A Vocation is a Calling
And the A Priori Award for most redundant blog post title goes to … this post!*
Do we buy into the “self-made man” mentality that we’ve inherited from Existentialism? Interestingly enough, I like to call Existentialism the “philosophy of Original Sin” because its starting point is man as he finds himself after the Fall rather than God and man made in the image of God. Guess what? This philosophy is the result of Pride and it teaches us Pride as a way of life.
We may think that we’re immune, but how often do we find ourselves asking children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
What kind of a question is that? We ought to be asking, “What do you think God wants you to be when you grow up?” Do we take for granted that our kids will get married? Take over the family business? Go to college? Is their life about what we want them to do? Is it about what they want to do? No. It’s about God and the special way of loving him for which he made them that we call a ‘vocation’.
In my own life, I’m often asked, “Why did you decide to become a priest?” Becoming a priest is not something that someone “decides” to do (in the usual sense of the word). Granted, it’s something that I must commit myself to and love intensely, and I do, but the Church could tell me at any time before I’m ordained, “We don’t think you have a vocation to the priesthood,” and I would accept that! I don’t have a right to be ordained because priesthood is a vocation: it’s literally something to which I must be called, not merely something to which I can aspire.
I am not the first principle of my vocation! God forbid it (as if it were possible)! I am merely responding to God. A better question is, “Why do you think God wants you to be a priest?” The answer is, of course, that he made me for that purpose. He designed me for that and every smallest grace that he gives me will make me the type of person he wants me to be, if I let him.
Christ not only calls us, but he models for us (and gives us the power to imitate him) the appropriate response. “The Son does nothing on his own but only what he sees the Father doing.” In the same way, let me not “decide” on a state in life alone, but rather let me choose only what Christ has chosen for me.
* Thank you! Thank you! This is so unexpected … I’d like to thank God first of all, of course. There’s also a very special woman that I need to mention … mom, come on up here! (Inner monologue: “Blast it! I was hoping for the coveted Tautology Award.”) [and so forth]
