Vocation as a call
To whom does the word “vocation” evoke almost exclusively a priest or a nun? In reality, the term vocation derives from the Latin verb “vocare,” meaning to call. Vocation, therefore, is a call, a voice from within calling you to be something. And if there is a call, there is not only someone who calls, but there must also be someone who responds.
Who is the one who calls? “Every specific vocation,” Benedict XVI tells us, “is born from God’s initiative; it is a gift of God’s Charity! He is the one to take the ‘first step.’”
The fundamental vocation
But when the Lord calls, what does He call us to? God, who created human beings out of love, has also called them to love, the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. God, in fact, is love, and He calls us to love. From this perspective, a person truly is, that is, fulfills themselves, only when they love. The vocation, therefore, of all people, and first and foremost of all the baptized, is to love: loved by God, we are all called to respond to His love, to be “like” Him.
There are two forms of life through which to fulfill God’s plan of love for each of us: priestly (or religious) consecration or the sacrament of Matrimony. Married life, therefore, is also a response to the one Christian vocation.
Matrimony is a response to a call
Through the sacrament of Matrimony, the spouses respond to a call that God has addressed to them. This call consists in loving as He loves.
However, the “yes” spoken by the spouses on their wedding day is confronted each day with the difficulty of loving one’s spouse in their frailties and weaknesses. This means that the call to Love can only be sustained by the grace of Christ. For the spouses, it requires a continual welcoming of this grace which, received daily, gradually enables them, with tenacious perseverance and humble patience, to learn to care for each other and to love as Jesus loves.
It is comforting to know that, despite the normal hardships and inevitable difficult moments, Christ's presence remains an indispensable support and an incomparable comfort. His voice, conveyed through the Word, never ceases to call, console, and encourage us to continue along the journey.
Marriage involves the spouses' entire lives
Accepting that Marriage is the response to a call means accepting that all of life is a response to a call, that is, viewing life as a gift, as a sequence of opportunities that do not arise by chance but fit within God's provident plan.
Marriage is therefore a choice that must involve the couple's entire lives. It is a renewed life in which they choose to do God's will by forming an indissoluble union with the person they love, who therefore comes before every other affection and every other earthly bond.
One might object that Christian marriage is an utopia, because it is certainly difficult to love and be loved by the same person throughout one's life. Yet Christ is at the heart of the sacrament of marriage: in him and with him, everything is possible. The living presence of Jesus Christ within the couple reaches even where human strength cannot. It is the Grace of Christ, through the sacrament of marriage and through the journey of faith that the spouses undertake together day after day, that is the true focus, the true rock on which Christian marriage is built.
Food for thought as a couple/in the family
Let us conclude this article with some questions that could provide useful food for thought:
- Let us discuss this as a couple and with our children, and ask ourselves whether, when we were young, we wondered what God's call was for us.
- Were we aware that getting married meant responding to a call from God?
- Have we come to the certainty that God's hand is present in our relationship, going before us and accompanying us?
