Julius Balita
My parents raised me up in the Catholic faith and always made it a priority to take us to Sunday mass every week. However, when I asked why we went to church, they kind of just said, “Well, God said so.” I was okay with that answer and didn’t really think anything of it. When I got into my later years in high school and early into my university career though, my faith nearly became non-existent. I began to think it wasn’t essential to go to mass, I was living a party lifestyle, and I was falling into a lot more sin.
In the second year of university, I remember entering the student centre at Ryerson during clubs day when a random student ran up to me trying to entice me with a free pen. Anything attached to the word “free” was the way to a young broke university student’s heart. I remember walking up to the Ryerson Catholics booth, signing up my schedule, and taking the pen.
A week later, a student called from the club and asked to meet. When I met up with him, he tried to pitch the Catholic Christian Outreach Discovery Faith Study. I initially didn’t want to do it but after much hesitation, I decided to give it a try. It didn’t take me long to realize that I knew absolutely nothing about God’s Love, His Church, that the Holy Spirit was more than a dove, or that Jesus was actually God! The basics of the Catholic faith were blowing my mind. Eventually, I put Christ at the centre of my life and decided to take the rest of the faith studies. But, my journey was slow and gradual. Although I started to grow in my faith, I was still living a double life and holding onto my old party lifestyle.
During my 4th year, I decided to attend CCO’s Rise Up Conference in Montreal in 2015 and it was there when I encountered God in such a powerful way. It was in Eucharistic Adoration. I was ugly crying and looking at Jesus thinking, “this has to be what real love feels like.” From that moment, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and joy, and I decided right there to firmly place Christ at the centre of my life for real. I said it in Discovery, and in my head I put Christ there, but at that Rise Up, that’s when it truly clicked. It finally went from the head to the heart.
After this conversion experience, I knew right away that God was calling me to devote my life to His Church. I wanted to grow in holiness and mission. I wanted to become a saint. I gave Him my ‘yes’ to do whatever He wanted me to do and surrendered my life to Him. For those of you who know, when you say ‘yes’ to God, boy does He take you on a journey!
In these years since, He has given me the opportunity to serve Ryerson Catholic Students Association as a CCO missionary for 2 years, the chance to be a Totus Tuus missionary for 2 summers, and even gave me the courage and desire to discern my vocation as a seminarian at St. Augustine’s Seminary for 2 years.
After my 2nd year in formation I discerned that God was not calling me to the priesthood. I’m very at peace with the decision and look forward to what God has in store for the future.
My experiences at each of these chapters in my life since committing to Jesus has been absolutely wonderful. My relationship with Him continues to deepen and His love for me continues to be the driving force in all that I do. But, at the end of the day, I am just a normal, flawed man. I am a sinner who is striving to become the saint God is calling me to be.
It’s funny how a free pen from a student who had the courage, faith, and love for souls to know Jesus on campus changed my life. Just like the pen, as unimportant as it seemed, was an instrument of God's Grace in my life, so also I want to be, unimportant as I seem, an instrument in the hand of God.