Vocational Discernment 101

Just last night I was having a conversation about vocations discernment in which I recalled the words of Matt Maher during a concert at Franciscan University ten years ago. He said, "Sometimes people make finding their vocation their god." It becomes this all-encompassing thing to obsess over and spend every waking moment contemplating.

Exhibit A: "An attractive guy/girl sat in front me during Mass today. Maybe I'm called to marriage! Or, maybe it was an invitation from God to give up this good for the greater good of priesthood/religious life."

So, it was rather good timing that The Culture Project reposted an article from July entitled, "Your Vocation is Not About You." Benjamin Mann has some thought-provoking insights into how we view our vocation (whether in the future or the present).

Our expectations are wrong. Consciously or not, we sometimes expect a vocation to solve all of our problems, answer all of our questions, and satisfy all of our desires. But these are not the purposes of a vocation. Discernment, likewise, does not consist in finding the choice that will meet those expectations.

Your vocation will not live up to these unrealistic hopes. Nothing in this world will answer all your questions, solve all your problems, or satisfy all your desires. These are impossible, immature ambitions, and the spiritual life consists largely in realizing that they are impossible and immature.

The purpose of life is the unitive devotional service of God, which includes the love of our neighbor (in whom God dwells). This is the real purpose of any vocation. Some forms of life, such as monasticism, are ordered directly to this end; other states of life are oriented toward it indirectly. But these are only different versions of the one human vocation: to love and serve God, and become one with him in Christ.

A vocation – any vocation – is a school of charity and a means of crucifixion. Your vocation is the means by which your self-serving ego will die in order to be resurrected as the servant and lover of God. This is all that we can expect; but this is everything – the meaning of life, all there really is.

My vocation is where I will learn to let go of my questions, carry the cross of my problems, and be mysteriously fulfilled even when I am not happy. We have some choice as to how we will undergo that process; we do not – so long as we abide in the grace of God – get to choose whether we will undergo it.

Read it all here.

Do you want to be a sister?

Have you heard what Pope Francis told young people about marriage?

If you haven't heard what Pope Francis told young people in Assisi about marriage on October 4, check it out at the USCCB's "For Your Marriage" site here. 

Grateful to be a priest ...

When did you know you were called to be a priest?

The Gift of the Priesthood

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati's new vocations video is well worth the watch!

Quote book

"Clearly, then, the fundamental problem of youth is profoundly personal. In life, youth is when we come to know ourselves. It is also a time of communion. Young people, whether boys or girls, know they must live for and with others, they know that their life has meaning to the extent that it becomes a free gift for others. Here is the origin of all vocations -- whether to priesthood or religious life, or to marriage and family. The call to marriage is also a vocation, a gift from God. 

Jerzy Ciesielski and his wife

"I will never forget a young man, an engineering student in Krakow, who everyone knew aspired with determination to holiness. This was his life plan. He knew he had been 'created for great things,' as Saint Stanislaus Kostka once expressed it. And at the same time, he had no doubt that his vocation was neither to priesthood nor to religious life. He knew he was called to remain the secular world. Technical work, the study of engineering, was his passion. He sought a companion for his life and sought her on his knees, in prayer. I will never forget the conversation in which, after a special day of retreat, he said to me: 'I think that this is the woman who should be my wife, that it is God who has given her to me.' It was almost as if he were following not only the voice of his own wishes but above all the voice of God Himself. He knew that all good things come from Him, and he made a good choice. I am speaking of Jerzy Ciesielski, who died in a tragic accident in the Sudan, where he had been invited to teach at the University. The cause for his beatification is under way." 

-- Bl. John Paul II in "Crossing the Threshold of Hope"

The ordination class of 2013

I look forward every year to the USCCB's focus on the year's ordination class in the United States.  They always provide the names of the of those to be ordained, photographs of each man (if provided) and a list of random facts about each soon-to-be priest.

For this year, you can see the photographs here, the "People might be surprised to know" section here, and the study from CARA about the men here.

Let's pray for all of these men who in the coming weeks will become our newest priests.

