Shortly after being assigned to the Vocation Office for the Archdiocese, I began praying What do you want of me Lord? What do YOU want to see in the vocation office? Now I'm not a mystic by any means, but there was a phrase that kept coming back to me over and over again. A CULTURE OF VOCATION. An environment in the Church where families, parishes, and schools all collaborated and made discernment, real spiritual discernment, part of everyday life. Where it was natural, not unusual, for young men and women to discuss openly the possibility of becoming a priest or religious. Where the question, What do I want to be when I grow up? goes hand-in-hand with, or is even surpassed by the question What does God want me to be when I grow up?

 

On the surface, there are many good tools, techniques and programs that can help facilitate this. Over the past few months I have been part of several retreats and camps ranging from a few dozen to a few thousand participants. Youth rallies, service camps, and retreats; from the great outdoors to the college campus, hotels and campgrounds, all in the name of trying to help young people stop and ask the questions that really matter. Why am I here? What is the meaning of true happiness? Where can I find it?

We all have a vocation. God calls out to each of us at every moment of everyday. No exceptions. He calls us to fulfillment. He calls us to peace. He calls us to joy. Unfortunately, we have convinced ourselves that self-fulfillment is possible, that peace is merely the absence of war, and that joy is synonymous with physical pleasure. And yet we see many very successful people who have everything that the world has to offer and they are unhappy, hollow. And others who have nothing, except joy. How is this possible? God designed the human heart in such a way that even if every good thing in the world was given to us, we would still ask Is this it? For the human heart is bigger than the world. God alone suffices to quench our thirsts. To quote Augustine, Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

I recently began reading a book by Fr. Jaques Philippe, entitled Called to Life. He writes:

In particular, our image of happiness--our psychological representation of what we consider possible and think will make us happy--is often only distantly related to real, satisfying happiness. This is the human tragedy: to seek to realize an image of happiness proposed to us by the surrounding culture and our psyches, without ever finding true happiness.Today, more than ever, we strive to master and control life, realize our projects, satiate our thirst for happiness, without understanding that we often are imprisoned by the limitations of what the psyche can comprehend and desire and its failure to grasp where our true happiness lies. (Philippe, Called to Life,p. 14)

 

To overcome the obstacles placed on us by society and our own human weakness in our pursuit of happiness, there is a foundational step that needs to be taken...generosity of heart. We need to abandon our false pursuits and respond to God's goodness with a generous receptivity; an opening of our hearts and minds to Him. We must make room and invite Him in.

At my parish this past weekend I gave a blessing to two seminarians who were returning to their studies as well as to a young religious sister who was about to begin a new assignment for her community. As I saw the three of them standing there, I was moved to reflect not only on the generosity of their own hearts, striving to find God's will in their lives and responding with their whole self, but also at the unseen but very real generosity of their parents hearts. Mothers and fathers often want to see their children live the life that they envision for them. To let go of those visions that they had in mind is a death to self for them as well. But true, authentic joy and happiness can only be found when such things are put to death. For unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Jn. 12:24

So how do we begin to develop and foster a "culture of vocations"? It begins by praying that we may be individuals, families, schools, and churches that have a generous heart of love for God. If we begin there, all else will follow.