Biography
Fr. Paul Boudreau is a Roman Catholic priest from the diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, currently "on loan" to the diocese of San Bernardino, California. Paul is a well-known preacher, whose sermons appear frequently in print and on the world wide web. He conducts retreats throughout the United States, and has written articles for many magazines and journals. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Is That Your Soul Phone Ringing?" 
I was just turning off this cell phone so that we won't be interrupted by any calls. You never know when these things are going to go off. I hear them ringing in Church all the time. They're like part of the music program. I guess somebody's always trying to get a-hold of you. Like at home, when the phone rings, I always think it's going to be somebody I know. But it's almost always a telemarketer, more interested in my credit card number than in me. They call constantly, don't they? They mispronounce my name terribly, and they've always got some kind of great deal for me. But you know? There's someone else calling all the time too, someone who is totally interested in me, who knows my name by heart, and who's got the best deal of all.

God is the great and constant caller, inviting you, me, and all of us to take advantage of a terrific offer. Somewhere deep within our souls, the phone is ringing and we need to stop what we're doing to answer it! It is the Lord calling us to fulfillment and joy; to experience the very reason we were born.

When I was a kid growing up in the city, I learned about God from a little green book called "The Baltimore Catechism." In it were hundreds of questions and answers that we kids had to memorize, or face the wrath of Sister Faleeta, our catechism teacher. To this day I still remember some of them, like question number six: "Why did God make you?" And the answer is, "God made me to known Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven." Sister Faleeta would be so proud!

So, if that's the reason I was made, then everything in me is tuned to be fulfilled by the presence of God, the love of God, and the service of God in this world. That desire for happiness, which we all have in us, is created to be a living part of who we are, and is destined to be fulfilled eternally by the one who made us. Like the smell of fresh bread coming from the oven, the attraction to God is a call that's hard to resist. "You have made us for yourself, O Lord," St. Augustine writes in Confessions, "and our hearts are restless till they rest in you."

God's call is for everyone, but we often think that it may be for some and not for others. We clergy sometimes hijack the whole idea of a divine calling, appropriating it as our own, making ordained ministry or religious life the exclusive purpose of God's call. Now, I'll be the first to tell you that professional ministry is a wonderful, exciting and satisfying occupation. But there are as many fulfilling vocations as there are people in the world. The prophet Isaiah wrote that God's word is like rain falling from the sky. It fills the air like TV signals. Your television may have a hundred channels, but God broadcasts over an infinite number of channels, and there's a station just right for you. "Find your delight in the Lord," it says in Psalm 37:4, "and he will give you the desire of your hearts." I like to think of God's call in my life as "The Paul Channel."

Also, because many of the stories in the Bible about God's call involve the great heroes of salvation—people like Abraham, Moses, Peter and Mary—we sometimes think that a personal call from God is a little beyond us. We imagine a kind of Cecil B. De Mille extravaganza with music by John Williams, a cast of thousands, and someone who looks a lot like Charlton Heston. But Scripture reveals a somewhat different reality.

Abraham and Sarah were childless and really old. But God called them to be the parents of a great nation with descendants as numerous as the stars. "Can a hundred year old man father a son?" Abraham asks himself in Genesis 17:17, "or can Sarah, who is ninety, have a baby?" They both thought it was pretty funny and ended up naming their son Isaac, which means "laughter."

Moses had a speech impediment and was on the lam from Egypt where he was wanted for murder. But God called him to return to Egypt, confront Pharaoh no less, and demand the release of his enslaved kinsmen.

The Apostle Peter was a fisherman, but in all the gospel stories he never landed a single fish without divine intervention. When he finally caught a few, it was considered a miracle! And forget about his nautical skills. Count the number of times his boat nearly sank. But the Lord called him to be "a fisher of men" and captain of a great, global ship: the church.

Saint Paul says that God calls the foolish of the world, the weak, the lowly and the despised, so that no one can claim greatness before God. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom," he says in I Corinthians 1:25, "and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."

When God needed someone to be the mother of Jesus, the logical choice would've been a woman with lots of experience and a proven track record of good parenting. Instead he called Mary, who was young and lowly and without a husband. She conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and became a virgin mother, the embodiment of God's kingdom.

So God's call is not just for the great, but reaches down into the lowliness of all humanity, into the humble lives of ordinary people who do ordinary things and don't imagine they're of much importance at all in the plan of God.

I got an email the other day from a friend. Although she raised five children and is now a great-grandmother, she's always felt that a true vocation in service to God had eluded her. But now, as she grows older, many of her friends are experiencing the death of their spouses and loved ones, and she finds herself encountering their grief more and more. She says that this has helped her to realize that her real purpose on Earth is simply to be there for others and to listen to their heartache. "It seems to be the thing I enjoy the most," she writes. "I always thought my mission on Earth was supposed to be grandiose in order to be pleasing to God, but I should have known better. It is the humble, little things that please him the most."

Your soul phone is ringing right now! God has a mission, a purpose for your life. It may be a call to ministry, or to retirement; to marriage, or to corporate leadership; to be a good salesperson, or a good listener, or a good homemaker, or a good skateboarder. You may be called at any time to give in to another or let go of a grudge, to offer a helping hand or accept someone else's help. God's call may be to public service, or to basketball; to be a cook, or a musician, or a bus driver; to offer a comforting word to a harried check-out clerk, or to surrender a spot on the freeway to another driver, or to give away a well-earned day's pay to a poor family in need. Perhaps God is calling you right now to share a moment of blessed communion with the Lord, who is as near to you as your own body.

The call of God is hardwired into us, written into our structure, woven into our humanity, programmed into our circuits. The Lord doesn't have to look up your number or mine in some celestial phonebook to give us a call. He's got each one of us on his speed dial and he's punching that button all the time. The call of God comes into every life, every moment of every day. God works through his creation, through history and future and now, to always invite us to a closer walk, a deeper experience of his infinite love, and a more sublime and satisfying act of goodness in God's name. "I came that you might have life," Jesus said in John 10:10, "and have it to the fullest."

Interview with Paul Boudreau
Interviewed by Floyd Brown

Floyd Brown: Fr. Paul, thank you for very much for an interesting and stimulating talk. I have a question: who calls people to be murderers and who calls people to be evil and do terrible things, if the analogy continues?

Paul Boudreau: Well, I imagine the easy answer is that the devil calls them to all that kind of stuff. It's through the same mechanism of desire, what do you want to do. But desire—our human desire, our excitement to do things—must always be tempered by the word of God and by the teaching of the church. Someone who has become a murderer or a thief has to hear the word and the teaching: you shall not kill and do not steal. But Jesus called a thief among his closest friends and he called him his friend. And even while he was still in the business of thieving, he was a follower of Jesus and constantly being invited to consider his life, as we all are, and perhaps take a different track.

Brown: I like your Cecil B. De Mille analogy! Tell us about your calling. Was it glorious with trumpets playing?

Boudreau: Oh, I wish it was! It would have been a lot easier. No, I think it was just in my sense of beauty and of joy. Jesus said, "I teach you all these things so that my joy might be yours and your joy may be complete." I was just drawn to the joy of living life in Jesus Christ and of moving towards the Lord. I have followed that path until it led me to where I am now.

Brown: And you are very happy.

Boudreau: I'm very happy! Yes, I am.

Brown: Thank you so much. A marvelous talk and you've inspired us all.

Boudreau: Thank you, Floyd.