Discernment: I came across the
following statement about discernment of one’s vocation and believe it is worth
sharing. It was written in August of 2013 by Mother
Katherine Caldwell, TOR, in an article entitled “There Is No Greater Love: The Close Bond between Martyrdom and
Religious Life”. She writes:
In discerning a
vocation, it is, of course, not a matter of discerning
if one is called to embrace the Cross. All
Christians are called to
follow Christ and to embrace the Cross—all are
called to love as
Christ has loved. The question is this: What
way of giving yourself
in loving sacrifice best matches the person
who God made you to
be? Those called to religious
life are specially consecrated to Christ
by laying down their life through embracing
the evangelical counsels
of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Religious
renounce family life,
personal possessions,
and following one’s own will for the sake of
Christ and His
Church. This radical way of letting go of the world and
those things that the
world deems most important is for the greater
good of giving oneself totally in loving and
serving Christ and His
Church. Like the
martyr, the religious who gives up the goods of this
life bears witness to
the supreme love of Christ and directs all Christians
to gaze toward
heaven, our true home, where the greatest Lover
desires us to be with
Him forever.
The question that
most touches me is: What way of giving
yourself in loving sacrifice best matches the person who God made you to be? In other words, each vocation in life—marriage,
religious life, priesthood, or the single life—all involve sacrifice. What you,
as a discerner, need to come to is your answer to that question.
