A room with a view was a life-changer for Franciscan Father Joe McKay. Being struck by the sheer beauty flooding that view one morning was what made the difference, The Catholic Leader reports.

In his 30s at the time, he was living in Wollongong, NSW, working for BHP as a chemical engineer, and enjoying the happy and fulfilled life of a young professional.

But then that view grabbed his attention.

“I literally woke up one day – beautiful day in front of me – and I looked out the window and I went, ‘Oh, thank you God for this day, what can I do for you?’,” Fr Joe, now living in Brisbane as vocations director for the Franciscan Friars in Australia and working as a chaplain at Padua College and the University of Queensland, said.

“And I literally was, a couple of hours later, going, ‘I’m taking that question seriously …’ and from there is where I started asking, ‘Well, how can I live my life in more of that way?’”

Fr Joe said that day when beauty changed his life was no different to any other.

“I was looking at the same view that I always looked out my window at and it was just the recognition of beauty before me that touched me,” he said.

“And it was only afterwards that I learned that, as Franciscans … ‘beauty’ is one of the names of God, that St Francis calls God – ‘You are Beauty’ – and it’s that sense of God keeps giving things to us.

*Fr Joe Mackay says beauty drew him to religious life with the Franciscans. PHOTO: The Catholic Leader.*

He remembers saying to his parish priest at the time, “I don’t know what it really means”.

“And even the first year with the friars, I was saying ‘I don’t know what it means or where I’m being led to, I just know I have to be here’,” he said.

“And it’s that sense of walking into a mystery was part of it as well.

“I literally got to that point where I went, ‘Any of the questions that I had about religious life I could not answer unless I chose to live it’.”

When he first started searching out the call to priesthood he went to a Sydney archdiocesan vocation retreat and spoke to other religious congregations but he found his home with the Franciscans.

It was “that great sense of community and a great sense of prayer” that attracted him, and still appeals to him.

He’s also found the Franciscans are about constantly “telling the Gospel stories in new ways and then trying to live it”.

“For me, that’s the heart of it – a sense of community, a sense of prayer and then a sense of being (that) we’re called to live the Gospel,” he said.

A Franciscan for 12 years, Fr Joe loves wearing the familiar brown habit of those following in the footsteps of St Francis of Assisi because it gives people on the street the chance to talk to someone about God, the Gospel or any other question of faith.

“Wearing the habit is to give other people permission to say, ‘Let’s talk about God ..’,” he said.

“That’s what I’m there for.

“And the Franciscans have a tradition of we’re quite down to earth about our spirituality and so I think people realise that and are happy to ask us any question.”

And they do, “all the time”.

“I think it’s needed. I think people do have a thirst for spirituality, a thirst for the divine in their lives …,” Fr Joe said.

“Hopefully I’m there to answer the questions that people are asking.”

Fr Joe’s also involved as a spiritual assistant to the lay Franciscan movement, the Order of Franciscans Secular (St Francis’ Third Order) – lay communities gathering in small groups.

“They are truly a Franciscan community where lay people in their normal lives come together to share the Gospel and to work out how do they individually live the Gospel and be Christ to others,” Fr Joe said.

“It’s one of my joys to be one of the national spiritual assistants for that movement.

“One of my joys over the last couple of years has been giving retreats and nourishing the Franciscan spirituality of that community.

“The rest of my time is looking at how we can involve young people in the Church and give them opportunities to volunteer in Church services, to volunteer and be the hands of Christ for others, because, for me, I believe that when you start to do what Christ did, you’ll start to feel what Christ felt and then you’ll start to love like Christ.”

This article is drawn from a feature article by Peter Bugden, published in The Catholic Leader. Read the full article here.