When we are children, people ask us all the time, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" But it seems today, more and more adults are asking themselves, “What am I going to be when I grow up?”

But it’s more fruitful not to focus on the age-old question of, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" but rather to ask, "Who is God inviting me to become?" 

It's a total change of perspective: From what do I want to what does God want. But even more importantly, it moves the conversation from doing to becoming. We are not asking what does God want us to do; we are asking who does God want us to become.

God has bold dreams for you; bigger dreams than you can comprehend at the moment.

It is as true for you as it was of Saint Gotthard, who discovered his true passion within the serene and disciplined walls of the Niederaltaich Monastery. 

Gotthard’s noble birth paved seductive worldly paths for him, but he never felt worldly power was what God was calling him to do. As a young man, he asked God the question, “Who are you inviting me to become?” The answer was surprising: Live a quiet life as a monk. 

Gotthard may have been reluctant at first, but once he embraced the Benedictine lifestyle, he knew he had found his passion. How? Because hours in prayer felt like minutes. Dining with his brothers was a joy. And his intellectual pursuits were so engaging that he experienced timelessness. Saint Gotthard was living with passion and purpose, and he left a legacy of leadership, dedication, and selflessness.

Just like Saint Gotthard, you deserve to have work that engages you passionately. 

Whenever we speak about finding your passion, the question comes up: How will you know when you have found your passion? 

When we are exercising our talents and abilities in a role that we are passionate about, we experience timelessness. If you are passionate about speaking, you might get done speaking to an audience for an hour, and it seems as if it were just five minutes. If you’re an engineer, you might sit down to plan a project and next thing you know, three hours have passed.

Do we always experience this timelessness? No. No matter what you do, there will be times when the time just seems to drag or you can't stop thinking about somewhere you would rather be. The timelessness isn't always there, but we live for the times that it is. And once you have experienced it, there is no mistaking it for anything else.

It's time to find something you can do passionately. It's time to discover who God is inviting you to become.

Patron Saint of: Traveling Merchants, Those in Peril of the Sea. Invoked Against Fever, Dropsy, Childhood Illnesses, Hailstones, and the Pain of Childbirth

Symbols: A Dragon

Feast Day: May 4 

Feast Day Shared By: Saint Antonina of Nicea

Canonized: 1131

Canonized By:  Pope Innocent II