, and in doing so I had shirked Christ crucified upon it. So, in order to find Him, I needed to enter into my own weakness and brokenness and embrace my cross. Before I had even asked it of God, he gave me the answer to my pursuit of holiness: the Cross.
As God’s providence would have it, I moved home last November to live in my late grandmother’s farmhouse while the family took care of all the legalities that come with a person’s estate. Quickly thereafter, I would be hired by a local parish as their choir director and to build their music ministry from the ground up. Before, I had tried to follow my vocation my own way, and in my self-exaltation God humbled me. Now, as I moved to embrace my cross and humble myself to God’s will, I found exaltation.
In doing so, I put myself right where I didn’t want to be, but it was exactly what I needed. Through the grace of God, my relationship with my family transformed from being lifeless to being life-giving. It brought a healing and peace that I could have never given myself. As Christ says, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). Truer words were never spoken and they were far kinder in reality than I could have imagined.
After continuing prayer and discernment, and after talking with the vocations director for Holy Cross, I will be re-applying to seminary this year. I would be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t terrified that their answer will be the same, or simply, “No.” Yet, this entire experience has profoundly changed who I am and how I live out my ministry. Where once I depended on my own strength, now I can depend on God’s. No longer do I avoid my weakness and vulnerability, but instead I offer it to God and to others. I will always be the consummate minister; not because of my strength, but because I need to be.
I asked God, “What do I need to be holy?,” and He replied, “Tend my sheep.”
Nick Galasso graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2012 with a BA in Honors Theology, for which he wrote his senior thesis on liturgy. While at Notre Dame, Nick was a member of the Notre Dame Folk Choir for four years, directed the Keough Tabernacle Choir for two years, and twice served as a Mentor-in-Faith for Notre Dame Vision. After graduating, Nick served as a lay volunteer for one year in the House of Brigid, a community that does music ministry, youth ministry, and catechesis in Wexford and the Diocese of Ferns in Ireland. A native of Homer City, PA, Nick now lives in Blairsville, PA, and works as the Director of Music at Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in the Diocese of Greensburg. Nick can be contacted at ngalasso@alumni.nd.edu.
