I lived it myself, and am now seeing it among my younger siblings and their friends in the late high school and early college years. On one hand, it's beautiful and moving to see Christ working in their lives and hearts, and to see how deeply they want to discern and follow his will for them. On the other hand, the environments of some of the Catholic greenhouses where all this discerning tends to take place can lead to some angst, heartache, and unhelpful thinking.
Having recently celebrated my second wedding anniversary, I'm only just getting started along my vocational path myself. However, maybe the fact that I'm only a few years out from all of this vocation freakout means I'm in a good position to share some thoughts. So here are seven things to remember to survive vocation fever:
1) There’s not one single right path and lots of wrong paths.
This was a big one for me. I was convinced that if I jumped
through enough discernment hoops I would discover that one correct road to
follow, with brightly lit guideposts directing me towards my one true calling.
This idea ended up making me me feel paralyzed, because if I
accidentally headed off down the wrong path I would have ignored God’s will and
be condemned to a life of misery. When, at various points, I did think I
understood what God wanted of me and then found roadblocks in the way, this
felt like a betrayal. Really, our lives are a lot more complex than that,
and God works through our many, many daily choices to mold us into the people
he created us to be.
2) God speaks to us through our emotions and desires.
2) God speaks to us through our emotions and desires.
God’s call is not just an intellectual one. Of course
our minds have to be engaged, but it’s equally important that our hearts be, because
God speaks through both. There can be a tendency to fall into patterns of
thought that go something like this:
"This guy is in my life. He’s a good Catholic guy
and is available and seems to like me. Not much of a spark there, but I
have the duty to explore this option and see if this is God's will."OR
"I have the right temperament for a religious vocation and the Church desperately needs more priests and consecrated men and women. Guess I have a duty to go that way."
Your vocation, no matter what it is, is falling in love. That involves your entire person - mind, soul, body, emotions. If your arrival at a vocational decision could just as easily been accomplished by plugging numbers into a spreadsheet, you're closing yourself to some of God's best communication channels.
3) God wants us to be happy.
Suffering, as we know, can be meaningful and redemptive when
united with Christ's suffering on the Cross. But suffering is not a good
in and of itself, and just because we're suffering doesn't mean we're doing
what God wants. If dating someone seems like a burden, if your first year
in seminary was hell on earth, that doesn't necessarily mean you should just
grit your teeth, offer it up, and wait for heaven. Our vocations, though
they will involve challenges and sometimes suffering, should primarily be
sources of joy for us and those around us. And this principle doesn't
just apply in the big vocational choices you make - it applies in daily
life. We as Catholics understand that there's a hierarchy of goods, but
that doesn't make the good things that are less important any less good or
necessary for a full and flourishing life. Eating a great meal, having
fun at work, being with people who make us laugh - God wants all of this for
us, now, in this life. Read Psalm 27 - "I believe I shall see the
Lord's goodness in the land of the living." Life shouldn't
permanently feel like a bleak and endless slog. If it does, you can and should
make a change.
4) It's about the person.
4) It's about the person.
That person might be your future spouse, or it might be
Christ himself drawing you into a relationship with him as a priest or
religious. Regardless, though you are called more generally to a
"state in life," you can only experience that call through a
particular person. You won't know that you're called to marriage until
you and that particular person decide that you want to get married.
Starting by deciding that you're called to marriage and then figuring you
better get started with whoever is available is backwards. If you're not
looking at your beloved and thinking "I cannot imagine my life without you
because of who you are," start over. You are selling yourself, and
especially that other person, short.
5) Getting your heart broken is okay.
5) Getting your heart broken is okay.
We should be
reponsible with our bodies, minds, and gifts. But that doesn’t mean we
can’t be gung-ho about something, really give it a try, then discover it isn’t
working and stop. That includes the major or dream job you always thought
was your destiny. It also includes dating relationships. Yes, we
should live chastely and not act as though we’re married before we are.
But figuring out if someone is the right person for you to marry requires
getting to know that person in a way that entails some intimacy and
vulnerability. Reaching that level of vulnerability with someone and then
realizing marrying them would not be the right choice can be extraordinarily
difficult, but can also be necessary. Absent actual toxic elements within
the relationship or legitimate mental health issues, this does not mean that
your future ability to be intimate and vulnerable is weakened or destroyed.
6) Needing and accepting forgiveness is okay.
6) Needing and accepting forgiveness is okay.
Because
of who our God is, it is not possible for you to put yourself out of reach of
his mercy. This is not to say that we shouldn’t act with prudence, avoid
occasions of sin and temptation, and hold ourselves accountable for our
actions. But we also need to be ready when we make a wrong choice to
accept God’s healing. This is especially important in dating
relationships. Marriage is the only non-negotiable, and even if you do
make some wrong choices in your dating relationships that does not mean that
you have to make a bad relationship work because you need to atone or have ruined yourself for
future marital happiness. Our God is endlessly and extravagantly
merciful, and refusing to accept his offered forgiveness and see ourselves as
forgiven and purified is not humility. It's pride and presumption.
7) You don’t have to be thinking about your primary vocation all. the. freaking. time.
7) You don’t have to be thinking about your primary vocation all. the. freaking. time.
In fact, doing so can be counter-productive.
God doesn’t need us to do the heaving lifting. Spend your time
pursuing people and activities that you love and that form you as a whole and
holy person. Everything else follows from that.
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!
