{"id":27070,"date":"2012-07-11T11:00:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T15:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2012\/07\/the-vocation-to-life\/"},"modified":"2013-12-05T20:38:13","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T00:38:13","slug":"the-vocation-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2012\/07\/the-vocation-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Vocation To Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend Benedictine Father Meinrad Miller told me about this essay, “The Vocation To Life” published in a recent issue of \u00a0<\/i>Homiletic and Pastoral Review<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by\u00a0<\/i>Father Charles Klamut. I was “blown away by it” and offer it to you here. It is truly an excellent essay; it captures the heart of what it means to be a Christian –a follower of Christ and His Church– and to be a true man or woman with a humanity. Recently, I’ve had this discussion with a dear friend about vocation and he can’t seem to get it across his mind (and heart) that there are things we need as a human being before being a monk or a priest. Father Charles gets it; Scola gets it as does Albacete and Benedict XVI and before him Paul VI and John Paul II. Are we listening carefully to the Master. On this feast of Saint Benedict, I offer this essay for us to reflect on.<\/i><\/p>\n

Like the apostles, I first said “yes” to Christ because of the total answer he provided for my human need, and only within this context did a specific vocation to serve as a priest gradually begin to reveal itself.<\/b><\/p>\n

A few years ago, during a retreat for priests, Msgr.\u00a0Lorenzo Albacete<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0shared with us a story of his friend, Cardinal\u00a0Angelo Scola<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 When asked by a journalist about the shortage of vocations to the priesthood in Italy, Scola replied that the problem stemmed from\u00a0a deeper crisis: the problem, he said, was\u00a0that life itself is no longer seen as a vocation.<\/p>\n

Albacete reflected on this insight for the next few days, calling it very important, explaining to us what he thought Scola was getting at.\u00a0 The call to life is something given, something prior to our thoughts and schemes.\u00a0\u00a0It’s even prior to the particular vocations like marriage and the priesthood.\u00a0 We did not choose it; it’s just there. Within the human heart is a cry for life, real life, eternal life: life properly so-called.\u00a0 The New Testament, using a more nuanced Greek vocabulary than our modern-day English, used multiple words for “life:”\u00a0bios<\/i>\u00a0to refer to material, physical life;\u00a0zoe<\/i>\u00a0to refer to a more comprehensive, metaphysical, all-encompassing life, such as the kind promised by Jesus.\u00a0The heart cries for infinite life, not just\u00a0bios<\/i>, but\u00a0zoe<\/i>.<\/b>\u00a0 The heart cries for\u00a0a freedom and happiness\u00a0which, alas, we cannot give ourselves.\u00a0 In short,\u00a0the heart cries for God<\/b>.<\/p>\n

This call to life which our heart always hears, even if we don’t (affected as we are by reductionist cultural forces), is awakened and answered by the exceptional presence of Christ.\u00a0 Jesus Christ is the infinite made visible and historical, the answer to the heart’s cry for life: “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).<\/p>\n

Albacete spoke of the experience of the first apostles as recorded in the Scriptures.\u00a0 For them, Christ provoked a total human awakening, provided a total human answer, not just a spiritual one.\u00a0 From Christ’s first question to John and Andrew, “What do you seek?” he was engaging them on the level of life itself.\u00a0 Their response to his question was: “Where are you staying?”\u00a0 This suggests their longing for a lasting place to be with him, to share life with him.\u00a0 Only with time would the call of Christ reveal itself in its ecclesiastical specifics, as\u00a0a logical extension of the vocation to life.<\/p>\n

A number of priests at the retreat were puzzled that so much time was spent on the general theme of the call to life, and they were wondering when the specifics of the priesthood, such as the Eucharist, would be addressed.\u00a0 Albacete insisted that the vocation to life, and subsequently, to Christianity, provided the solid foundation on which the vocation to the priesthood is built.\u00a0 Without the former, the latter will be unstable and will eventually crumble, as we have all sadly seen so many times in recent years.<\/p>\n

The retreat had a major impact on me and on many of the others present.\u00a0 It challenged me to think more deeply about\u00a0my entire life, not just my priesthood.\u00a0 I was challenged to recall why I was moved to be a Christian in the first place, let alone a priest.\u00a0 Looking at experiences along my way, I remembered how Christ really has, time and again, answered the cry of my heart.\u00a0 In unexpected and exceptional ways, Christ has made it possible for me to live a free and human life, and has rescued me from confusion and despair, from the prison of my ego.\u00a0 In this context, the specifics of the priesthood make sense. Like the apostles, I first said “yes” to Christ because of the total answer he provided for my human need, and only within this context did a specific vocation to serve as a priest gradually begin to reveal itself.<\/p>\n

