Explore, Dream, Discover: these three words from Mark Twain, I think, are the best I can suggest to anyone discerning their vocation.

I would say “come and see” because if the Lord has called you thus far, you won’t be able to rest until you do so.

Find your passion and follow it. It will give you deep-down satisfaction throughout your life, even when on the surface level you may face many difficulties.

Being a Salesian is a very joyful and rewarding life with some minor challenges every now and then. Yet, we are free from worldly possessions to do the work of God as free individuals.

To young people – be people of prayer, seek spiritual help on the way to develop a strong friendship with Christ. Continue to be open to what vocation God is calling you to – priesthood, marriage, religious life or the single vocation.

I have been a member of the Paulist Missionaries for 36 years. I was born in Yallourn, country Victoria, the eighth child in a family of eleven. At the age of 14, after my father's death, I began to ask the deeper questions of life: Who am I? Why am I here? Why life? Why death? Who is this Jesus person? Until then the concept of priesthood and religious life was far from my thoughts.

My journey has led me to see that my search for God is just the other side of the quest in search of "Who am I?" - we are made in the image of God; in finding out who God is, I find out who I am.

My name is Brother Luke Rudd. I grew up in Hoppers Crossing and after five years in the seminary in 2005 I entered Tarrawarra Abbey. This is a monastery of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (OCSO), founded in the Yarra Valley in 1954.

I am John Sherman, for 52 years a member of a worldwide family, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

A Year that Changed my Life

At 18 years of age I travelled from Wangaratta in North East Victoria to Melbourne to begin University studies. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was studying Computer Science but the “lights” and excitement of city life were quickly becoming the focus.