We Need Vocations
In regards to that there is a wonderful quotation from Saint John Paul II. He used to say: 'The christian vocation is holiness, in every moment of life. In the spring of young age, in the full summer of mature age, after that in the autumn and winter of old age, and lastly, in the hour of death'.
Saint Paul states the same calling to holiness on his letter to the Thessalonians, "God wills you all to be holy(...). God called us to be holy." (1 Thessalonians 4:3.7)
On the Old Testament Our beloved God, the Father, calls us to be holy like He himself is.
"For it is I, Yahweh, who am your God. You have been sanctified and have become holy because I am holy: do not defile yourselves with all these creatures that swarm on the ground. Yes, it is I Yahweh, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God: you must therefore be holy because I am holy." (Leviticus 11:44-45)
And that is the advice the first Holy Father, the Pope Saint Peter has given and left to us, reminding us that this calling is actual and recent; it is not dead, it is not only for the time had passed, it is not only for some people or chosen ones, it is for everyone. All of us who are called with the beautiful name of Christians, are called to be holy!
"Do not allow yourselves to be shaped by the passions of your old ignorance, but as obedient children, be yourselves holy in all your activity, after the model of the Holy One who calls us, since scripture says, 'Be holy, for I am holy'." (1 Peter 1:14-16)
SUMMING UP WHAT I SAID BEFORE, WE NEED VOCATIONS! REAL VOCATIONS! PEOPLE WHO REALIZED THEIR LIFE ARE NOT TO BE SPENT IN VAIN AND WITH HOLLOWNESS. WE WERE MADE FOR MORE, FOR SOMETHING MORE SUBSTANTIAL AND DEEP. WE WERE MADE FOR LOVE, FOR HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS!
Starting off with the first image above, we need people who are really called by God to live a holy life, an exemplar life, a life that is a preaching by itself, by the spiritual freedom, by the self-denial, by the act of giving oneself to God with thinking about the consequences. We really need that!
The Catholic Church calls us to be holy. The Church is Holy and kindly invite us to live a life as real Catholics. Everyone who is baptized have a responsibility to contribute to this holiness, to increase its holiness and let the world see that we don´t only have faith, but we live in faith!
If God called you to the priesthood, you should be not only another priest in the Church´s breast, but the best priest you can be. And that is not vanity or pride. That is being humble for God has made you and this calling is extraordinary for you to become another Christ on Earth, what we call "Persona Christi". It´s not anything... It is the most extraordinary vocation of the world.
If you feel this calling, you should acknowledge the most high function you are going to exercise in people´s lives, for the salvation of their souls, in order to offer yourself with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass you are going to celebrate, to the glory of God the Father, as Jesus himself did. You are going to be dead to the world but living to God. And living a life that the saints are already living in the Heaven. You are called to bring the Heaven to the Earth.
On that subject, the Patron of the Priests, Saint John Vianney used to teach: 'The most humble Mass, celebrated in the poorest of the Churches, by the humblest of the Priests, brings terror to the Evil One... and the whole Heaven lay down to watch it'.
Let´s realize how great vocation is the calling to the Priesthood with this wonderful text of the author to the letter to the Hebrews.
"Every high priest is taken from among human beings and is appointed to act on their behalf in relationships with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; he can sympathise with those who are ignorant or who have gone astray, because he too is subject to the limitations of weakness. That is why he has to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. No one takes this honour on himself; IT NEEDS A CALL FROM GOD, as in Aaron´s case. And so it was not Christ who gave himself the glory of becoming high priest, but the one who said to him: You are my Son, today I have fathered you, and in another text: You are a priest for ever, of the order of Melchizedek. During his life on earth, he offered up prayer and entreaty, with loud cries and with tears, to the one who had the power to save him from death, and, winning a hearing by his reverence, he learnt obedience, Son though he was, through his sufferings; when he had been perfected, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation and was acclaimed by God with the title of high priest of the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 5:1-10)
It is all condensed in this wonderful text the high vocation of a Priest. It´s to be and to live like Jesus, on the closest likeness possible. It´s not anything, it is not a mere job, it is giving your entire life to the calling, and learn in the same way Jesus had learnt, through suffering and consuming your own life and time with God things.
