“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.” (Saint Henry Newman).
The other day a dear friend told me that her niece was going to take her final vows as a nun.
And it started me in thinking about vocations. You see, every human being on the earth is called to a vocation. Their vocation may be to marriage – as it is for the vast majority of humans. They vocation ay be to the life of a single person, or their vocation may be to religious orders.
In the case of this niece’s vocation – it was for a religious life through Holy Orders…
And it is this vocation of Holy Orders that I have been reflecting on today. You see, Christ told Saint Faustina, in one of His revelations to her, that God has special blessings for those souls who take religious vows, and can be more greatly offended by them than by other souls… And because these souls have received the sacrament of Holy Orders, they are more desperately targeted by the Evil One, because their life of prayer can do such good…
“They came to John, and said to him, ‘Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptising, and all are going to him.’ John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease.’” (John 3:22-30).
You see, Saint John the Baptist was a religious person who used his life in service to Christ. And it is the same with my friend’s niece today…
Thomas Merton explained it as “Vocation does not come from a voice out there calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice in here calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfil the original selfhood given me at birth by God... For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfil our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.”
And Saint Henry Newman explained it as “God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission... He has not created me for naught.”
And I have been thinking about that today as I think about vocations…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.