What is a Vocation?

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me, which he has not committed to another. Cardinal Newman

In his loving design, God created each person in His image, giving us life and the ability to love and create. To do this, every person is called to live in a relationship of love with God, self, others, and all creation.

Through Baptism and Confirmation all Christians are called into relationship with Jesus Christ and to follow Him. This call to follow Jesus can be lived out in various ways:

• through sacramental marriage;
• through the single life;
• through the consecrated life;
• through ordination to the priesthood, or deaconate.

Christians live out their Baptismal call to holiness and service by following Jesus through one of these vocations.

You are called to life You are called to love, You are called to give life.

Each baptised Christian is called by God to do something special, to become someone special. All vocations are in Christ Jesus. The personality of Jesus Christ is so infinitely rich that it embraces all calls and vocations. If then each of us has a "personal vocation", this can only be in Christ Jesus. This means that this is a facet of the personality of Jesus Christ, a "face" of Jesus, which is proper to each one of us. Only you can show the "face" of Jesus given to you.

God's desire was for every person to come to know His love and to live through love in His presence. Again and again God revealed His love and purpose for human kind, but in their weakness they did not always respond. Finally God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus came to show us that it is possible to live through love in God's presence and to fulfil God's call and purpose in our lives. Jesus did just that, and He offered His life to the Father for our redemption and through His Death and Resurrection made it possible for us to live through love in God's presence and to fulfil God's call and purpose in our lives by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Now Jesus calls each one to see their life as a gift from the Father who loves them. Jesus is calling you to give your life for others; to fulfil your special purpose in giving your life that others may come to know God's love.

This is your Vocation !

Do not be afraid. From now on it is people you will catch. Come follow me! Luke 5:11,28