One of the big victories the Evil one has conquered nowadays is to transform this idea of holiness and supernatural calling in anything, comparing it to a profession or anything else. They would be so worried about earthly things that the things from heaven will occupy a second, third or last place, and sometimes it does occupy no place. It is really sad!
He even made it a reason for jokes because assuming the vocation of a Priest means taking the votes of poverty, obedience and chastity. But for those who understand such calling know how elevated it is... Recalling to mind: it is to be another Christ on the Earth!
It is a similar thing if you are called to be a Brother or a Sister (Nun) consecrated to God. It is a vital and important mission that need to be done with love, dedication and wholehearted. The Church is the mystical Body of Christ that is not only done by its superior or inferior members, all the parts of the body are essential for the perfect functionality and movements of the same.
"And indeed the body consists not of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, 'I am not a hand and so I do not belong to the body', it does not belong to the body any the less for that. Or if the ear were to say, 'I am not an eye, and so I do not belong to the body', that would not stop its belonging to the body. And indeed if the whole body were just an eye, how would there be any hearing? If the whole body were hearing, how would there be any smelling? As it is, God has put all the separate parts into the body as he chose. If they were all the same part, how could it be a body? As it is, the parts are many but the body is one. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' and nor can the head say to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' What is more, it is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones. It is the parts of the body which we consider least dignified that we surround with the greatest dignity; and our less presentable parts are given greater presentability which our presentable parts do not need. God has composed the body so that greater dignity is given to the parts which were without it, and so that there may not be disagreements inside the body but each part may be equally concerned for all the others. If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain. And if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. Now CHRIST´S BODY IS YOURSELVES, EACH OF YOU WITH A PART TO PLAY IN THE WHOLE." (1 Corinthians 12:14-27)
WE NEED PEOPLE WHO ARE IN LOVE WITH GOD! WE NEED PEOPLE WHO ARE IN LOVE WITH THEIR BRETHREN! WE NEED PEOPLE WHO ARE IN LOVE WITH THE CHURCH! WE NEED PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THEIR OWN SANCTITY AND HOLINESS AND OF THE OTHERS. WE NEED THESE KIND OF VOCATIONS! WE ARE URGENTLY IN NEED OF THESE SORT OF PEOPLE!
Because of this terrible secularization of the Church, the family, the love, even of God, people tend to think that when they see a couple even getting married within the Church, it is already a miracle, while this is only the first step. And the saddest thing is that many of the millions of couples that get married every year on the Holy Catholic Church stopped on that first step and never progressed on their spiritual life or their holiness.
In the same way of the care we need to have for the Church and God´s interests with his own things, we should have the same sight and care for the family, for it is the domestic Church, as Saint John Paul II would say. It is the extension of the House of God; it is the image of the Trinity: we have God the Father who loves; Jesus the Son, who is loved; and the Holy Spirit who is the love between them and that gathers them in the same love. That is why every human love is always based on the Holy Trinity: 2 people who each other and the love that gather them together.
Being family means responding to a wonderful and great calling from God. A man and a woman who come together to fulfill their calling. Such constitution established by God should be respected and maintained as He himself wanted to be. This revolutionary idea of new forms and ideas of family are all a disgrace and it does not please God.
"Then, Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And, while he was asleep, he took one of his ribs and closed the flesh up again forthwith. Yahweh God fashioned the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. And the man said: This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! She is to be called Woman, because she was taken from Man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, and they become one flesh". (Genesis 2:21-24)
He didn´t make man and man, or woman and woman, or men and animals or whatever else you could think of sorts of associations that make a couple or a family. A family is a man and a woman and final dot. Imagine if God has brought another man to the first man Adam, he could have said, 'What is this? I don´t want that! Get away from me!' God made his creation perfectly and when he created the man it was the master-piece touch to reign and govern over all the creation. God has made the man and gave him power to name and reign over all the creation.
Nowadays there is a sort of men, even inside the Catholic Church, influenced by the Evil one want to create their own universe, their own rules, their own way of family, putting God beneath them, they became their own gods; and that is why the world and the Church is the way it is. It is nearly like God is supposed to serve men now. It is diabolic and terrible!
