My name is Michael Canzian and I was born in the fascinating city of Pordenone, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia. I graduated as an electrical technician in an industrial technical school. Today I want to tell you how God our Lord called me from fixing electrical cables to a much greater mission: guiding people to heaven!
Honestly, I haven’t always been a practicing Catholic, but Jesus is patient and knows the right moment to “catch you in the act.” This happened to me when I was 14 years old, just as my parents had recently come to faith, and one fine April day my mom asked me: “Would you like to go on a spiritual retreat?” My initial answer was: “No”! I couldn’t afford to waste time praying since I had, right at that time, the soccer finals. After some back and forth, we reached an agreement: spiritual retreat yes, but without missing the soccer matches.
The Lord had already taken the first step; in this retreat, I saw that the people praying were not the losers of society, but there were also smart boys and girls (and the girls were even beautiful!). After this profound encounter, I decided to attend every weekly prayer meeting of this prayer group. At one of these meetings, I met a priest from the Legionaries of Christ, in a completely providential way! During a Mass, I was deeply struck by his homily, which was very brief, very friendly (and “very” is an understatement!), and at the same time very profound. At the end of the Mass, I told my mom: “I must meet this priest!”; which I did a few months later. My first encounter with this Chilean priest, from a congregation I didn’t know, was surprising. What could you do with a priest if not pray? But no, in this first meeting, we went from riding go-karts to a nice dinner at McDonald’s. Not bad, huh??
Thus, God had already made his second move, which would later push me to offer my help as a coordinator at various meetings with young people and the Legionaries of Christ. Everything was proceeding smoothly, and I was very happy with what I was doing. In the summer of 2009, a priest asked me to accompany him to a summer course where some young people wanted to see if God was calling them to the minor seminary. Since I already knew these young people, I decided to go. I remember well that one day, the priest and I stopped to chat about this and that, and at a certain point, he asked me: “Michael, have you ever thought about becoming a priest?” This question caught me off guard because I already had my future well organized and clear. Immediately after, the priest I was helping offered his availability, if I wished, to accompany me in spiritual direction to see if God was truly calling me to be his instrument! At that moment, I had decided to commit myself to participate in a vocational course, a month dedicated to God to see what his will was for me.
I started this period of discernment very conflicted. The first two weeks of the vocational course were marked by my desire to convince the priests to let me go home because I didn’t want to stay there (one priest was so fed up that he wanted to buy me a train ticket!). But deep down, that wasn’t what I truly wanted.
The Lord had already prepared his third step, which involved accepting two important signs. One day, I was about to convince the last priest to ease my mind and return home; but once again, his response surprised me: “That’s perfectly fine, no problem, but remember this for your whole life: if you don’t open your heart to God, you will never understand what he is asking of you!” It was true—I was throwing a month of my life in the trash because I was acting selfishly, not even leaving a crack open in my heart for Jesus to speak to me. From that moment on, I decided to commit myself fully!
Exactly three days later, we went to Eucharistic adoration in a prayer group near Milan, and at the end of the adoration, everyone drew a card, saying it was like a supernatural message that God was giving them. I didn’t like these things at all!!! Out of curiosity, I took one anyway, and it said: “Open your heart to the vast dimensions of the world, for I have enough to fill it!” It couldn’t be, it was exactly the same thing I had discussed with the priest a few days earlier. A coincidence? After this first sign, I wanted to pretend nothing had happened, like a child who does something wrong and hides his hand… But the decisive moment was yet to come… On August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, I was fed up with everything, and in prayer, pouring out my heart to Mary, I said: “Mom, either you make me understand clearly what your son wants from me, or I’ll pack my bags and go back home!” She took this prayer seriously; in fact, in the afternoon, I approached a priest to confide in him, and without me saying anything, he told me: “Michael, you have two of the three aspects of a vocation, a great calling and the qualities, but the third is missing: generosity with God.” All this, however, was gently encouraging me to entrust myself to Mary in the prayer of the Rosary. As I recited the Hail Marys distractedly, a clear memory of my morning prayer came to me, and I said to myself: “Yes, Mary, you answered my prayer! Yes, I will follow you!” At that very moment, when I gave my yes, I experienced a joy and a deep peace in my heart that made me feel profoundly free and happy. So I took the step and entered the novitiate of the Legionaries of Christ!
After two years in the Novara novitiate, I continued my formation with a year of classical studies in Salamanca, Spain, and then a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology in Rome. Between philosophical and theological studies, I had the opportunity to undertake an apostolic internship in Madrid, at a school with middle school students, dedicated to accompaniment and adolescent pastoral care.