Where is God Calling? -- Passionist Nuns

The Imagine Sisters Movement

Bad Catholic shared this awesome video the other day, and it's worth posting here too. What a beautiful opportunity for young Catholics to catch a glimpse of the joy and peace of religious vocations.

"Enjoy life while you can!" -- Are we being well prepared for marriage?

It’s not every day your run across a piece like this: Harvard law graduate turned mother shares her thoughts about young women today being groomed to be executives with no real training for wife and motherhood. She shares thoughts like this:

Recently, a possibly tragic event took place: a highly educated young woman I know got married. Radiant in her delicate lace dress, full of joy and optimism about the future, this blushing bride was not yet aware of the reality of her situation: that she has been groomed through her many years of education to be, well, the groom – and this fact is very likely to cause friction for her and her family as she tries to achieve the deepest hopes and dreams of her heart.

My post doesn’t directly deal with Lea Singh’s thoughts, so I highly recommend at the conclusion of this, that you take a detour to her entire post, “The bride who was groomed for a career.”

She is quite courageous for speaking of this. But many Catholics might read it and say, “That really doesn’t apply. We’re quite pro-family here, thank you very much.”

But I have to wonder how much this really is the case.

To boil it down to the two extremes, (which of course are not the only two options on table), there seem to be two types of single women in the Catholic world. On the one hand, there are the husband hunters who are so intent on capturing a new last name that the man who is going to give her the title of “Mrs.” becomes a means to an end, an ironic object in the quest for marriage and motherhood.

On the other hand of the spectrum are the single women who want nothing to do with being a husband hunter and so are focused in pouring their all into where they are now – career, friendships, adventurous expeditions. And at first glance, this second option seems a good one – to be fully present to the place one currently is, to experience life with joy and creativity.

Such is all the case, and yet there is an inherent danger that must be avoided. In seeking to not self-identify by what is lacking in one’s life, one may become used to, trained in a sense, to view life in terms of what I do and what I experience – my job, my friends, my hobbies, my freedom. And the “my” mentality can lead to a tyranny of unintended selfish consequences.

So that when Mr. Right waltzes onto the scene, the single in the second situation may find it difficult to pry her hands off of her career, which she may love, or her weekend adventures, which a family may make a bit difficult.

But, at the same time, Single Lady #2 is doing something right in living her singlehood in joy and peace. But when she hears people say at every turn, “Enjoy it now, honey, because when you get married, your freedom will be GONE,” it can be difficult to envision marriage and family life as something attractive or worth making sacrifices.

I think the question boils down to this – why is one embracing her career, investing in hobbies, etc? Is it to truly live out this time of single life that God has given, or is it to escape something? Is it to take the attachment of Single #1 to the man of the future and to attach it instead to things – career, clothes, girls’ nights? Or is to live fully, to live present, to live with a detachment that says, “I am ready to sacrifice this when God invites me to do so.”

Instead of eagerly dishing out advise to Catholic singles to pour forth everything into career and “all of the opportunities you will no longer have when you’re wearing a ring,” perhaps we need to reconsider how to properly prepare for a married life of giving all away. How do we live singlehood in a way that doesn’t view marriage as a prison of “no more freedom” but as a lifelong gift of sacrifice and gift of self for others? Perhaps it’s as simple as occasionally skipping that $3 coffee and tithing the money instead, or of spending girls’ night in the soup kitchen to serve others.

Whatever the concrete details may be, I think we need to examine how the desire of Single #1 to live for Mr. Right in the future and the desire of Single #2 to live for something in the present can meet in Single #3 whose singlehood is very much a preparation for a vocation of service, without instrumentalizing Future Husband as the tool to achieve the goal. And if perhaps single life is perpetuated longer than planned or hoped for, then one can rest assured that she has been learning to live for God in a selfless way even though her concrete circumstances are not within an objective “Vocation.”

Now, if you’ve forgotten where that tangent began, you can return to Lea Singh’s thoughts here.

Quote book

"Vocation is like a yoke. It's a burden in a sense because it's what we need to do God's work. Finding your vocation is a matter of finding the yoke that fits best." -- a Kenosis teen

"It's all about the bride!"

