“Things were just not going the way they should.” Such was Capuchin Franciscan novice Jason Moore’s thought as he was looking at some type of future in his life. He had graduated from high school, acquired a degree in computers from college, but just did not feel right about his life.

He remembers growing up in a home where his mom and dad were convinced of the importance of Church and Church related activities. “Every morning,” Jason remembers, “Dad read from the Bible, and we became a very strong Catholic family.”

Jason was born in Denver, and he remembers his schooling in Indian Hills, CO, and in particular some difficult years in junior high. But it was at that time that he began to think seriously about his future. He attended a private Catholic high school in Denver, Mullen High School, where he remembers learning more about the faith and discovering the challenging life of a developing young adult.

He spent a lot of time with the youth group at Christ the King parish in Evergreen, CO, and was impressed with the group’s work with the poor and homeless in downtown Denver.

Jason feels that the defining moment of his involvement with understanding of the true Christian way of life occurred at the World Youth Days that he attended in his young life. In particular he remembers the World Youth Day in Paris in 1997. He was very impressed with Pope John Paul II. Understanding the Church a little better, he began to think about working in the Church. One of the priests at World Youth Day asked him whether he had ever thought about becoming a priest. That turned out to be a question that stayed with him until he finally made a decision about his life.

But he put everything on hold temporarily as he attended Regis University in Denver. While he was there, he was very attracted to raising a family, and for a while forgot about his earlier thought to serve in the Church as a full-time minister.

Jason continued to work at Christ the King parish, this time as a volunteer in the youth program and teacher of religious education. He found that he really wanted to help people, and even began to consider a health-related ministry.

One day when he as at Eucharistic Adoration in his parish, the original desire to serve the Lord came back to him. He had always been impressed with the Capuchin Franciscans who worked at the Samaritan Shelter in downtown Denver, and he had visited Assisi, Italy, while attending a World Youth Day. When he visited the Capuchin Franciscans, he said they seemed like “down to earth” people. And so, he asked to join.

He began his Postulancy program in Denver, and now he is attending the Capuchin Franciscan Novitiate in Santa Ynez, CA. When asked to describe his experience there, he said that it was a “letting go of myself, allowing God to work on me, and discovering what is really important.”

As he looked at his life so far, he saw it as a process, a process of discovering how God worked in his life, and then his own response to it. When asked what he would say to a candidate looking at the Capuchin Franciscan way of life, he thought that anyone interested should first of all be open to how God calls a person, and “not be afraid of it,” he said. A person must “spend some time with God in prayer, and then listen to what God is telling you.”