Suffering With Joy

What is a Vocation?

October 31, 2011

This is the first in a series of posts on vocations: what they are, are not, and how to discern one, prompted by a video and post at Evan’s Cove titled Monday Message.  I hope readers will find this series useful whenever the subject of vocations comes up, and that it may even prompt an exploration of some of these callings on a personal level.

In recent weeks I posted on the vocations of the consecrated virgin and the hermit, something I’ve had in the back of my mind to do for some time.  Afterwards it occurred to me that the word “vocation” ought to be defined.  We use the word freely in the Church, but I’ve found that it doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody. Yet the Church does have a defined meaning.  It just takes a little digging to find it.

When I looked at the Catechism of the Catholic Church I saw the word used, but not defined.  Same with the Baltimore Catechism, the Catholic Encyclopedia and Father John Hardon, S.J.’s most excellent The Catholic Catechism: A Contemporary Catechism of the Teachings of the Catholic Church.

However, Father Hardon’s Pocket Catholic Dictionary does define vocation:

A call from God to a distinctive state of life, in which the person can reach holiness.  The Second Vatican Council made it plain that there is a “universal call [vocatio] to holiness in the Church” (Lumen Gentium, 39).

Prior to 1965, in Catholic schools and parishes the word “vocation” was used exclusively to mean a calling to the sacred priesthood or the religious life.  We had a general idea what hermits were, but thought they had died out centuries ago, while the vocation of the consecrated virgin actually had disappeared.  Nobody referred to the married state or the single state as a vocation.  Lumen Gentium reawakened vocation’s Biblical meaning.  The 1983 Code of Canon Law, the final Vatican II document, along with liturgical rites proper to most vocations give structural clarity to the various distinctive callings.

The Spiritual Meaning of Vocation

The Calling of St. Matthew, 1621, Hendrick Terbrugghen (b. 1588, Deventer, d. 1629, Utrecht), oil on canvas, Centraal Museum, Utrecht

The word “vocation” comes from the Latin noun vocation meaning “a calling, a summoning”, derived from the Latin verb vocare, meaning “to call.”  The Person who summons us is God. If we don’t understand this basic idea, we aren’t going to understand why marriage is “until death do us part” and why priests and religious cannot abandon their calling for whatever reason.  The Church takes the meaning of vocation so seriously, only the Apostolic See can dispense some religious from their vows, laicize a priest, or declare a marital union “null.”

In The Catholic Catechism: A Contemporary Catechism of the Teachings of the Catholic Church Father Hardon writes on page 433:

In the Catholic Tradition, holiness has always been mainly and pre-eminently the result of God’s gracious mercy.  “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” [Jn. 15:16] is written large across the portals of the Church’s history of sanctity.  Nevertheless, though divine grace is prior and paramount, it is not isolated from man’s free response and much less coercive of his deeply personal liberty. No doubt Christ called the apostles to follow Him, but they had to decide to follow him. Their commitment was the answer to His vocation.  And the tasks to which He called them became their mission from Him to the world they were to evangelize in His name.

Vocations are personal

Everybody has a vocation.  But if we dig deeper into the matter of vocation, we cannot escape the fact that our vocation is completely personal and individual. God infused a soul into us at the very moment our parents cooperated with Him in our creation – when the sperm and egg united to form us.  He chose our parents, the exact time and country we were to be born into, our particular sex, the talents He gave us, and all with one purpose in mind: that we should one day join Him in heaven and that through our life on this earth we should bring others to know, love, and serve Him so that they might gain heaven, too (cf. Is. 49:1, 5-6, Mt. 5:14).

God intended from the moment of our creation the specific vocation He has called us to.  We have, by our free will, the ability to refuse Him and go do our own thing, but if we turn God down, we will not receive certain graces He intended for us had we followed His call, and we will also not be a source of grace to those He intended for us to meet and serve had we answered His call.

Can we go to heaven by going our own way?  Yes, but it’s going to be a lot harder.  Why mess up a perfectly good arrangement intended by a loving God whose plans are always perfect for us? The Master Planner has His reasons for everything and those reasons are not only for our personal good but for the common good of all mankind. While God can always bring good out of evil and bring a positive effect out of our mistakes, wouldn’t  it be better not to make it necessary for God to fix something we broke? Therefore, discerning one’s vocation is a matter to be taken most seriously and one we will take up in another post after we explore the subject of vocations a little more.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: Catholic Church, vocations

2 Comments to What is a Vocation?

1. 

   Well, I guess I’m flattered (or at least pleased) to see that my blog post has prompted you to explore this issue in a series of your own blog posts.

   I’m glad to learn that the Church has broadened its understanding of “vocation” to mean not just being a priest or religious but really whatever state a person is called to, including an “ordinary” married life. As a convert to the Catholic faith, I feel that many Catholics, however, still have “tunnel vision” on this matter. That is, they still think strictly in terms of the priesthood or religious life. Instead, we are all called to saintliness, not just a select few who take the evangelical vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.

   In a series of lectures I’ve been listening to, a Catholic evangelist emphasized that it may in fact be harder for those of us living “ordinary” lives to achieve saintliness, as we have to juggle our spiritual lives with jobs, family, and other responsibilities, thereby perhaps making our efforts of greater merit.

   It ought to be interesting to see where you go with this. I look forward to your next post!

   Evan
   Evan recently posted..Monday Message
Evan on October 31st, 2011
2. 

   Thanks, Evan. A very holy priest-monk I know told me that he thought it was much more difficult for the laity to keep focused on living a holy life for just the reasons you mentioned. He spoke often from the pulpit about how moved he was hearing confessions and having the laity weep for their sins. I take from this that no matter what our vocation in life is, we can learn from and admire those whose callings are different from ours. Blessed Mother Teresa said that God calls us to be faithful, not to be successful (in worldly measurements). Faithfulness in our vocations is the challenge set before us.
barb on November 1st, 2011