When I turned 16 I took my saved money and bought a car; a very used, rusty, barely running piece of junk.  I loved it.  A couple months later as Christmas was coming around I decided that I wanted to get a better sound system in the car. You know, because it was incredibly important to 16 year-old me. So, with all the money I got for Christmas in my pocket, I walked proudly into the local store that sold all the car stereo equipment. I walked first over to the wall of speakers.  The wall was twice as tall as I was and at least 20 feet wide, simply filled with speakers of various sizes.  They were all playing different pieces of music.  Amidst all the noise I couldn’t distinguish between any of the speakers. 

A salesman walked up to me and after a little small talk, I told him what I was looking for and how much I had to spend.  He pointed to one that he recommended.  I looked at the speaker and tried to listen to it.  But I simply couldn’t.  I couldn’t hear any music coming out of the speaker.  The salesman noticed the look on my face and began to turn off the music on the other speakers.  As the first couple speakers stopped playing music I still couldn’t hear the speaker I was paying attention to, but gradually as all the other speakers were turned off the speaker I was listening to began to become audible.  And finally, once all the other speakers were off I could hear the clear music coming out of what would become my new speakers.  It had been playing the music the entire time and had never changed its’ volume, but in order for me to hear it I had to take the step of turning off the competing speakers.

Our vocation from God is like this speaker that spent the next five years playing music flawlessly in my very used, rusty, barely running piece of junk car until barely running turned into not running.  The speaker worked flawlessly, but in order to find it I had to tune out everything else on the giant wall competing for my attention.  Our vocation works the same way: it is constantly being called out to us by God, it will fit us flawlessly, but in order to hear it we need to learn how to tune out the competing voices calling out for our attention.  Hopefully this article will help with some skills on how to do that.  We’ll look first at what a vocation means, some examples of vocations from scripture, and then look at the nature of vocations in our world today and some helpful suggestions on how to drown out the competing voices in order to hear our vocation.

We Are Called

So what is vocation in the Catholic Church? Deriving from the Latin word meaning “to call” a vocation is just that--a calling.  Which means it comes from without.  We cannot call ourselves, the one doing the calling has to be someone else.  This person who calls us is God himself.  When we look at a vocation as this--as a calling wherein God is extending an invitation to us that we have the privilege of answering we can see many examples of this in scripture.  There are two that I want to focus on in particular--Samuel and Matthew.

In 1 Samuel 3:2-10 we read the story of God calling Samuel.  Notice the repeated use of the word call:  

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room;  the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!”  and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.”  Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.  The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 

There are many lessons to be learned about vocation in this story.  The first thing I want to point out is that Samuel is confused about who is doing the calling.  In essence, he does not recognize the voice of the Lord.  He confuses it with a human voice.  He needs help in determining what the voice of the Lord sounds like in his life.  This can be a problem for us in our lives as well.  We may well be hearing the voice of the Lord speak in our lives, but confuse it for the voice of someone else and then search for the answer, for meaning, in things other than the Lord.  Later in this article we’ll discuss how to truly recognize the voice of the Lord in our lives.

The second thing to note about this story is that the Lord continues to call, even though his calls are not understood correctly.  Samuel heard the voice of the Lord twice and both times he didn’t recognize the voice and didn’t answer the Lord.  But the Lord continued to call him.  The call of the Lord is consistent.  It does not change.  This can offer us great solace in our own lives.  We may sometimes feel as though we’ve missed our chance, that we’ve missed our calling.  But we can recall this story and remember, the if the Lord calls us once, he calls us always.

The second story from scripture I want to look at is the call of Matthew.  This call is special because it leads us into a discussion of primary, secondary, and even tertiary vocations.  Lets look at these distinctions after we read the story of the call of Matthew.  Comprising just one verse in the Gospel of Matthew, this call is very important.  Matthew 9:9 reads “As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.”  There is a lot we can get out of this simple verse.  First, Matthew was sitting at a tax booth.  This means that Matthew was a tax collector, a traitor in the eyes of the Jewish people.  Why is this important?  Jesus seeks out and calls one who the Jewish people looked down upon, one who they thought would not be worthy.  So, whether or not we think we are worthy or not does not matter to Jesus Christ.  He calls us.  When we sin, he calls us; when we ignore him, he calls us; when we least expect it, he calls us.  Our vocation, our call from the Lord is always there, to everybody.

