Come and follow me, said Jesus

The Call - Come, Follow Me.

And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. 

Pope Benedict XVI

What is a Vocation?

'Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare which means 'to call'. For the Christian, a vocation is not simply a job or a career that God asks us to accept. To be called by God is part of being human and part of being baptized - God's unique call to me is part of my being, part of my life, not something extra which may or may not be added to my life. A vocation is not so much about 'something I have to do' as it is about 'the person God has created me to be.' Quite simply, the unique call God has for me is actually part of who I am. To freely discover and accept the vocation God has for me is to freely discover and accept who I am made to be. This is the path to true and lasting peace and fulfilment.

We all have a vocation!

Christians believe that God is love and that God freely created human beings in his own image to share his love with them. God loves each of us and made us to share in his life. The universal vocation of all human beings is to share in the life of the Trinity, the life of God himself, for all eternity. As free thinking creatures we are able to know and accept the love of God. Our acceptance means choosing to share that love with others . This is the great meaning and purpose of every human life: God loves you and asks you to share that love with others. This is the 'call' or 'vocation' of every human being, and what's more, this means every human life is precious and with meaning. No human life is worthless.
Another way to express this universal call to love is to speak of the universal call to holiness. By virtue of the grace given to us in baptism, each of us is called to be a saint in our particular time and place. Saints are not simply exceptional people who live in the pages of history books: they are simply ordinary Christians who have simply taken their vocation seriously and tried to respond to that vocation without holding anything back. Saints spend their lives loving God and neighbour. No matter how sinful or unworthy we may feel, all of us are called and given the grace to be truly holy. We don't have to deny our uniqueness to do this: we don't have to throw out individuality and blindly imitate a particular Saint, though we may find real inspiration from him/her. We are each given the opportunity of discovering how I am called to be saintly in my particular situation. This discovery will give meaning and purpose to life.