“Follow Me”
Looking at the crucifix that was in the background, at one point, I felt that Jesus looked at me intently and called me very personally, just as the Gospel says: “Jesus, fixing his gaze on him, loved him and said: (…) Follow Me” (Mark 10:21).
“Because one day it is necessary to stop dreaming, take the plans out of the drawers and, in some way, start” (“Porque un día es necesario parar de soñar, sacar los planos de los cajones y, de algún modo, empezar”). This phrase is by Amyr Klink, a Brazilian adventurous sailor. I found it in a museum in São Francisco do Sul in January 2004 and it stayed with me. I feel it expresses a great truth of life that we all face at some point. I left my house on a Sunday in May 2006. I went to live in one of the communities that the Legion has in Santiago, to do a more intense vocational discernment, while I continued studying at university. The hardest part was not leaving. That day I was very serene and happy. The hard part was waking up the next day in my parents’ house and feeling that there was no turning back. The phrase “even the longest journey begins with a single step” came to my mind, and I felt that getting out of bed was taking that step.
My curiosity about vocation started when I was a kid, at school. The Lord gradually planted it through some encounters with Him during retreats, camps, ECYD activities, missions, etc. The first of these experiences I remember happened when I was 13 years old. One morning, I went into a chapel to visit Jesus and knelt on one of the back benches. I don’t feel I was a particularly pious child, but rather very normal, and it’s not that I often made these kinds of visits. But there, looking at the crucifix in the background, at one point, I felt that Jesus looked at me intently and called me very personally, just as the Gospel says: “Jesus, fixing his gaze on him, loved him and said: (…) Follow Me” (Mark 10:21). I was very scared and froze on the bench, but I experienced that fascination that the mystery of God produces. From there, I left with a deep certainty, like a rock that remained firm inside me. I didn’t feel it as an explicit call to the priesthood, but rather as an invitation to follow Jesus in a radical way in my life, to belong completely to Him. It was the first “Follow Me,” so full of that morning freshness of beginnings, like the call Jesus made to Peter after the first miraculous catch (Luke 5:1-11).
Another strong experience I remember was at the end of that same year, during missions we did with several schoolmates in a town in the central valley of Chile. At the end of that week, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, I started thinking about how happy I was, and spontaneously the question came: “If I’ve been so happy these days on missions, why not be a missionary for my whole life?” It was a question that resonated deeply inside me.
During the following years, the sense of calling took root in my heart, subtly and quietly, even despite periods of distancing from God. I once asked myself if I had reasons to dismiss the possibility that He was calling me, and I found none. And so, what had started as an intuition matured into a certainty, until a few months before finishing high school, I said my definitive “yes” to Jesus. Some years later, during Sunday Mass, I heard my parish priest say that if anyone felt called by God, they should respond “yes” right then in their heart, even if the process of entering the seminary took time afterwards. That was my experience, because my parents had once told my siblings and me that they would be happy if any of us decided to become a priest, but that we should first study a career. That day I took the opportunity to renew my decision to Jesus.
During my university years, I also had ups and downs in my relationship with God. I even went through a deep crisis of faith in which I questioned everything. Curiously, the certainty of my vocation always remained firm, like a rock deep in the ocean while the surface was agitated. From that experience, the Lord granted me the grace to find Him again and come out very confirmed in faith.
Many are the experiences from those years through which He reaffirmed the call and inspired me with the joy of following Him. I think, for example, of one that happened during some mission-work we did with a group of alumni from the school by a lake in southern Chile. Very close to the little school where we slept, there was a house that was always closed. We had called several times and no one answered. On the last afternoon, I went out to pray the rosary and saw that the lights were on. I felt like ignoring it, but while praying the rosary, God granted me the grace to decide to go as soon as I finished. I called, and after a while, a man with a very hardened expression came out. I started talking, and he only responded with monosyllables. But little by little, he began to open up. He worked as a gardener in a house by the lake. His wife and two daughters had recently left him, which is why his house was closed all day. He had gone days without seeing anyone and was thinking of committing suicide. When he told me this, his face was different. He looked like a helpless and repentant child, almost in tears. In the end, he decided to go to his mother’s house so as not to be alone. I gave him my rosary, a bunch of images, and promised to pray for him. His name is Sergio, and I hope to find him again someday and meet his wife and daughters.