With the vocation to life as a defining principle, I began with excitement to notice a similar emphasis in Church teaching.\u00a0 Consider the line from the Second Vatican Council, often quoted by Pope John Paul II:\u00a0 “Christ, the new Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear.<\/b>”<\/p>\n

Man is no longer a mystery, a stranger to himself.\u00a0 Humanity now knows who he\/she is and who God is, thanks to Christ.\u00a0 Humanity now sees that life has meaning, that each of us has a “supreme calling.”<\/p>\n

Pope Benedict XVI has advanced this theme in his own way, speaking repeatedly of the need for the Church to advance “a true humanism, which acknowledges that man is made in the image of God and wants to help him live in a way consonant with that dignity” (God is Love<\/i>, 30).\u00a0True humanism\u00a0comes from Christ, because only Christ reveals man to himself, clarifying his supreme calling to life.\u00a0 The Pope, like his predecessor, seems unwilling to consign salvation to heaven.\u00a0 Rather, he seems eager to see the Kingdom arrive here and now, through the response of men and women to Christ’s call to life, bearing fruit in a true humanism of dignity and redemption.<\/p>\n

Christians are the true humanists.\u00a0 Perhaps it’s time to be bolder in asserting this.\u00a0 Turning to the Pope’s most recent encyclical,\u00a0Charity in Truth<\/i>, the vocation to life is discussed with great insight in the context of the development of peoples.\u00a0 In an extended section discussing Pope Paul VI’s social teaching from forty years earlier, Pope Benedict reaffirms that progress and development cannot be reduced to the material plane, as, unfortunately, so often happens.\u00a0 Development involves not just\u00a0having more,\u00a0<\/i>but\u00a0being more<\/i>, including the “whole man.”<\/p>\n

Pope Paul VI, says Pope Benedict, insisted on the link between the proclamation of Christ and the advancement of the individual in society (the humanism theme again).\u00a0 Christ knows that man does not live on bread alone. Christ feeds man’s whole being with the Word of God, redeeming him, “developing” him, and thus enabling him, in turn, to contribute to the true development of others.\u00a0 Pope Paul VI insisted that progress is, first and foremost, a vocation, a call initiated and made possible by God, saying that “in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for\u00a0every life is itself a vocation.<\/b>”<\/p>\n

Continuing his discussion of Pope Paul VI and development, Pope Benedict says:<\/p>\n

To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand, that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning.\u00a0 Not without reason, the word “vocation” is also found in another passage of the Encyclical (by Pope Paul VI), where we read: “There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute, and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning” (Charity in Truth,\u00a0<\/i>16).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s interesting that the word “vocation” is repeatedly mentioned (dozens of times), yet it’s not linked here to specific vocations to marriage or priesthood, as is typical in Catholic discussions.\u00a0 Instead, the word is used in an all-encompassing way: “being more,” “true humanism,” being called by God “to develop and fulfill himself.”\u00a0 This is a surprisingly historical and human approach, and seems a far cry from the “pie in the sky when you die,” otherworldly type of salvation for which Marx so bitterly criticized Christianity.\u00a0 The repeated references to “meaning” suggest the Pope’s deep awareness of the existential crisis that so many people face in recent times. This crisis saps the human spirit and thwarts development perhaps even more than material imbalances.\u00a0 The Pope wishes to see every human being respond to the vocation to development and thus flourish; he wishes to see the development of the “whole man” and “every man.”\u00a0 Who else in the world truly wants this?<\/p>\n

When you experience something freeing and beautiful, love impels you to share it.\u00a0 The approach I have mentioned thus far, from all I have seen, heard, and read, is something truly original and exceptional.\u00a0\u00a0It has caused a paradigm shift in my own thinking, and an awareness of what it means to be a human, a Christian, and a priest.\u00a0 This shift is of seismic proportions, providing clarity to my mission and a new zest for life.\u00a0 It has made me feel more challenged and eager than ever, giving me a new way of looking at the future of the Church, to which I have pledged my life.<\/p>\n

