Rev. Robert Ketcham
He was the best player in the minor league. In fact, he was the only player with thirty home runs and thirty stolen bases. Naturally, the Oakland Athletics wanted to give him the opportunity to play in the majors for them. But, at the same time, someone else – far superior – was pursing him to play on a team far superior.
After being drafted to the minors in 2007, he was tried for the next two years by shoulder and wrist problems. But, when asked to reflect on his injuries – to which the world would refer as a “setback” – Grant Desme speaks of them as being “the biggest blessings God ever gave me”.
In the stillness of the time he spent healing from his bodily injuries, his soul was being healed of its spiritual injuries. And Grant Desme, though he will be forgotten by the world of baseball, will be forever re-membered to the God from whom all good things come.
You see, Grant Desme has announced that he will be leaving baseball for the priesthood. I’m sure you read the story last week; he is planning to enter the Seminary in Silverado, California in August. After being tried and drafted by the minors, he was tried and drafted by the Lord. “Run for me”, Jesus said to him in his heart, “run for me”. And Desme has chosen to run, like a true MVP.
There is something very important going on in this story that I want to elucidate, lest it be overlooked by the careless layman.
It is this: physical injury is not infrequently the place of personal, intimate encounter between a man and his God. Consider the great Saint Ignatius of Loyola. When the body of man is open to healing, so is his soul, as the soul is affected by the condition of the body, and vice versa.
I too heard my call to the priesthood during a time of physical healing. After college, my lung had collapsed unexpectedly, which led to a succession of operations during the course of what would become the most transformative year of my life.
My family and I were living together in one room on the second floor of a friend’s home; we had sold our old house and were moving into a new one that was not yet finished. But, the woman we were living with was not just any woman; she was a nurse and a Catholic saint. So, she didn’t just prop my head on the pillow; she propped it before Mother Angelica and her network of miracles. My body was healing, but so was my soul. There was peace. And then: the vocation.
When the body is open to healing, so too is the soul. I suppose any priest will tell you that no man is ever more open to the offer of salvation than when he is recovering from open-heart surgery in the ICU. Vulnerable and afraid, he is finally open to truth and surety (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:10).
And I think this is what Grant Desme is talking about when he speaks of his own injuries as being “God’s biggest blessings”. Whatever else he was doing during the time he was forced to spend off the field, I’m sure it included Mass, the Rosary and, more than likely, that little Carmelite Nun from Alabama who still speaks, though with fewer words, from her own double-cloister, the one of her Monastery and the one of her aging body (Updates on Mother Angelica). You might even say that, in her bodily weakness, she is spiritually stronger than ever.
Do not expect the world to understand Desme’s decision; tell them about it and they laugh at him. It is yet another mark of their insanity. They call him a “moron”, but only prove themselves ignorant of the God who created them in love. But, one day Father Grant will try to help them. They will be yet another force driving the priest forward, convinced as he is of the truth, to save at least what can be saved, and to atone to the best of his power, for the sin and the apathy of the world.
Remember Grant Desme, as well as all seminarians, in your prayers. Pray that they persevere en route to the priesthood.
In Jesus and Mary,
Father Robert