Saint Paul is the one who explained that to the Romans and that is brought to our knowledge as well, in case we didn´t know yet.
"For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them: ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind´s understanding of created things. And so these people have no excuse: they knew God and yet they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and their uncomprehending minds were darkened. While they claimed to be wise, in fact they were growing so stupid that they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an imitation, for the image of a mortal human being, or of birds, or animals, or crawling things. That is why God abandoned them in their inmost cravings to filthy practices of dishonouring their own bodies- because they exchanged God´s truth for a lie and have worshipped and served the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 1:19-25)
THAT IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT I NEED TO SAY IN HERE BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE ARE OMITTING SUCH TRUTH FEARFUL OF WHAT PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SAY ABOUT THEM WHILE THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY MATTERS IS WHAT GOD IS THINKING WHEN HE LOOKS AT ME AND YOU.
Saint Peter taught that in a moment he was going through some persecutions:
"Obedience to God comes before obedience to men." (Acts 5:29)
As equal as that is the importance of the message of life that the espouses commit themselves to. When they come before the altar they accept and say yes to an important vow; that is to accept the sons and daughters that God decide to send in his goodness. In the same way God blessed Noah on the Old Testament, The Trinity bless the couple that comes forward to grow and multiply.
"God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Breed, multiply and fill the earth." (Genesis 9:1)
Saint John Paul II said in 1979 a very important thing in his homily that families should be giving ears to listen to. He said: 'It is undoubtedly less serious to deny to the sons some material advantages and commodities than to private them of the presence of brothers, that could help them to develop in humanity and to understand the beauty of life in all its ages and all its variety'.
The couple who is married in the Catholic Church is ordained to be opened to the life of God. This life is expressed in the body, the soul and in the spirit. One of the big demoniac influences that is really destructive and at the same time very subtle, is the option to choose the amount of children they will have.
The Evil one already contaminated the minds of young couples, already while they are dating, to be their own gods and choose if they want children, when they want that and the first and most important thing is their own pleasure. People think they are called to get married to have a life of sexual pleasures because the devil has sowed that idea in their minds. We should remember we are not called to be married for that but for making the will of God, responding to his calling, fulfilling our vocation!
From that love and calling, we are called to contribute to God´s creation, being co-creators with him, borrowing our bodies to generate a new human being. In that sense I would like to recall to those who have this vocation. Saint Pope Pius X said: 'If you want to do something great to God, get married and have a lot of children. And turn them into apostles!'
Let´s read a wonderful text from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to understand and learn what we were supposed to get married to. That goes from 1252 to 1254.
"By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."
Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning (he) made them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.
The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their children. In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to be at the service of life.
Spouses to whom God has not granted children can nevertheless have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian terms. Their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality, and of sacrifice.
BEING AT THE SERVICE OF LIFE MEANS BEING GENEROUSLY OPENED TO THE LIFE THAT GOD WANTS TO MANIFEST IN THE CONJUGAL LIFE, WHEN THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN IS CHOSEN BY GOD AND NOT BY THE SPOUSES.That means at the same time, being in defense of every life, because every life is a gift from God. In any case and in all cases, someone who call himself Catholic can never be favorable to abortion, that is killing a human being, destroying the life that God created and being another devil, working and doing the job of the Evil one that came to kill and destroy.
See and deepen your knowledge on that subject of abortion, reading my very own testimony (clicking in here).
In fact, we are called to do God´s will, independent of our calling and vocation. Holiness should be our guide! God´s laws should our measure. The Holy Spirit is the one that comes and goes with us, teaching, helping and pushing us forward, reminding us we have a Mother that intercede for us, a Guardian Angel, a really big army in heaven of saints and angels that are on our side...
And most of all, we are with Jesus, the Savior of ours Souls, the one who is capable to do anything for our sake. He gave up his life already, shed all the blood of his body to the point to shed water, for there was no blood left. There is nothing he cannot do for us. And there is nothing that can set us apart from him and his love.
Let´s ask the Lord to increase our love for him, to increase our love for the Church and our love for humanity, for human life, for the creation through the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who will keep us on the right track.
God bless us and inspire us to be holy and to respond to our real vocation!
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