Clinic Cases June 2019
Vocation: a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action.
Mirriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary
Tenth Edition
Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be.
Father Thomas Merton
from the book: No Man is an Island
While a vocation does bring us joy and should be something that we are good at, it is not primarily concerned with either of these things. As the word indicates, a vocation – from the Latin vocare, “to call” – is something that comes from outside and for the sake of something other than ourselves. Against the values of the world that tell us to never do anything we do not like and to think of our own happiness first, someone with a vocation is concerned most with the needs of the caller rather than their own, willing to sacrifice their own immediate happiness and comfort for the sake of the call. For them there is a mission much greater than themselves at stake and they are willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill it. Sometimes this means accepting that what we want to do and what we are good at is not what the world needs.
Father Casey Cole, OFM
from the book: Called:
What Happens After Saying
Yes to God
I once read a phrase, “The safest place to be is within the will of God.” But many of us struggle to know what the will of God is for us, what vocation, what mission He has enjoined us to do. To be sure we are each given an indication, perhaps subtle, perhaps forceful, of the direction God wants us to take to help Him build His kingdom but it might clash with the desires we have for our life, the direction we want to pursue. Father Merton implies that when we have found our God-given vocation, our mission, we will be happy but I do not think that is always true. When we have acceded to God’s will, when we have accepted His mission for us, we may not always be happy or content and, indeed, may at times resent the sacrifices called for, but we will be at peace with ourselves. The feeling will be, “I have arrived. This is where I belong. This is where I am supposed to be.” Inner peace, in my opinion, is more important than happiness, which can be ephemeral and is never constant. Our Lord Jesus was distressed at the mission His Father had asked Him to do, to the point where he asked for this cup to pass but He immediately followed His request with, “Not my will be done but yours.” That has to be our response to whatever God asks us to do: “Not my will be done but yours.”
It is not God’s will that there be poverty, hunger, war, ethnic hatred, crime or the other afflictions the world suffers. God permits them because he gave us free will to choose his love or reject Him, and unfortunately, many have chosen to reject Him and what He has expressed to us as the greatest commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:25-28).” If we followed the will of God as expressed in those commandments we would have a world devoid of the distress caused by pride, individualism, and arrogance.
Our children and the children of the world have a vocation, a mission. They come into the world pure, unblemished, not knowing envy, malice or other negative attributes. They require our love, our concern, our solicitude. In caring for them we forget our own needs and self-centeredness and we receive from them an unconditional love, a love that mirrors God’s unconditional love for us.
The following prayer expresses perfectly the vocation, the mission which God has asked us to do in common. For the good of our world and future generations let us be faithful to its entreaties.
Lord, we pray for the power to be gentle, the strength to be forgiving, the patience to be understanding and the endurance to accept the consequences of holding to what we believe to be right. May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil and the power of love to overcome hatred. We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe in a world free from violence, a new world where fear shall no longer lead people to commit injustice nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others. Help us to devote our whole life and thought and energy to the task of making peace, praying always for the inspiration and the power to fulfill the destiny for which we have been created, Amen
Week of Prayer
for World Peace, 1978
As always we are grateful for your support of our children. We love you and wish you God’s peace.