My debut with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's new blog, "Being Catholic" appears today:

My fiancé and I stepped up to the customer service desk and simply said, “We need to begin our wedding registry.” Immediately the sales clerk beamed a smile and said with great enthusiasm, “Congratulations!” She proceeded to pick up the phone and to announce over the intercom in a voice that resembled that of a woman who has just been given a free trip to Hawaii – “Sales associates, we have a bride at the customer service desk! Please accompany her to the wedding registry.”

I’m not the type who likes attention, but what bothered me more than the intercom announcement was the fact that she had only said “the bride” was at the counter. Clearly, I had not arrived alone.

I whispered something about this to my fiancé, who then said to the sales clerk, “What about me? I’m here too.”

The sales clerk smiled again and then shook her head and said, “Yes, but it’s all about the bride, you know. If you don’t know that yet, you’ll see.”

It’s an attitude I have confronted in every wedding-oriented decision thus far, but it’s an attitude that couldn’t lead me further from the reality of getting married.

Read the rest at "Being Catholic."

"Hear Our Prayer"

I can relate to Elizabeth Hoxie's frustration with the common attitude toward the forgotten vocation -- marriage.

Don’t get me wrong. We love priests and religious. Our wedding was concelebrated by five priests and served by two of our Benedictine monk buddies. We named our firstborn Peter Melchizedek (yes, really). Our son will be unable to spell his name and fail out of kindergarten because his parents love the priesthood just that much.

We pray earnestly for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life every week at Mass, and we sincerely hope God will answer our prayers. At the back of our minds though we wonder, what about us? What about the millions of Catholics whom God has called to the Sacrament of Matrimony?

In marriage there is no superior looking out for your spiritual well-being, no bells to call you to prayer or habit to set you apart from the world. You are in the trenches, back to back with your spouse, fighting the war against evil. In the daily rhythm of ora et labora, our ora is half a Hail Mary snatched between dirty dishes and dirty diapers. Our labora is the thousand seemingly insignificant ways we choose to die to ourselves to love each other — an exhausting work which the world finds laughable.

Read the whole piece here.

Vocations stories

Speaking of vocations (of the priestly and religious variety), check out Cincinnati Vocations for some wonderful stories from those who are living or are discerning these particular ways of growing in holiness.

John Paul II on love, vocation and marriage

From "Crossing the Threshold of Love" --

"Clearly, then, the fundamental problem of youth is profoundly personal. In life, youth is when we come to know ourselves. It is also a time of communion. Young people, whether boys or girls, know they must live for and with others, they know that their life has meaning to the extent that it becomes a free gift for others. Here is the origin of all vocations -- whether to priesthood or religious life, or to marriage and family. The call to marriage is also a vocation ,a gift from God. I will never forget a young man, an engineering student in Krakow, who everyone knew aspired with determination to holiness. This was his life plan. He knew he had been 'created for great things,' as Saint Stanislaus Kostka once expressed it. And at the same time, he had no doubt that his vocation was neither to priesthood nor to religious life. He knew he was called to remain the secular world. Technical work, the study of engineering, was his passion. He sought a companion for his life and sought her on his knees, in prayer. I will never forget the conversation in which, after a special day of retreat, he said to me: 'I think that this is the woman who should be my wife, that it is God who has given her to me.' It was almost as if he were following not only the voice of his own wishes but above all the voice of God Himself. He knew that all good things come from Him, and he made a good choice. I am speaking of Jerzy Ciesielski, who died in a tragic accident in the Sudan, where he had been invited to teach at the University. The cause for his beatification is under way.

It is this vocation to love that naturally allows us to draw close to the young. As a priest I realized this very early. I felt almost an inner call in this direction. It is necessary to prepare young people for marriage, it is necessary to teach them love. Love is not something that is learned, and yet there is nothing else as important to learn! As a young priest I learned to love human love. This has been one of the fundamental themes of my priesthood -- my ministry in the pulpit, in the confessional, and also in my writing. If one loves human love, there naturally arises the need to commit oneself completely to the service of 'fair love,' because love is fair, it is beautiful.

