Being Called

The last several day's worth of Gospel readings have involved Jesus calling his apostles to their vocations with him, and has put the word "vocation" to the forefront for me once again.

The discovery of our personal vocation is the most important moment in our whole existence. Our happiness and the happiness of many others depends on our faithful response to this call. God creates us, He prepares us and He calls us according to a divine plan.

If there are so many Christians who today live aimlessly with little depth, and hemmed in on all sides by narrow horizons, it is due, above all, to their lack of any clear idea of why they, personally, exist . . . What elevates a man and truly gives him a personality of his own is the consciousness of his vocation, the consciousness of his own specific task in the universe. (F. Suarez, Mary of Nazareth)

Our own "specific task in the universe." What is it? How do we find out? How do we know? Or better yet...do we ALREADY know? How many times has God whispered it into our ears during prayer, Mass, reading, dreams, or (don't laugh) in the shower? The shower is for me my most peaceful time during the day and usually where my best thoughts or ideas occur to me. Well, in prayer, too, of course...but shamefully some days my shower lasts longer than my prayers do.

Perhaps God is no longer whispering it to us but screaming it into our deaf ears. It's amazing how it can become apparent that coincidences really aren't coincidences once you stop looking for what YOU want to do, and really "be still" and open yourself up to anything. The things that prevent us from hearing in most instances are pride and fear. Pride because perhaps we don't WANT to volunteer for the poor or man the phones in a crisis pregnancy center because we percieve it not to be visible enough or to make a difference. Fear because we have no clue how on earth God could be calling ME to raise over $2 million dollars and start a Catholic radio station in Lincoln.

We have to put aside our pride...put aside our fears. We have to trust. Trust in Him. Trust in His divine plan for us. To cast aside OUR nets as Peter and the others did when called as they were in today's Gospel.

To be continued...