For the past six years I’ve been serving as the youth music coordinator at the Vietnamese Catholic Community Centre.
I’m also an active musician at St Thomas the Apostle Church in Claremont.
When not helping out at the church, I work at a grocery business during the week. My days involve getting up before dawn and spending a lot of the time driving a truck around.
I usually don’t tell everyone about my job. I really enjoy what I do, but the moment people find out that you drive a truck and have access to a fleet of large vehicles, your status suddenly gets promoted from acquaintance to friend.
Sometimes it’s just to help people move house. Sometimes it’s a purchase at the local Harvey Norman and when the salesperson has asked them if they would like additional delivery, their response has been, “It’s okay – I got a mate with a truck”.
And, once everything has arrived at its new destination, there is a parting exchange and we then go our separate ways.
That kind of ‘on-call’ relationship was symbolic of my relationship with God as a young adult.
As a child, I remember being brought up in a very devout family.
Frequent Mass attendance and enrolment in Catholic schools ensured that strong seeds of faith had been planted in me.
Then, in my early adulthood, God became less relevant in my life.
When you turn 18, all of a sudden this freedom is bestowed upon you and you spend that part of your life experimenting with this new gift of choice and experience of decision-making.
And, unfortunately, maintaining a healthy relationship with God wasn’t one of those choices.
As you continue to explore the boundaries of this new independence, you occasionally find yourself in trouble.
So, you call on your ever dependable, reliable friend, God. And, once he answers your prayers, it’s back to the same routine where his presence in your life is unrequired and inconvenient.
This is how my spirituality continued for some time before a major world event in 2008 would impact on my life forever.
I’d like to say that this event was the World Youth Day in Sydney, but that wouldn’t be entirely true.
Don’t get me wrong, WYD was an inspiring event, but my involvement as an organiser meant that I would not receive the same kind of spiritual nourishment as a pilgrim simply participating.
And, during this period of my life, I’d yet to develop the maturity required to sustain my faith.
WYD and other occasional incidences would provide a temporary injection of motivation but my spirituality was like a football.
It would collect dust during most of the year, be brought out for a kick during the excitement of footy season before, once again, being thrown in the boot of the car, deflating until another motivating reason was found to take it out for a chip.
The real reason behind my decision to commit to pursue my work within the Church can oddly be attributed to the global economic crisis of 07/08.
When the world was plummeting into chaos, governments were looking to either stimulate the economy or implement drastic austerity measures.
In their efforts to balance the books, trimming foreign aid expenditure seemed like a responsible decision and one that would incite the least political backfire.
As the proverb says, God speaks to us in mysterious ways, and my moment of revelation would unexpectedly occur while watching a speech by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.
In 2010, the Conservative Party leader would reconfirm his pledge to meet UN humanitarian aid targets despite the volatility of the economy.
While I don’t recall his exact words, his general proposition was that the world’s poorest people should not be the ones suffering due to the crisis born of the irresponsibility and greed of the largest economies.
That simple and sensible rationalisation led me to my epiphany. Religion has always been important in my life, but when life’s pressures began surmounting, my involvement and participation at my church was the first thing to trim.
Following WYD in Sydney, I was heavily involved in my parish’s liturgical program, but this commitment would dwindle as soon as the demands on my time went up.
Whether it was needing to work longer hours, a partner to please, a wedding to plan, a house to renovate or a new business to set up – it was natural to prioritise these ambitions ahead of ministerial work.
Nowadays, I use that revelation as rationale for my continued work with the Church. My faith is fortified by Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:26, telling us not to worry about our possessions or what we eat.
For, if God can feed the birds in the sky and clothe the flowers in the field, surely he will take care of his own children.
It’s a fact of life that we’ll be presented with endless time-consuming objectives but the Kingdom is where our hearts should be set.
Even though my contribution to the community is incomparable to the millions of people benefiting from Britain’s foreign aid policy, I draw comfort from my belief that my priorities are now in sensible order.
I believe that being Catholic means maintaining and strengthening our faith as much as possible.
When Pope Francis called us to “make disciples of all nations” at WYD RIO, I am also reminded of our obligation to perpetuate the mission of the Church.
That’s why I’ve made a commitment to stay connected to the Church. Through my pastoral work I receive a greater sense of purpose and fulfilment.
My spiritual health has improved and no longer resembles that inflating and deflating football.
I hope my efforts also inspire and motivate others to develop that relationship with God, so that he doesn’t just act like that friend with the truck who is called upon in times of need.
And, I long for others to see that continued faith and trust in God will sort out the chaos of our busy, modern lives.