Fr. Gary Coulter is a priest of the Diocese of Lincoln, NE, ordained in 1999. After 3 years as an assistant pastor and high school teacher, he completed two years of Canon Law studies in Rome, receiving his JCL from Santa Croce University. He is now parish pastor in Ashland and Greenwood, NE. His website http://geocities.com/frcoulter has a variety of Catholic resources and links.

I see my own vocation reflected in the call of Simon Peter in Luke 5:1-11, a story of my call to a deeper faith and relationship with God.

It begins with Jesus speaking to the crowds from Simon's boat. While Simon hears Jesus' preaching, I suspect he believed it was directed more to that crowd that gathers around, not realizing Christ was speaking to him. I attended Catholic schools had heard and been taught the faith, but that doesn't necessarily mean I had made it my own.

After Jesus had taught the people, he asked Simon to put out "into the deep" for a catch, to which Simon answered, "we just finished working hard all night and caught nothing!" When I went to college, I studied electrical engineering and computers, and I began to wonder if those things I had been taught about my faith were really that important. My faith was challenged for the first time, and when someone asked me "Why are you Catholic?" - The only answer I could give was that I had been raised that way. I realized I needed a better answer than that.

At the request of Jesus, Simon begrudgingly says "at your command, I will lower the nets." In 1993, I decided to go with a group of students on a trip to Denver, because the Pope was coming to visit. Suddenly I saw that the Church was a little bigger than I had previously realized - not just my parish or diocese... hundreds of thousands from all over the world came for World Youth Day, they gathered and cheered and were excited to be Catholic, excited about Jesus Christ.

At the closing World Youth Day Mass, Pope John Paul II made some spontaneous remarks to all the young people which I took to heart: he told us to be proud of our Catholic faith, and take these things and put them into practice.

For the first time I made God a part of my life, through prayer, confession and even daily Mass. God challenges us to do great things, but usually that begins with just taking some small steps. Christ says to each of us: "Come follow me." Although I had a much deeper faith I still refused to consider the possibility of the priesthood, or at least I wasn't yet ready to give up some things to answer this call.

"They caught so many fish their nets were at the breaking point." I had my dream job building mainframe computers for IBM. I was good at it and making lots of money right out of college. But my "miracle" was when what I thought was totally impossible occurred: I was dissatisfied with my work, and the thought of the priesthood became more and more attractive. I see my vocation as a lot of little 'tugs' where God nudged me to discover his call. I began to be attracted to prayer and one of the deepest tugs came in adoration of the Eucharist - I began to love my time spent there with the Lord and missed those days I didn't.

Notice the reaction of Simon to the miracle of the fish:

"Depart from me Lord, I am a sinful man." Once I stopped denying the possibility, a second response took place, one of unworthiness. I am not able to do this: I am shy, I cant speak, I am a sinner. Yet Jesus says, "Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men." Jesus takes us as we are... weak, sinful, unworthy - yet with his overflowing grace he could use even me as an instrument for helping others achieve salvation. I still had doubts and worries, but I chose the diocesan priesthood because the priests I had met and known were happy in what they were doing, and I realized they were normal people, nothing spectacular. With 4 words, "Do not be afraid" Christ answered my worries and calmed my fears.

"The boats were filled until they were in danger of sinking" - sometimes it is only after hitting bottom that we are able to rise up. God asks that we take that first step, that we let down our nets and open up to him. I went from questioning my faith to realizing that God was calling me to bring Christ to the people I meet and work with, to share in the awesome work of helping souls by being his priest.