Rebecca Delcambre is an incoming Seton Teaching Fellow with Cohort 11. She is graduating from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a B.S in Psychology and Dance. In this reflection, Rebecca shares how she experienced a call from Christ to love, serve, and teach His children.
Encountering Seton Teaching Fellows and saying yes to service was, in the end, a simple thing. It was an invitation, a loving call that could only come from the Good Shepherd Himself.
One Fall afternoon, I was sitting in the carline and waiting for a child whom I pick up from school—a little lamb, entrusted to my care. Sitting there and reflecting on postgraduate plans, I heard the voice of Jesus beckon to me. The call was certain and clear: I saw the Lord inviting me to something deeper, to truly serve others with my gifts and talents. I had been discerning a mission with Seton Teaching Fellows but hadn’t yet committed—what was stopping me? I knew God would provide and that He could be trusted, that was the story of Love I had walked many times before. Saying yet to this mission, though, felt new and uncertain in so many ways.
I found Seton Teaching Fellows through a friend who had spent a year in service of this mission and who had shared the abounding joy she received from the experience. With her encouragement, I began to look into Seton the summer before my senior year of college. However, there were so many other routes I could have, or should have, taken: graduate school was just in reach, there were excellent recommendations that would have to be passed over, and of course amazing family and friends with so many of their own joys to be witnessed back at home. Despite the unknown, I prayed on STF, and having heard the call of Christ, I decided to accept an offer and become a Fellow! So, why did I say yes? Why did I give my “fiat” to serve Christ as a Seton Teaching Fellow?
Each little death to self is what the Lord uses to prepare us for a greater calling, and ultimately our vocation.
Jesus asks Peter a question of love: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (John 21:15). Jesus asks this question (in various forms) three times. Peter, answering each time in the affirmative, became distressed. It’s obvious to any of us that Peter loves Jesus; he had just spent the past three years of his life following Jesus and witnessing His teachings and signs. Was that not enough? Well, the question that Jesus was asking is one not simply of love, but of greater obedience. Each little, and not so little, “yes” that Peter had given before was leading to a great call, which was to lead the Church and “feed” and “tend” to its members. Each little death to self is what the Lord uses to prepare us for a greater calling, and ultimately our vocation. Christ was asking Peter not to just love and serve Him, but all of God’s children, and Christ then gave him a great responsibility.
Similarly, as my many encounters with the Lord built up a love for Christ, I believe that He was using my discernment of postgraduate plans as a chance to abandon myself, follow Him, and love His children. In hearing Jesus call me to Seton, I was being asked by the Lord to come again and receive His Will for my life. It was pure grace that inspired me to give my yes to the Lord! Along with the help of others to walk with me and answer every question that came, the Lord started to work in my heart and He drew me more and more to the radiant beauty of this mission.
I once attended a talk at my campus Newman center, the priest who was speaking pointed out that St. Maximilian Kolbe did not just wake up one day and decide to give his life for another. He didn’t give himself over to the Lord all at once. It was in sanctifying the little things each day that Kolbe was able to display the “greater love” (John 15:13). Kolbe had a beautiful obedience to grace that we are all called to emulate. Neither St. Peter, St. Maximilian Kolbe, or I knew exactly what lay ahead when we said “yes” to Jesus, but what a great sign of love it is to say “yes” in joyful obedience and to trust everything to God. It is in fulfilling God’s will that we give Him the greatest glory. To be Jesus’ friends and to have eternal life necessitates that we do what He asks of us.
Peter knew who Jesus was and what a life devoted to Him meant. Jesus had spent time pouring into Peter and forming Him for a life given over to Love. Our constant yes to the Lord is a response of love. “We love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:20). We receive and give from the overflow of gifts we have been given. I have seen God work in the most beautiful ways in my life, and His presence has been so true. This is why I am so thrilled to be a Seton Teaching Fellow! I want to witness to the children entrusted to my care the love, hope, and joy that I have been shown in my own life. I answer with prayer: Father, I know that they will be your gift to me, and I want to be a vessel of Your love and life for them.
“And after this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” (John 21:19). So I, too, go and follow the Lord where He calls, trusting in His Goodness and in His Providence.