My human needs always precede my priesthood.\u00a0 When I am struggling as a priest, it is a sign that I am struggling as a man.\u00a0 The way Christ relates to me, looks at me, and saves me touches, on some deep, mysterious level, the recesses of my human heart. Deeper than my ecclesiastical vocation, he always reaches me at this human level, which, in turn, touches on my priesthood.\u00a0 He reaches out to me primarily through his Church, most specifically through my friends.\u00a0 As a friend recently said, “Treat friendship like the eighth sacrament<\/b>—there you will understand the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation<\/b>.”<\/p>\n

The idea of life itself as a vocation puts the responsibility on each one of us to take this call seriously, and follow it, living out its implications in all their ensuing adventure.\u00a0 It charges Christianity with a new energy and new focus.\u00a0 It takes the emphasis off circumstances, putting it back onto my own reason and freedom, challenging me to seek out and follow what most moves me.\u00a0It takes Christian life out of the confines of the sanctuary or church building and makes every detail of life significant and charged with meaning<\/b>.\u00a0\u00a0 It provides a context within which more specific vocations take on perspective and focus.<\/p>\n

In my experience as a priest, people are more confused and more desperate than ever to find meaning in life.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many see their Christian faith as something to get them to heaven (hopefully) when they die, so long as they are “good.” They do not see how faith makes their real life–here and now–better and happier, new and beautiful.\u00a0 Some, especially the young, may speak earnestly about finding their “vocation.” But this is usually muddled and often means no more than finding a “soul mate” to make them happy, as the popular myth proposes, collapsing the vocation to life into the vocation to marriage, priesthood, etc. Those concerned with “development” often zealously work for social justice, but fail to see how the care of people’s material needs connects to the needs of their heart. They end up offering, in spite of their good intentions, far too little.\u00a0 Often priests seem to allow their self-awareness to be reduced to religious specialization. These are fragmented people seeking fragmented goals.<\/p>\n

In the midst of this turmoil and confusion, Cardinal Scola, Msgr. Albacete, and the recent popes insist that life is a “vocation.” This cuts to the core and returns us to the beginning, the first things that matter: the cry of the human heart for God.\u00a0 Fr. Luigi Giussani once said, “The true protagonist of history is the beggar, Christ, who begs for man’s heart; and man’s heart, which begs for Christ.”\u00a0 If ever there was a need for a new bunch of protagonists in the Church and in the world, it is now.<\/p>\n

Today, Christian faith is often reduced to sentimentality or sectarianism, or a subjectively comforting ideology.\u00a0 The idea of faith as knowledge of real, existing (if mysterious) things seems more and more foreign.\u00a0 The connection of faith to reality and life seems farther than ever.\u00a0 The irrelevance of faith to life seems more obvious than ever.\u00a0 The casualties are people, and by extension, church, culture, and society.<\/p>\n

“Life itself is no longer seen as a vocation,” said Cardinal Scola to the journalist. \u00a0“This is the real problem.”<\/p>\n

What if the Church is right?<\/b>\u00a0What if there really is a vocation to life, a call from God to have life, and have it more abundantly, each and every day?\u00a0 What if this vocation is really a call to an integral development, beginning with self and extending to “every man”? What if it is a call for the fulfillment of the “whole man”; a call not just to have more, but to be more? What if it is a call to a “true humanism”?\u00a0 How might this change the way we live as Christians? It would seem, at the very least, to require a serious, ongoing response, engaging all our intelligence and freedom.\u00a0 Imagine what the Church, and the world, might look like if a sizeable number, or even a handful, of people were behaving this way.<\/p>\n

Well, it may mean that the cry of my heart for life is not absurd; that it is not to be suppressed, censored, or reduced to despair and resignation; nor should it be too painful to bear.\u00a0 It may mean, instead, that the cry of my heart is beautiful, lovingly made and given by God–and answered.\u00a0 It may point out that the meaning of my life is to answer the call that life itself makes.\u00a0 It may mean that the infinite really has revealed itself in the person of Jesus, who really died and rose.\u00a0 It may mean that a whole new horizon of possibility has opened.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, being a Christian just became a lot more exciting.<\/p>\n

The author<\/i><\/p>\n

Fr. Charles Klamut was ordained in 1999 for the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. He has served in parish and high school ministry. He is currently working in campus ministry at St John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Benedictine Father Meinrad Miller told me about this essay, “The Vocation To Life” published in a recent issue of \u00a0Homiletic and Pastoral Review\u00a0by\u00a0Father Charles Klamut. I was “blown away by it” and offer it to you here. It is truly an excellent essay; it captures the heart of what it means to be … Continue reading Vocation To Life<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[2702,2133,1715,1768,2033,2982,1717,32097,2920],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29596,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27070\/revisions\/29596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}