This year Saint Joseph High School welcomes a new chaplain after the departure of Fr. Geoff Mooney to Cathedral High School in Indianapolis. Father David originally grew up in New Jersey then transferred to South Bend two years ago. He teaches at Saint Joe grade and comes to the high school several times a week. Father David strives to teach others as do many other priests, but he goes above and beyond in making sure people know how much God loves them.
In the summer of 2016 Father Smith decided he wanted to become more fluent in Spanish so he spent two months in South America. Fr. Smith ended up in Lima Peru where he served for 8 weeks in a poor area.
After a few weeks there he met a father who used to be a tour guide in the city. One day they weren’t busy and decided to go on a little excursion. Saint Martin and many monasteries were on the list of must sees that day.
While spending the day at Saint Martin’s tomb he prayed that he would have the ability to care and have as humble of a heart as Saint Martin did. Saint Martin was not very respected during his time. Being a mixed race priest caused him to be less liked and in return they made him a 3rd order father where he rarely got to talk to others about God.
Later that day Father Smith and his new friend went to eat lunch. During this time the World Cup had been on so they spent many hours at the restaurant watching the game. As about 5 hours had passed they decided it was time to go. When Fr. Smith got up, he went to put on his jacket and grab his phone out of the pocket he had put it in earlier.
His phone had gone missing… They decided to retrace their steps to try and find his phone. At this time he couldn’t think about anything but where he may have left it.
Later that night after not finding his phone he went to pray. While he was praying he remembered how Saint Martin had such a pure heart and none of these things would’ve mattered to him. He really self reflected and realized there was no need to be so mad about the incident.
The next day when he woke up he came to the realization that Saint Martin had answered his prayers by taking his phone away it gave him the opportunity to focus more on the world around him and really enjoy the rest of his trip without distraction.
Although it was a setback and made it hard to communicate he said it made his trip much more cherish-able and as soon as he got back he got a new phone.
In the end of things God sends gifts our way and responds to our prayers in many ways that we don’t know. So, just remember although you may not have your prayers answered like you think they should God is always working in the background to answer your requests.