By: Jay Sorgi
Jesus Christ walked beside a pair of disciples on the road to Emmaus, even if they didn’t recognize it was the Savior until after He had broken bread with them. He deeply understood the disciples’ journey as He accompanied them.
Father Matthew Murray, priestly vocations director, would be the first to tell you he’s not God. Yet he understands a bit of accompanying the road a potential candidate for the priesthood walks in his discernment, because he has walked it himself.
“It’s a gift to be able to watch young men discern God’s call in their life, and to be able to assist them with tools of discernment, how they can know God’s call more deeply in their life, and to be able to see whether or not Christ is calling them to the priesthood,” says Father Murray, who is also the pastor of Saint Isidore Parish in Danville.
Like many who discern priesthood, the Antioch, California, native says the discovery of his calling was a surprise.
faith, families and mission.
“At first, I kind of started my college career not even thinking about priesthood, kind of living the life, considering what my career options and professional life would be. I was dating. I never abandoned the faith, but I never really thought that God was calling me to the priesthood,” says Father Murray, who began his new role in July.
God revealed himself in a new way to Murray in 2009, when he stepped inside St. Agnes Catholic Church in Concord to pray for other people and simply be with God, present in the Blessed Sacrament.
“It was in that moment, you might say accidentally, or maybe by God’s providence and design, that He made me realize, ‘No, I’m inviting you to consider the priesthood in the seminary,’ which is something that was just not on my radar screen at the time,” he said.
He explained his reaction was something like this: “This seems like a really different idea than what I thought. What I’ll do is I’ll go to the vocations director. He knows how God helps people discern in their life, and he’ll probably tell me something like, ‘Yeah, that doesn’t seem like it fits you. Go ahead and live your life. Don’t worry about it. It was probably just a momentary crazy idea,’” he said.
But Father Lawrence D’Anjou, now vicar general of the Diocese of Oakland, revealed to now-Father Murray that sometimes God works through crazy ideas.
“He said, ‘I think you might want to look twice at this. I think God might be calling you to more, and if you’re open to God’s grace, I think you should really think about this,’ which I did,” said Father Murray.
“It took about a year really to wrestle and to discern, and then finally to say, ‘Yes, I think I want to apply.’”
Fifteen years after that discernment journey, Father Murray is guiding young men down the same pathway of discovering whether the priesthood is God’s calling for them.
Even though time has passed, “A lot of just kind of those experiences of discernment and the questions that come up along the way, and then the excitement and the things that you are that are attracted about the priesthood, those things are still fresh in my mind,” said Father Murray.
“I see my role as just having a front row seat to the work of Christ in a young man’s life as he discerns, ‘What am I supposed to be doing? Is the priesthood one of those things?’ Those are directly, in some ways, directly connected to how the Lord is working in his life in other ways.”
“It’s a beautiful opportunity to get to know someone’s discernment of life and their vocation, and how seriously they take their faith. I see it as a grace.”
Father Matthew Murray, director of Vocations
Father Murray says much of that accompaniment in helping young men discern their path involves understanding the moments of their lives that provide revelation of their pathways when perhaps they don’t expect it.
“Maybe they weren’t thinking about it at another time in their life, or they weren’t even thinking about it recently, but a couple of events have happened. Different things have happened in prayer. They’ve met different people along the way, and suddenly they’re feeling this interior draw,” he explained.
A call, Father Murray said, can be a surprise, “but then also coupled with that is still a deepening desire to love Christ, to be with Him in prayer, to learn about the faith, to share the faith. Guys on the one hand will say, ‘I’m kind of surprised that I’m called to the priesthood … but man, I love telling other people about Christ.’ They have a fire for a relationship with Christ.”
Father Murray says that the crux of his role often involves taking these moments in men’s lives, and helping them connect the dots toward a yes-or-no answer involving a potential priestly ministry.
“You’re helping them see, and you’re just further encouraging them to continue to have a prayer life, continue to talk to a spiritual director, continue to practice the faith, continue to receive the sacraments, continue to serve in different ways.”
His role is not to be such an aggressive recruiter of future priests that he becomes a pest, but to gently open doors, and that “it has to come from them.”
“What I try and instill in guys is, ‘God gave you free will. He gave you a heart. He gave you a mind. He gave you this ability to discern not only right from wrong, but the good from the really good. All of those are a part of you,’” he says.
“Is God going to the priesthood? Can you sense that? But do you want it too, so you and the Lord are wanting it together?”
That question opens the door for him to live his own new vocation, that of companionment on each potential seminarian’s own Road to Emmaus, to where God is alive in their lives as they discover their calling.
“It’s a beautiful opportunity just to kind of get to know someone’s discernment of life and their vocation, and how seriously they take their faith,” he says. “I see it as a grace.”