APRIL 16, 2026 FATHER PETER JAE CHOI
About five years ago, computer scientist Dr. Chris Harrison collaborated
with a Lutheran pastor, Reverend Christoph Romhild, and created a
remarkable computer visualization of 63,799 of the 340,000 cross-
references found in the Bible.
For the visual effect, they put a bar graph across the bottom, which
represented the verses in the Bible. And each of the 36,799 cross-
references were depicted as an arc, with different colours and different
lengths.
What they ended up with were these tens of thousands of rainbows
shown across the screen, and practically no empty spaces left.
The Bible is composed of 73 books, written over the course of 1,500
years, by 40 different authors, who lived on three different continents.
The entire Bible is interconnected. Certain themes and concepts recur
throughout the scriptures. Consistent messages run through the entire
Bible.
There are over 300 prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah
that were fulfilled by Jesus. There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible
is the word of God. Although the public revelation was completed with
the scriptures, God continues to unfold his plan of salvation in our lives.
I remember back in 2000, I went to Mexico as a seminarian for a
mission. I fell in love with the mission, and I was seriously thinking
about leaving the seminary to join the Franciscans.
Then one day, after I finished the day of helping the Indigenous
community, I sat down and prayed to God. And I said,
“Lord, I love being here. If you ask me to become a Franciscan, you
know I would.”
I hadn’t even finished the sentence, and I heard the response in my heart:
“Why do you think I brought you to Canada? Your mission is in
Toronto.”
I felt confused. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. And
then I paused and thought about it, and I came to the realization that I
didn’t even finish my sentence when the response came to me.
I spent more time praying, and I realized it was God who spoke to me. I
didn’t know it, because that never happened to me before. It was the first
time God spoke to me.
I came to the realization that God often talks to us. It’s just that I’m too
often busy telling God what to do, and what I want. I think Christian
discipleship begins when we stop telling God what to do, and start to
listen to him and obey his will.
Even though I had to spend time discerning my vocation to the
priesthood, in a certain sense I knew deep in my heart that God was
calling me to the priesthood.
After I was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Toronto, back in
2006, I remember having a small crisis. I feel like becoming a priest
meant that I had arrived, and once I got there I was left bewildered. I
needed to find answers to these questions:
Now what? What kind of priest am I going to be?
A few months later, I found this prayer, written by Bishop Ken Untener,
and since then this prayer has become a roadmap in my priesthood. Let
me share that prayer with you.
It’s called Prophets of a Future Not Our Own.
“It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our
vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the
kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that will one day grow.
We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future
promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing
that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it well.
It may be incomplete, but it is the beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the
master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders.
Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.”
So the coolest thing about being a priest is when people ask me who I
work for, or what I do for a living. I get to say, “I work for God.”
My job is to share the good news with others.
Just like what Mother Teresa once said:
“I’m not called to be successful, I’m called to be faithful.”
Being faithful to the duties God assigned to us. That’s our mission.
What we find in today’s first reading is the Apostles who were once
afraid and went into hiding made a comeback, and now they’re boldly
preaching the good news.
All they had to do was to keep preaching the good news, and leave the
rest to God. Whenever we feel alone or even abandoned, let us remind
ourselves that God’s silence is not the same as him doing nothing.
It takes time for the seeds to germinate. When you water the plant, it
takes time to grow.
God is always working behind the scenes, preparing for our growth and
for our breakthrough.
So when we are tempted to say, “Why is this happening to me?” we need
to tell ourselves this is happening for a reason. I’m not the master
builder. He is.
There was once a priest who was very ambitious. He wanted to change
the world. He felt discouraged when he realized he couldn’t change the
world. So he made it his mission to change his parish. But he couldn’t.
So he became more realistic with his expectations and told himself that
he was going to change just the people who were around him. But he
couldn’t even do that either. He came to the realization that the only
person he could change was himself.
So he worked on himself and made changes in himself.
Once people noticed that he became more patient and kind to others,
more attentive to the needs of others, and became more generous and
forgiving, slowly people around him began to change. And then his
parishioners changed too.
If you want to change the world, work on yourself first. Saint Catherine
of Siena said it so well:
“Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire. on fire.”
