The priestly vocation
“Every person born into this world is part of God's plan of salvation.” So it was with my own birth. A week after I was born, a neighbour nearby passed away, and I brought back something of that person. Boils broke out all over my body. My parents were anxious and sought out healers and medicines everywhere, but it was all in vain. Everyone thought I would not survive. Then, on someone's advice, my parents turned to Saint Anthony and offered me to him. Through the intercession of Saint Anthony I received the grace of healing. And my parents took Saint Anthony as my patron saint. From that moment I have been a child of his special grace. Every year, on the third day of Tết and on 13 June, I was brought to Saint Anthony, from the time I was very small. Even so, my body stayed stunted; I could not grow.
From childhood I loved the black cassocks the seminarians wore, and from then on I always longed for the day when I too would put on that garment. Day by day I cherished the longing in my heart, and it grew ever greater within me. At first I wanted to enter religious life only because the black cassock was beautiful, but now it is different. I want to be closer to God, to love him more; and so the dream of becoming a priest kept growing in me.
I know that the road from here to the priestly vocation is not at all easy. And so I strive all the harder to study and to cultivate myself in knowledge and in virtue, to shorten that distance. My father died nearly two years ago, and my mother raises the five of us on her own; that weighs on my mind a great deal. If I go on to higher studies, it will only add to the burden on my mother's shoulders. But at such moments the thoughts and the images of the black cassock, of the priesthood, rise up in my mind again, more forcefully than ever. I cherish it every day, and it keeps growing in me.
At my age, when others are eating and playing, hardly anyone thinks as much as I do. But one would have to be in my situation to understand. I want to become a priest because I want to be closer to Christ, to love him more, and I want to draw everyone to God and to draw down God's grace upon everyone. I will follow the example of my patron saint so as to live better. I do not know how things will turn out, or in what way. But I entrust everything to God, and God will provide for his sheep.
Võ Phan Minh Quân Parish: Xã Đoài – Xã Đoài Deanery
