God has a personal call for each one of us.
Every Christian is asked to receive Jesus in themselves & bring Him to the world.
Real vocation crisis is not to religious life, but the crisis is in our ability to hear & respond to the call of God in our lives.
Three barriers that hinder our ability to hear our call for Christian vocations:
1. Perceived need to chart our life course at an early age.
- Careers start early
- What point in our lives do we reflect on God's input?
2. Goal of life is self-fulfillment.
- Nowhere does it say in Gospel that self-fulfillment is the goal.
- Those who wear a crucifix yet think life is about self-fulfillment.
- Empty yourself so God can fill you up.
- Mid-30s is average age men enter priesthood.
- Goal of Christian marriage is not self-fulfillment, but self-donation to spouse & children but has to do with feeling of love.
- Focusing on "the one Right One" turns life into a romantic comedy "She wasn't the right one."
- Christian vocation, self-donation
- Successful relationships happen through skill (& one other thing that I did not catch
) - Our culture conspires against true Christian vocation.
- Mother Mary is not about self-fulfillment (i.e. when God asked her to give birth to Jesus Christ).
- It is a myth that we cannot be happy or fulfilled if we're not in a sexual relationship.
- A statement such as "Man, I can't see how you can do that," said to priests from promiscuous men who really mean, "I can't believe you're not having sex."
- Church's wisdom is absolutely correct.
- Sexually intimacy changes the chemistry of a relationship.
- If you can't be reasonably happy on your own, no relationship will make you so.
Unless you can sweat blood, you can never keep a commitment, whether it's priesthood or marriage.
The speaker, Fr. Matt Spahr from Immaculata, questioned whether his calling was to priesthood. His brother told him, "I don't know if you should be a priest, but you're good at it." Matt's response? "God you were right & the world was wrong."
God has a call for you, it's His way for you to be happy. Trust His call & don't buy into the lies of culture.
Receive Christ & inflesh (?) Him into the world is our vocation.
Like Mary said, "Yes", God always needs a "Yes."
We're never going to hear the call if we don't set time of silence aside to hear God.
Recommended reading: "The Holy Longing" - book to spiritual life.
Don't go into a panic about looking for someone to have a relationship with.
Looking for someone to date/marry is not a spirit of trust.
Seek the Kingdom first, work on your prayer life, work on your passions that make you passionate about life, work on relationship --> focus on God & God will bring you what you need to you.
If you've had a string of unsuccessful relationships, figure out why.
Relationships are about skills, find out what didn't work, what hasn't worked & see the patterns.
Don't treat God as a business client by showing Him your business plan.
Folliow where your passion is because God's will is your deepest desire.
God isn't playing games with us or bringing us to torture.
Lead a faithful life (chastity), put together your plan, follow your passion, figure out your deepest desire - that is your vocation.
Everything is about filling ourselves up but Jesus is just the opposite. To fill yourself up, you need to empty yourself & fill yourself with service & God's love.
Obedience is making time to listen to God.
We're not being called to being successful, we're all being called to be faithful.
If you cooperate with that grace, God will help you with that grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment