“Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and all night He continued in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12).
I have three living children – two boys and a girl – and one little saint in Heaven… And I love them all equally…
While it is true that each of them are different and at times I treat them differently, there is equal love in my heart for each of my children…
The other day, my little girl felt sick. Thank God she did not have COVID-19 or any other serious illness, but her tummy hurt and for a few days, she did not feel very well…
While she was sick, she did not feel like eating as much as she normally would. Being the sort of mother who has learned – the hard way – how best to deal with “tummy bugs”, I am experienced enough to understand that when a child feels sick in the tummy, the last thing you want to do is push them to eat – because that will just become a problem for you to clean up later!
Now, my sons immediately noticed a change in the way that I was treating their sister.
While they had to eat all their dinner, their sister only had to eat whatever she felt like. While they had to drink plain water, their sister was allowed to eat hydrolyte ice-blocks to keep hydrated while she felt unwell. While they had to help me to clean up after meals, their sister could have a little rest on the couch and did not need to help me out.
As you might imagine, my sons – and particularly my youngest son – started to feel a little bit left out when they noticed all this special treatment that their sister was receiving…
And it occurred to me that this is how it must feel when God gives each of us our vocation – for there is much Grace required to fulfil our vocation…
When Christ chose his twelve apostles from among all the disciples who followed Him, He did it after He had prayed… “Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and all night He continued in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12). I have often thought that Christ prayed for guidance so that He would know who He should select from among the twelve. And perhaps that was part of it… But Christ also prayed FOR them so that they would be strong enough to fulfil the Will of God. You see – they needed Grace to accept their vocation and become more than His disciples – to become His apostles…
They would need to be able to follow Him while He was alive on journeys that were uncomfortable and to follow Him while He was preaching the Truth that they could not yet understand. They would need to be able to follow Him even to His death and – having failed to stay beside Him (with the exception of Saint John) – they had to be able to follow Him after His death also.
And in order to do this, they would need to be open to the Holy Spirit so that they could do His Holy Will…
And though Christ chose the twelve to be His Apostles, His other disciples were not jealous. They did not fight and argue and try to persuade Him to include them among the twelve. Because they knew that God has a plan for each soul – and though God’s plan may be different for each – God does NOT play favourites. His love for each soul is perfect, as Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus explained in her autobiography, “Story of a Soul”, if a thimble or a bucket are full of water, both are full.
Because each of us are called to a vocation…
As Blessed Álvaro described, if a chair chose not to be a chair and decided to be a coat-hanger instead and attached itself to a wall, people could hang their coats on each of its legs, but the carpenter who made that chair would be unimpressed. After all, if the carpenter had wanted to make a coat-hanger, he would have made the chair a coat-hanger in the first place.
And so, now that I think about it, what I really need to do is to be ALL it is that GOD wants me to be… For if He wanted a coat-hanger, He would have made me one…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.