We Are All Called

“If you will be what you should be, you will set all of Italy afire. Don’t be content with the small things: he, the Lord God, wants them great”…St. Catherine

Each and every one of us is called to a particular vocation in life.

Some of us might be called to be doctors; some of might be called to hospital ministry. Some of might be called to be teachers; some of us might be called to help out with religious education programs at our local parishes. Some of us are called to the priesthood; some of us are called to parenthood.Yes, we are all called.

Each of our callings is different from another, but every calling is unique in the eyes of God the Father that made us. And why did God make us?  God made us to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven.1

Our existence is a manifestation of his love for us. Yet, the world today tries to show us that we don’t need God, that we can have societies and families without him. Little by little we push him aside, we become disconnected from God. Thinking that we know what is best for us, we put our trust in ourselves, rather than putting our trust in God that made us.

Jesus tells us, “You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk”(Luke 11:44).  Our spirituality is catching no one!

Jesus was asking the Pharisees and scholars of his days to wake up, to become what they should be. He is asking us to do the same. He wants us to set the world on fire with the love of his Holy Spirit. He wants our every action and reaction to reflect the love God has for us.

 "Dear children; Also today my motherly heart calls you to prayer, to your personal relationship with God the Father, to the joy of prayer in Him. God the Father is not far away from you and He is not unknown to you. He revealed Himself to you through my Son and gave you Life that is my Son. Therefore, my children do not give in to temptations that want to separate you from God the Father. Pray! Do not attempt to have families and societies without Him. Pray! Pray that your hearts may be flooded with the goodness which comes only from my Son, Who is sincere goodness. Only hearts filled with goodness can comprehend and accept God the Father. I will continue to lead you. In a special way I implore you not to judge your shepherds. My children, are you forgetting that God the Father called them? Pray! Thank you." BVM, Medjugorje, October 2, 2011


Mirjana said: I have never said anything before, but are you aware, brothers and sisters, that the Mother of God was with us? Each of us should ask himself: "Are you worthy of this?" I am saying this because it is difficult for me to see Her (Our Lady) in pain, because each of us is seeking a miracle, but does not want to work a miracle in himself.

1. Baltimore Catechism 

I know my sheep, and mine know me....

“……the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” John 10:3



We had packed the motor home early that day; we were looking forward to the trip. Lake Tahoe was our destination, where our children would be participating in a soccer tournament.

My husband wanted to leave at midnight. His plan was to beat the heat of the Mojave Desert and arrive at our campsite early, making the most of the time allotted to us.

As he drove through the night we slept soundly until the motor home came to a complete stop and a small voice from a child in the back yelled, “Are we there yet ?” Dawn was breaking and the fog on the road was so thick that the taillights on the car in front of us were barely visible. “No”, my husband said, “We aren’t there yet, but we aren’t moving either”.

Just then, we started to hear the sound of bells jingling softly in the distant. Our curiosity was peaking as the sound grew closer and the fog began to lift.

To our sheer delight, we saw what looked like hundreds of sheep coming toward us. They were being lead by a single shepherd to a pasture across the highway. It was amazing how this one man could guide all these sheep so effortlessly  across the road, but he did.

Today we celebrate the Good Shepherd. May we take the time to pray for the shepherds in our church, as well as for an increase in vocations.

O Jesus,

I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;

for your unfaithful and tepid priests;

for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields.

for your tempted priests;

for your lonely and desolate priests;

For your young priests;

for your dying priests;

for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.

But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:

the priest who baptized me;

the priests who absolved me from my sins;

the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;

the priests who taught and instructed me;

all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way

(especially …).

O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,

and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.

Amen    St. Therese of Lisieux

Vocare

I'm not sure if it was the snoring of our dog or if it was the restlessness of my husband that roused me from my sleep last night. What I do know is that it was 3:00 a.m. and I was staring into the darkness of our room rather than enjoying the peacefulness of my dreams.


Turning to my side and tucking the blankets tightly around me, I tried to go back to sleep, but a single word kept playing over and over in my head, "vocation". I had read an article before going to bed this night entitled “The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life” which led me to reflect on my own vocation as a Catholic wife, mother, grandmother, and woman in the world today.

As I thought about the vocation I have been called to, I thought about the strong women of faith in my own life, the ones closes to me that have led me by their examples, like my mother and grandmother. I thought of the many women of faith that I have prayed with in our times of need; I thought of the women of courage and conviction I have read about like Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day.

The woman I thought about the most however, was our Blessed Mother Mary. Called to be the “Mother of the Redeemer”, Mary showed us how to fulfill our call to spritual motherhood by becoming the handmaid of the Lord. She was ready to serve God according to His will.

I came to realize that in following Mary's example our vocation cannot be a passive one, but an active call to action; after all her beloved Son was considered quite radical.

According to St. Louis de Montfort’s "The Secret of Mary", this calling requires a sincere desire for the gift of humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.

This is a tall order for most of us; it sure is for me, and the grace and help of God is absolutely necessary for us to put these virtues to practice. But, just like anything we strive to achieve; we must first desire to achieve it.

God bless you and yours always.




Take From Ave Maris Stella

Virgin all excelling,

mildest of the mild,

free from guilt preserve us

meek and undefiled.

Keep our life all spotless,

make our way secure

till we find in Jesus,

joy for evermore.