08/11/2024
âYour vocation is something more: It is a path guiding your many efforts and actions toward service to others.It has nothing to do with inventing ourselves or creating ourselves out of nothing. It has to do with finding our true selves in the light of God and letting our lives flourish and bear fruit.â â Pope Francis
Discovering oneâs vocation, even in the deepest prayer, is not like finding the exact road map for oneâs life with all the stops and starts and obstacles and detours clearly marked. Instead, it is more like being invited on an adventure.
1. Ask what makes you come alive.
Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.â
So what is it that makes you come alive? Whatever your answer it will point toward that way of serving the world for which you are best suited. When you do that, you express your unique personalityâwith all your talents and all your limitations and shortcomings and your struggle to overcome themâwhich makes you who you are, and this uniqueness is what the world needs.
2. Trust the opportunities life and God are offering.
Once you know what gives your heart deep and lasting joy, go for it! Trust life to provide every moment exactly what you need (this courageous trust is called faith). If you truly trust in life, you can let go of your wishful daydreams and open yourself to reality with all its surprises (this openness for surprise is called hope).
3. Stop.
Stop, or you will zoom right past the opportunity life is offering you at this very moment. Unless you learn to stop, you are driving on automatic. You need to build stop signs into your daily life. Before you open your eyes in the morning, before you put the key into the ignition, before you open your computer, these beginnings invite you to stop for a split second. So do moments when something makes you stopâa traffic light, a line at the checkout counter, or someone arriving late. Endings, too, make good stopping points: As you get up from the table, close your book, or turn off the light, stop ever so briefly. By stopping, you practice faith: You trust that life, and the Giver of Life, has a message for you, an invitation.
4. Listen
And then you listenâwith the ears of your heart. To what does life invite you, right now? Most of the time life invites you to enjoyâwhat you see, taste, smell, touch, or hear. Stopping and listening makes you come alive with all your senses. Otherwise you miss these pleasures by rushing past them. But sometimes life invites you to learn somethingâfor instance patience (thatâs not so pleasant)âor to move beyond what you are used to (that can also be challenging). At other times life may invite you to shareâyour time, your experience, your resourcesâor to stand up and be counted or to clean up a mess. Whatever it might be it will always be surprising if you only listen deeply enough. For this kind of listening is an exercise in hope. It makes you more and more open for surprise.
5. Respond
The greatest surprise will be to discover how by stopping and listening you come to interact lovingly with others if you practice the next step and respond to lifeâs invitation at a given moment. That response is an exercise in love, your âyes!â to belonging. It is your answer to a very personal calling, and it turns whatever you are doing into a vocation, your unique vocationâfor no other person can listen and respond with your heart. The joy you will find on this path, no matter how rough it may be at times, will prove to you that it is the right path for you. Then you will realize what it means when Jesus says, âI have come that they may have life and have it to the fullâ (John 10:10).
Sources:
[1]. A Perfect Fit: Pope Describes How To Discover One's Vocation â Orange County Catholic [Cindy Wooden, 04/09/2019]
[2]. 5 Steps To Finding Your Vocation â Vision Vocation Network [Bro. David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.]
