Made to Love

+JMJ+

Lent 2009: Day 6

"Brothers, I beg you through the mercy of God to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God's will, what is good, pleasing and perfect."

~ Romans 12: 1-2

Perhaps one way to approach discernment is by allowing God to reveal to you how you were best created to love. Today as I read this passage from St. Paul, which is the reading for Vespers, I couldn't help but think of my own desire to offer my body entirely to God as a true living sacrifice. Yes, I am not perfect, but all God desires is my choice...my choosing Him. He can work with that, even in my imperfection.

This weekend at the Bread of Life Retreat, Bobby Kruger, a Chicago Seminarian, gave a witness talk about his vocation/discernment. At the end he talked a little about how he has discovered what spiritual fatherhood means...and that he knows the way he was created to love would be limited in the married vocation. Yes, marriage is beautiful, as is family life...but for some, God creates them to love in such a way that they would be limited in married life. Their love is so big, so all encompassing that it desires to reach out and draw all people into relationship with God...to be true "fishers of men."

Bobby's witness was so clear to me. As I continue this adventure, this constant challenge of saying Fiat every day, I learn more and more about how I was created to love. Yes, I do not deny that I am attracted to men or that family life is a beautiful thing and that I could see myself with many children...but I know that I could never be complete in that. There is something deep inside of me that cannot love in an exclusive way. I grow to understand daily that in giving myself fully to God, in becoming completely His, in focusing myself entirely on Him...I will be free to love as God is inviting me to love...as I set myself upon God, my life will be concerned "with the things of the Lord."

This, I beleive, is the renewal of the mind that St. Paul speaks of: allowing the scales to fall away so that we can see clearly for what we were created. No matter what one is being called to, God is calling us to constant conversion, constant renewal. Conforming to culture does not create saints. St. Paul says that if we say fiat to the renewal of our minds then we will truly be able to discern, to judge what is God's will: that which is good, pleasing and perfect.

Good

Pleasing

Perfect

That, in a nutshell, is what your vocation is in the eyes of God. Each of us have a unique journey, but all of us are called to a particular state in life. It is so easy to get caught up in the drama of 'pleasing God,' of discovering that perfect thing that in the Divine economy of salvation might save the most souls...ah, but what a trap!! We cannot witness fully if we are not complete in Christ. I am not in any way detracting from anyone's Christian witness, but I am affirming that if we sincerely desire to witness the way that we have been uniquely created to do so...we must commit ourselves to constant renewal, so that we can honestly discern God's holy will for our lives.

What is vocation, then? It is all about how God created you to love. It is truly that simple. Only we make it complicated. Pray for courage, commit to that renewal...and you will begin to see clearly what is good, pleasing...and perfect.