A Few Thoughts on Vocation

April 15, 2008, 9:00 am; posted by
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A person knows when she has found her vocation when she stops thinking and begins to live . . . When we are not living up to our true vocation, thought deadens our life, or substitutes itself for life, or gives in to life so that our life drowns out our thinking and stifles the voice of our conscience. When we find our vocation — thought and life are one. — Thomas Merton

All of us know how difficult it can be to feel like we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our desires are at war with our reality; we find ourselves wishing we could spend more time on some activity but feel unable to give it the attention we want. Or, worse, we’re unsure what we really, deeply want in life. If life is about finding the unique purpose God has charged us with, that is of course the deepest desire of our heart; and yet often we don’t know what that is.

Catholic mystic Thomas Merton gives us a clue. When Merton speaks of “vocation,” he is speaking more deeply than our paid employment. He is speaking about the deep callings of our hearts, that unique way of being human that both encourages your heart and touches the world with God’s love. When we are living out our vocation, Merton holds, there is a certain integrity to our lives. If we are living out God’s call on our lives, our thoughts and desires will not be at war with reality because we will be living out the deepest desires of our hearts.

In other words, suppose your vocation is “brother”; that is, suppose God’s plan for your life is that you are a brother to other people, to be a faithful, brotherly presence to others in the world. You will know the most peace in your life when you are actually acting as a brother to other people, and when you construct your life in such a way that you are leaving time for this deep calling and desire of your heart.

If you are fortunate, your paid employment and your vocation will overlap. If not, you have to be creative and find a way to live out your vocation and still keep your job! Still, you must live out your vocation if you want to know this sense of wholeness in your life. If you spend your life chasing other goals, wealth, self-fulfillment, or even some other form of Christian ministry, you will never know the same peace and integrity you will know when you are living as a brother.

The natural corollary to this is that we need to be aware of when we are feeling that sense of joy and wholeness. We need to be attentive to our spirits, to get to know that feeling of deep joy that comes when we are doing exactly that task for which God created us, and to begin to discern patterns in our lives. Is there a behavior that interrupts or hinders that sense? We must lay it aside. Is there a behavior that prompts or increases that deep wholeness? We must encourage and increase it. In so doing, we begin to learn more fully what it is to enter into God’s vocation for our lives.


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