My friends and I were happy to get to church
on Sunday morning to hear the priest's sermons that centered largely
on apocryphal stories from his own career. We were mesmerized,
and I can remember quite clearly articulating a desire to follow
in his footsteps, so that one day I could stand at the same altar
and do what he did so well. Mom and Dad encouraged me, each in
their own way. Nothing seemed impossible to me despite our economic
environment.
It was exciting to have in my classes, in addition
to our Catholic seminarians, students from non-Catholic denominations.
When these students from the affiliated colleges were ordained,
they began their priestly careers with a close knowledge of one
another in Jamaica that made the teaching and preaching of ecumenism
at the parish level easy to implement.
My modest and still unfinished autobiography
had a subtitle. It is, "God Writes Straight with Crooked
Lines." It filled and still fills my mind, and I can still
go with it today. In his own way, the Lord brings to pass what
He wants of us during the span of our lives. Either you decide
what the Lord wants for you or, if you don't decide what the Lord
wants for you, since He is in charge, it happens. I'm grateful
for this. I leave it at that!
