Deacon Robert Ruggiero has long thought that God had a specific mission for him — possibly the priesthood. But his journey to obedience lasted far beyond three days — about 30 years.

The 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens — which began with a series of small earthquakes in mid-March and peaked with a cataclysmic flank collapse, avalanche, and explosion on May 18 — was not the largest ...