Fourth Sunday of Easter
Vocations Sunday
Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world
on fire.
This you may remember was the opening few lines of the sermon from the royal wedding a few weeks ago. It comes as you may remember from the sayings of Catherine of Senia. For me it sums up what the theme of this Sunday is all about and that is vocations. Our journey is one of discovering what God has meant us to be. It is a discovery of learning and entering into the mystery of God’s love for self and answering that call, however hard it may be to follow him the Good Shepherd. To do this is a hard journey with many different twists and turns.
I have often said, with a twinkle in my eye that I don’t believe that I have a vocation to priesthood. Now before you run to the Bishop let me again quote to you the phrase I just said “ Be who God meant you to be” and again from the Gospel “ I have come that you may have life and have it to the Full.” This means that God has chosen me to be a priest even and sometimes hand on heart I have tried to run away from that call. Ultimately I found out that God works with the Mess that we sometimes make of our lives and produce along the way the doubts and the low self esteem the issues of hiding from God and running as far as I could. But because God has meant me to be a priest (God knows why) and because I love God and his Church then this is what I must do.
But, how do we know we have a vocation how do I discern what I am meant to do. Newman writes that we all have a definite purpose we may not know it but we have from God. We need to pray and respond with a generous heart listening to his gentle call into being with him and doing his will.
Through all my ups and downs in ministry and there has been many I one thing that I have realised is that I must constantly listen to God’s will and respond to it: Even if that makes us unpopular with society when we speak the truth. Through prayer and constant listening we can answer that call for ourselves. God is calling each of us. Some here may be struggling with that Call some may and please God they do the call to ministry in Priesthood.
I am very happy in my ministry and I can’t believe that God has chosen and so have found what God wants me to do. I pray that others may respond generously to that call to serve in his Church and our job is to encourage our young into making that decision. Don’t be like a parent I came across a few years ago. I had noticed that he had come to Church sometimes by himself and had become an altar server. So after Mass I approached him and his Mother and said “Have you ever thought about becoming a priest” at which his Mother replied “Over my Dead Body.” I finish with the quote I started with:
Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world
on fire.
Our job as a parish as parents and as a Church is to encourage that fire within to pray that people may find this life and have it to the full, and not to help like the Mother in this story to put it out before they have had time to show us their full potential.
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