Tag: Christian vocation

Good Shepherd Sunday: which are the authoritative voices that guide you?

Christ the Good Shepherd BE Murrilo.jpgGood Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday following the great feast of Easter, is celebrated today by the Church. Today is a day in we all focus on the tenderness of the Lord and smoothing quality of his voice gently calling us to deeper and fuller communio with him. The Fourth Sunday of Easter is the day in which the Holy Father draws our attention to vocations in the Church (priest, brother, sister, nun, deacon, perhaps consecrated lay person) for one’s salvation but also for the glory of God in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the iconic life of a Catholic in the sacraments. As Blessed John Paul said in Pastor Bonus, “the task of its [the Church’s] shepherd of pastors was indeed to be that service ‘which is called very expressly in Sacred Scripture a diaconia or ministry'” (1). Benedict’s message for the 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations can be read here.

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God gives all a vocation

Every man is a vocation, the Pope tells us in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate; he has a vocation. Why? Because man is by nature a being who listens, a given being; before him, there is another who gives meaning to his life. We came into the world because there is someone who loved us first: at the beginning is always love, the gift, and when we consider ourselves, we realize that we feel the need to redirect ourselves toward the source from which we come. We came from the eternal love of God.

And when we enter into the mystery of God’s love, we feel almost a fear, a tremor, like the prophet Isaiah. Contemplating the mystery of God, it almost seems like we are dying, because we feel all our fragility and weakness; but when the mystery of God enters into even our fragility, into our weakness, it purifies us. God does not enter into our lives to annihilate us, but to free us and allow life to be manifested in its fullness. And purified by God, we discover untold energy within us, and then if man by himself can do nothing, man with God can do everything. Nothing is impossible for God, and we are called every day- we created beings, we who have a vocation- we are called every day to rediscover the eternal mystery of God, to experience our weakness and fragility, and at the same time, to experience the merciful and renewing grace of God. And on God’s side, under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with Jesus who has risen and called us to be his friends and brothers, we can do great things. We can be at the service of his kingdom and make the kingdom of God triumph first in ourselves and then by the witness of life we want to give.

Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, CS
Homily excerpt, Legion of Christ
July 10, 2010