The second thing to gather from this story is even more important.  The call, the vocation of Matthew is quite simple.  It is the primary vocation of every Christian: “Follow me.”

Holiness: Our Primary Vocation

Before we begin to talk about vocations to religious life or marriage we have a primary vocation to follow Jesus Christ.  Lumen Gentium, the Vatican II document on the Church, calls this call the “Universal Call to Holiness”.  We are all called first and foremost to be holy.  Anything, and everything, else we do must be at the service of this call to holiness.  I’m reminded here of what a priest writes to his bishop before he is ordained.  Before he is ordained, a man must write to his bishop and seek to be ordained using these words “…for the glory of God, the service of His Church, and the salvation of my eternal soul…”.  This highlights the primary vocation over the secondary vocation quite nicely.  The reason the man seeks to follow the call to be a priest is to fulfill this primary vocation, this call to holiness.  St. Catherine of Sienna famously said “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”  Who did God mean us to be?  First and foremost- holy men and women.  This saying becomes quite self-explanatory when we substitute this in- “be holy and you will set the world on fire.”  Everything else we do must be situated to serve this goal- to be holy by following Christ.

Secondary Vocation in the Church

Obviously, this universal call to holiness is not lived out in the same way by everybody.  Some people live it out their call to holiness in married life, some in religious life as either priests, sisters and nuns, or brothers.  How we live out our call to holiness through one of these options is our secondary vocation.  However, this secondary vocation often gets most of the attention about vocations in the church, especially the call to priestly and religious life.  Ever hear anybody complain about the lack of vocations in the church today?  They don’t mean that God isn’t calling everybody to live a life of holiness; they mean that they want more priests and nuns in the world.  We do need more priests and nuns in the world, but this won’t happen unless we authentically start living our primary vocation- holiness!  But, the truth is that once we do begin to live a life of holiness and begin to focus on trying to figure out our secondary vocation we can often feel like Samuel--very confused. 

Discernment

I want to present a very simple way to help us figure out how God might be calling us to live.  If you can remember the acronym GOD you can remember this one, so hopefully pretty easy. 

What are the gifts that you have been given by God?  Remember that grace builds on nature, so the gifts we have been given will be instrumental in how we are called to live.  

What do others say?  Oftentimes others, especially those who are already living a life of holiness can serve as mouthpieces for God.  Remember Samuel?  How did he finally recognize that it was the Lord calling him?  It was through the advice of Eli.  Maybe there is an Eli for you out there who will help you recognize the call of the Lord. 

What are your deepest desires?  God will not give us a desire that he cannot fulfill, that he does not want to fulfill. 

But we cannot do this if we are always being pummeled with the noise of the world.  Just as I couldn’t recognize the music playing from my speaker because of the noise, we need to tune out the noise of the world in order to hear the voice of God in our lives.  God often doesn’t speak in loud signs but rather in quiet moments that are incredibly personal.  In order to hear that voice we need to consistently practice silence.  We need to intentionally carve out moments of silence in our lives to begin to recognize God’s voice. We can also pray for the intercession of the Saints, who have so successfully discerned their primary and secondary vocations. 

All this sounds quite subjective, and the hard part is that it is.  God works in our lives in different ways and because we are different, he will work in my life, he will reveal his call to me in a different way than he will reveal your call to you.  This is where a holy and experienced Spiritual Director can be very helpful.  If you are serious about finding how God is calling you to fulfill you call to holiness, ask your local priest for a suggestion for a Spiritual Director in order to help you figure this out.  They can often help you determine what the voice of God sounds like in your own life.

But always remember, God is calling.  He is calling each of us like he called Matthew--to follow him.  To live, as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council put it, our universal call to holiness.  But God is calling each of us in specific ways about how to live out that call to holiness in ways that are exciting, are meaningful, and ultimately in ways that will lead us to greater holiness.  

How have you practiced discernment in your life?