Vocation, Vocation, Vocation

At last I have found my vocation. In the heart of the Church, I will be Love!

-- St Therese of Lisieux

So I saw something that blew my mind today and  inspired me to write this entry.  I read about a woman who was recently married and how her husband found out that he has a certain type of cancer. The cancer is curable but nonetheless it is a cancer. It started to make me think of the hours, minutes, days, etc I think about or have thought about my vocation in this world. How fantastical in so many ways I have made it.  I have seen so many of my friends married and moving forward. I have seen so many friends enter convents and become priests. None of them ever turned around and said, "And because I have found my vocation, everything is perfect now." Not a chance.  That is what blew my mind this afternoon, that finding my vocation does not make my life complete, but finding my vocation is there to aid me in completing my life.

I began to think more about this couple and how when they got married they probably never saw this coming.  They never thought that there lives would be interrupted by such a devastating, heart stopping moment. Although there is a cure for it, it still is going to cause them to dig deep within themselves and draw love from places that they never knew existed! This interruption in the "plan" is going to cause them to suffer. It's crazy that is one thing we can't ever avoid.  We can avoid pleasure, but not pain.  In fact when we avoid pleasure it's painful. So what makes me think that when I enter into my vocation--everything will be perfect? I'm not sure, I think it is just the fact that I finally have the answer to an awfully big question.  

What does come with my vocation is suffering--why because to fully live my vocation, which will eventually lead me to heaven, I need to love. And to fully love anything, you will suffer! So what dawned on me is that when we enter our vocations we will suffer.  The difference is that when we suffer we suffer with another not that when we suffer now, Christ does not walk with us, but that when we suffer in our vocation we literally walk with other people in it.  We continue to walk our paths to heaven, but now our refinement is on a whole new level.  We are dying for another, so to live for the Lord.  We are sacrificing our happiness so that someone else can be happy.  We find ourselves, digging deep within ourselves to find the love to give to motivate our actions. 

So our vocation is to love; so our vocation is to suffer! yeah, that sounds about right. The cool thing is that when we love, the suffering ceases and its all love. We don't think about the pain, anymore when love is present and it is real. It's hard to believe that there is so much love that can cause all pain to cease and motivate me to desire anything, no matter the pain, just to sustain that love.

The story of the married couple I mentioned earlier also made me think of something else....yeah know why did God not make it possible for the man to know he had cancer before they got married? And then I thought, if they knew they may not have moved forward with this great love that they shared.  God knew that they would be a support to one another and that their love for each other was necessary for this suffering to be endured. So God allowed the marriage, knowing that he would also allow the cancer and the suffering.  He saw the fruit of what love would bring.  He saw the refinement in each one of their souls and he saw the bigger picture.  Knowing they would have to lean on him together to get through this suffering.  For as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry states, being in love does not mean looking at each other, but looking together in the same direction

So what is your vocation...well it's to love!! God will guide you to love as you are open to love! The story above may not necessarily sound appealing. In fact some people may think, well if love calls me to suffer more than I already do, then peace out--I do not want to love! Well at least I will not love to that extent.  The thing is though we are all called and have the capacity to love to that extent...we need only be open to such love. We need only say yes to God and his call for us to live out our vocations!!!