After all, young people are always searching for the beauty in love. They want their love to be beautiful. If they give in to weakness, following models of behavior that can rightly be considered a 'scandal in the contemporary world' (and these are, unfortunately, widely diffused models), in the depths of their hearts they still desire a beautiful and pure love. This is as true as boys as it is of girls. Ultimately, they know that only God can give them this love. As a result, they are willing to follow Christ, without caring about the sacrifices this may entail.

As a young priest and pastor I came to this way of looking at young people and at youth, and it as remained constant all these years. It is an outlook which also allows me to meet young people wherever I go. Every parish priest in Rome knows that my visits to the parish must conclude with a meeting between the Bishop of Rome and the young people of the parish. And not only in Rome, but anywhere the Pope goes, he seeks out the young and the young seek him out. Actually, in truth, it is not the Pope who is being sought out at all. The one being sought out is Christ, who knows 'that which is in every man' (cf. Jn 2:25), especially in a young person, and who can give true answers in his questions! And even if they are demanding answers, the young are not afraid of them; more to the point, they even await them."

Vocations Awareness Week, part 4

In the final reflection during this week dedicated to vocations awareness, I wanted to say a word of thanks. How in the world is anyone supposed to embrace a life given wholly and irrevocably to the Lord without witnesses of joyful, peaceful, grateful fiats to the particular vocation which God entrusted to them? Vocations awareness is provided most profoundly by the silent eloquence of others who are living their vocation.

- Of the priest who spends every morning in the wooden confessional, praying for his penitents and offering them God's mercy through the sacrament.

- Of the wife and mother who struggles patiently with her two-year-old at daily Mass, wanting to receive love so she can give it.

- Of the religious sister who comforts another, giving advice, quietly listening and promising prayers.

- Of the husband and father who teaches his children how to pray, blesses them every night and wraps his family in prayer, even when he'd rather put up his feet and doze behind the opened newspaper.

Thank you to all those who have embraced their vocation, who time and again recommit to living more fully what the Lord has asked. Thank you to all who, whether they have yet found a concrete state of life from which to do this, respond to the universal call to holiness and witness to God's love in the simplest ways, often without realizing they are doing so.

Thank you especially to the priests who bring us the Eucharist, mercy in confession, a witness of fatherhood and of the love of Christ who gave everything to and for His Church. A priest's vocation is at the service of all of us. But we stand in gratitude and humility for their gift.

Vocations Awareness Week, part 3

In our continued conversation this week about the nature of vocations, it seems appropriate to consider the question of vocations promotion. A major problem today seems to be that of continuity. We often consider that we can live our lives any way we choose and then miraculously be struck by a heretofore everlasting spirit of selflessness and generosity, which will result in our embracing a vocation and properly living our vocation for the rest of our lives.

It's not quite the case.

In "Familiaris Consortio," John Paul II said that we need to have remote, proximate and immediate marriage preparation. Proper marriage preparation cannot be squeezed into six brief months. Rather, it begins at birth. The same would be true of a vocation to priesthood and the religious life. If this is the case, then rather than approach the topic of preparation for one vocation or another on two different planes, perhaps we should approach them like a "Y." The same formation continues through childhood and adolescence and eventually branches into one particular preparation or another.

If our specific vocation springs from our universal vocation to love -- which we receive upon our first moment of existence -- then our specific vocation preparation should begin from Day 1 as well. This preparation is always a training in love. It is further specified as we discern, realize and receive the way in which God calls us to love.

How can we begin from Day 1?

• Awareness of being a child of God

• Desires as a prayer (hungry, tired, etc.)

• Receiving, not grasping

• Love = willing the good of the other

• Modesty = body is good, so we treat it as a treasure

• Priests/religious as a sign of heaven

• Marriage as a sign of God’s love

• Praying for priests/consecrated/married people

• Sexuality as a precious gift

• Language of the body

• Beauty = reflection of God’s love

• Prayer as communication with God in which God shares His life with us and leads us on a path to Him in heaven.

• Crucifix as a reminder of real love

• Suffering – “offer it up” as fertilizer for seeds planted by God.

