Commentary

A few observations and conclusions we can make from reflecting on Part 43:

  1. A vocation is a calling (voca-tion, voca-l, voice).
  2. Who is being called?  You. Who is calling?  Your skills and talents, the needs of the world… ultimately God.
  3. God’s call (your “spiritual” vocation) encompasses all other subsidiary callings. It is does not override them or dispense of them, much the same way that the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity do not override or dispense with the human virtues of loyalty, optimism or friendship.  On the contrary, God’s call and the supernatural virtues build on the human “stuff” and raise them up to a totally different level. For this reason, it is as big a deal to God the course you take in campus as much as the line of work you engage in, as much as the spiritual     vocation you discern as yours to follow.
  4. Your “spiritual vocation” will typically be one of four:

a. to marriage,

b. to lay celibacy (i.e. to remain single for a specific purpose without taking vows),

c. to consecrated celibacy (i.e. to become a priest) or

d. to religious celibacy (i.e. to become a brother or a monk by taking the customary vows of chastity, poverty and obedience).  After yesterday’s post, I now prefer to use the term “spiritual vocation” to refer to all these possibilities rather than “religious vocation” since that could bring confusion with the vocation to religious celibacy.

5.  “Life is worth living.”  It really is an adventure!  A wonderful adventure of discovery and actualisation!

6.  To fail to embark on this adventure or to delay it for whatever reason (you’re too busy with work/studies, you don’t feel like, you’re already having fun, you’re afraid, you’re too young, you’re too messed up, and so on) is quite honestly both sad and pitiable.  Those are all excuses.

7.  To delay discovering your vocation, or to delay following it once you know what it is, is to delay your own growth, maturity and blossoming as a man. It is to delay your own fulfilment and happiness.

8.  Living out your true vocation, on the other hand, will make not just yourself fulfilled and happy, but many other people around you as well.  This is what a certain saint meant when he wrote: “Many great things depend – don’t forget it – on whether you and I live our lives as God wants.”

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