Love Life: Vocation Reflection

As you pray, dwell with the image of Jesus as the way. Jesus is not merely with us on the way; Jesus is the Way. Following him, we are led into truth, and toward greater life. Where does your life need more truth? How could you grow into larger life? Toward what new future is Jesus leading you in this chapter of your life?

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
(John 14:6-7)

The Gospel of John is book-ended by scenes of vocation or calling: In John 1, Jesus calls two of John the Baptist’s disciples to “Come and see”; in John 21, the Risen Christ invites Peter, saying “Follow me.” The key position and importance given to these scenes reveals how paramount the sense of being called and chosen was to the community who gathered together to remember and commemorate their experiences of Christ. “You have not chosen me,” Jesus tells his disciples, “but I have chosen you.”

Jesus has chosen each and every one of us. Everyone has a vocation. This vocation is not equivalent to our career or our business card, though for some people, their vocation might be related to their career path. Rather, our vocation is the unique life to which we are called as children of God. It encompasses our relationships, our talents, the whole of our identities.

The only constant in vocation is that it is other- oriented. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “love one another.” We can express this vocation to love in our work, in our relationships, or in our world. One way to step into this larger sense of vocation is to ask yourself: What do I love to do? What makes me feel passionately alive? Where do I respond deeply to the needs and desires of others? God does not shout and God does not force us in helping us grow into our vocations. Often, our desire and our joy can be a very good indication of where God might be leading us. Jesus is in that joy, beckoning us forward toward larger life, saying, “Follow me.”