A few months before leaving my house to live with my parents, I went into my parents’ room and told them I had something to tell them. My mom didn’t give me time to speak and said: “You’re going to be a priest!” Both were very moved by the news, and my mom said that when my siblings and I were kids, seeing that she had several sons, she had offered one of us to God. For me, it was very beautiful to realize that long before God came to meet me, she was already placing me in His hands.
From my years of formation in the Legion, I can say they have been very blessed by God. Among many others, God has granted me the grace never to doubt my vocation, and I think that has allowed me to live without apprehensions, without dwelling on other possibilities. Of course, there have been difficulties, especially in the early years, but with them also came very special graces.
Of all that could be said about these twelve years, I would like to share just one experience through which Jesus has been leading me. I entered the Novitiate full of joy and enthusiasm, with a deep desire for holiness in my heart and the idealism of someone embarking on a great enterprise worth giving everything for. Like Peter before the Passion, I also wanted to promise Jesus total fidelity and become a perfect disciple (cf. Luke 22:33). While I acknowledge the goodness in all those desires, which surely God Himself had placed in my heart, over the years I have been able to experience and understand more deeply all my weakness and misery. And after many times hitting the wall of my stubbornness and pettiness, of my strong tendency to seek myself and put myself first, I have become convinced of the insufficiency of my love for Him and that the mission is far beyond my possibilities. So, I feel that I can offer very little on my own to Him.
A few months before my diaconal ordination, the passage from the dialogue of the risen Jesus with Peter by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:15-19) often came to my mind, after Peter had denied and betrayed Him. Through His questions, Jesus made him see his weakness, but also that it was enough for him to love Him with his poor love, trusting in Him. Through the pain of his infidelity, Peter was able to experience Jesus’ mercy and offer Him what little he had. Then Jesus confirmed him in his calling, entrusting him with the care of His sheep and inviting him to a new follow-up. Through this passage, I have recognized a new call from the Lord to follow Him, now from my poverty, knowing that I do not have enough love or the necessary elements for the ministry. But because of that, I feel He is inviting me to trust in Him, because He will be with me. Despite everything, Jesus calls me again and confirms me in the mission. With this, unlike the attitude I had when I started the Novitiate and in the early years of formation, I no longer feel that I am doing the Lord a favor by responding to His call. It is quite the opposite. If He invites me to participate in His mission, it is purely out of His mercy.
In this experience, I see a very special grace from God before beginning the priesthood. It helps me remember that I am only a useless instrument (cf. Luke 17:10) and thus be able to leave Jesus the place that only He deserves, because it is to Him that we all need. Surely I will forget this many times and hit the wall again, but I am sure that He will be there to lift me up, just as He did with Peter that morning by the lake. And I know that Mary is always with me too.
Father Lucas Délano Gaete L.C. was born on August 23, 1984, in Santiago, Chile. He is the second of five siblings. His school years were spent at Colegio Cumbres in Santiago. From 2003 to 2006, he studied Architecture at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In 2007, he entered the Legion of Christ at the Novitiate Center in São Paulo. After his first religious profession in 2009, he worked for a semester as a vocations promoter in Curitiba, and that same year, he began his studies in classical humanities in Salamanca. Between 2010 and 2012, he studied a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome. During his apostolic internships, he was a formation instructor at Colegio Cumbres in Santiago and collaborated in the youth section of Regnum Christi in Las Condes. From 2015 to 2018, he studied a bachelor’s degree in theology at the same Roman Athenaeum. He currently works in the youth section of Regnum Christi in Bogotá, Colombia.