If we want to pray for vocations -- which is a very good thing to do! -- we musn't sit back and wait for the Fairy Vocations Godmother to wave a magic wand and turn random people into faith-loving, Gospel-sharing, God's love-reflecting priests, religious and married couples. Rather, the pray for vocations must accompany a commitment to assisting others in receiving their call from God from the first moment of life.

Vocations Awareness Week, part 2

Yesterday I said a few words about the confusion of the definition of "vocation" and that we rarely hear the word ascribed to those called to marriage. Today I'd like to continue the topic in light of this Vocations Awareness Week by looking at how we define vocation.

We were created in and through love for love. Our body is called to love and we return this gift by giving a total gift of self in love. There are two ways of irrevocably giving self – marriage and consecrated life.

John Paul II summarized in Familiaris Consortio #11:

God created man in His own image and likeness: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love. God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.[…] Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being "created in the image of God."

Our whole life should be a training to love – in heaven we will give/receive love eternally. Our vocation is the particular way in which God calls us to learn to love Him. A vocation, therefore, isn't something we grasp for or determine ourselves. It requires listening, patience, discerning in prayer so we can receive all that the Lord has for us.

If our whole life is a training to love, and we do that in a guided way through a vocation, then we should be preparing for our vocation from Day 1. We aren't waiting for life to begin the moment we make vows, whether as priests, consecrated or married. We begin learning to love and are eventually called to further specify the way in which we love through our total and forever gift to God.

I once heard Matt Maher give some excellent advice: Don't make finding your vocation your God. He said we are often so intent on finding our vocation that we lose sight of the Vocation-Giver. Many singles place so much emphasis, focus and stress on their future vocation that rather than preparing themselves to receive God’s love and to love Him in return, they are training themselves (ironically) to be self-focused, to grasp instead of to receive.

When we pray for vocations, we need to pray for openness in discernment, for the ability to hear God clearly, for the conviction to act upon the call He gives. Once again, this is a thought often reserved for those called to priesthood and religious life. Yet, those preparing for or discerning marriage also need to receive the call in patience, trust, openness, surrender and discernment. If this is the beginning for both vocations, both states of life can blossom more fully in the soil of God's love.

Vocations Awareness Week

It's Vocations Awareness Week, and this affords me an opportunity to let you in on a pet peeve of mine. Actually, "pet peeve" makes it seem smaller than it actually is (or perhaps that just underscores the fact that it is a "pet peeve"). Nearly every time someone refers to the word, "vocation" it is used as a synonym for the priesthood or religious life.

Once when in Rome, a priest asked me, "So, do you have a vocation?"

And I looked at him and said, "Yes, I do. I'm just not sure what it is yet."

He seemed a bit taken aback. And now a couple of years later the second priest witnessing that interaction will be witnessing my wedding vows in a few months.

On another occasion, I was speaking with a fellow parishioner who was asking about my family. He inquired about one of my brothers who had just gotten married a month or two before. But then he puzzled me by asking, "With all of those brothers, do you think there's going to be a vocation in there somewhere?" It took all of the politeness I could muster to not quickly reply, "Yes, I already told you, there is one -- my brother just got married."

It's a tricky situation. On the one hand, we certainly want to affirm the beauty, dignity and gift of a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. Please, please, contact Fr. Kyle Schnippel, or look into a religious order. But we cannot promote religious vocations to the exclusion of realizing that marriage is also a vocation. It is also a path to holiness ... not a lifetime vacation of getting whatever one wants.

At times, when we pray at Mass for vocations, we fail to realize that marriage is also a vocation. It leaves the idea that if I am holy, I can be called to more holiness in priesthood or religious life. But if I am not holy, I will be banished to the second-tier of marriage, which will not lead me to holiness. It's simply for the mediocre rest of us.

We need a way to promote vocations as a way of discerning the gift that God wishes us to receive -- the gift of growing in holiness in a particular way that He calls us to.

I'd like to spend some time during this Vocations Awareness Week exploring ways in which we can seek and celebrate the goodness and beauty of both the vocation to celibacy and the vocation to marriage. They shouldn't be set in opposition like the Steelers and the Bengals, but should wonderfully complement one another and highlight different aspects of the relationship between Christ and His Church.