Abbey-Roads2

Evangelization

The Holy Father recently stated that evangelization is the duty of every Catholic, echoing Pope John Paul II’s commission for the Church in this “New Springtime”.  Of course, this is not a new obligation since every Catholic receives this mission at Baptism, and throughout history the saints have been examples of evangelization for us.  When the Holy Father says it is our duty, it sounds like another obligation to fulfill.  (Catholics have a lot of obligations.)  Perhaps it would sound better to me if he said, “It is every Catholic’s vocation to evangelize.”  In other words - that is what the Gospel calls us to do.  (I’m not presuming here to tell the Holy Father what to say.)

Although today, we often think of vocation in the same sense we regard careers.  Sometimes people look at a vocation to priesthood, religious life, or ministry as a career or lifestyle choice.  This attitude misses the point however.  I’m convinced one reason vocations were lost, or experienced a drought in decades past, is due - in part - to this misunderstanding.  In our affluent society, with so many choices and options available to us, one can choose a career, while along the way, one often changes one’s career path.  Vocation, God’s call, doesn’t change - as the rich young man in the Gospel, we can say yes, or we can say no.  Vocation is not a career choice, it is a response to God’s call.

The vocation to holiness.

As I said, the example of the saints through out the ages demonstrates both the meaning of vocation and evangelization in rather remarkable ways.  Many founders of religious orders were already pious and devout before they even thought of religious life.  They usually were not street preachers or pamphleteer evangelists, they weren’t writing books about their conversion - they were just ordinary, virtuous Catholics, practicing their faith.

Many were moved by charity and compassion to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, etc..  Some recognised they needed to live amongst the poor to do this more effectively.  Eventually others joined them, and oftentimes, a community was formed and organized into a religious congregation.  So essentially, these men and women were not looking for a career, or the nicest religious order, they were responding to God’s mandate to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bury the dead, cure the sick, cleanse the lepers, and so on.

The witness of the works of mercy.

When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to evangelize, these men were told to announce ‘the Kingdom of heaven is at hand’.  Catholics do that by the witness of their lives, their devotion to God, the Church, and the sacraments; by their mere presence in the workplace, in school, wherever they happen to be - just as the saints have done over the centuries.  In ancient Rome the Christians were noted, not by what they wore and what they said, but how they acted, how they lived, and the joy they radiated, which made the faith attractive.

In today’s Gospel, Christ also instructs the disciples to “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.”  How often do we see this occurring today in modern evangelization?  Just yesterday I was anointed, and instead of feeling better, I felt worse.  Was something lacking in the sacrament, or in the priest who administered it?  Certainly not.  Despite the fact I was not visibly cured, Father was nevertheless fulfilling his mission - his vocation to “cure the sick”.

The burden is light.

We know that many of the great saints cured the sick, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, etc., yet so did all of the religious of nursing orders throughout the centuries.  Likewise, through their particular apostolates, various congregations of religious consistently exercised themselves in the practice of the beatitudes while quietly fulfilling the duties Jesus imposed upon the disciples’s in today’s Gospel - especially through the evangelical counsels.  Just so, laity have fulfilled this mission as well - think of the many lay saints JPII beatified and canonized.  Why did he do this?  To give us concrete, imitable examples of what evangelization means for laity and religious alike in our times. 

Jesus says to us, “Come to me, take my yoke upon you, for I am meek and humble of heart, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Pope Benedict set the tone for his pontificate through his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, teaching us that it is love upon which the foundation of evangelization rests.  It was the love of Christ, preferred to everything else, that compelled the saints in the work of evangelization.  I think it is probable that many of the saints did not set off to exercise the beatitudes, rather charity compelled them to express their devotion to Christ through these works.

Discernment and vocation.

Which brings me back to the vocation thing.  So many young people exhaust themselves in their search for the right religious order, or seminary - often traveling the country and visiting every house they can.  (I know what it is like - that ‘been there done that’ thing.)   I now call it the “Goldilocks syndrome” - ‘this order is too big’, ‘this order is too difficult’, ‘this seminary is too liberal’,  ‘I want Eucharistic adoration’, and so on.  I’m not discounting the discernment process or the need to assess one’s suitability for a particular group, but I think people can get stuck in a sort of hamster wheel about the whole process.

I don’t believe vocation can be reduced to a career choice, or simply a lifestyle choice in the conventional sense of the word.  Fundamentally, it is a realization, or actualization of the grace we received at baptism, expressed in and through our response to the call to evangelization.  My sense is, that on the deepest level, the discernment process ought to be less focused upon the religious institution or structure, and more focused upon the attraction of one’s heart.  For example, a young man may be attracted to the celebration of Mass or the sacraments, which may indicate a call to the priesthood.

A response of love.

Just so, a man or woman may feel the desire to care for the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, or instruct the ignorant, and if they feel attracted to religious life, it is probably a good indicator of what order to look for.    Having said that, I think vocation is something realized within ourselves, like falling in love, it happens.  We know ourselves to be called to holiness, no matter what our state in life, and the duty of evangelization flows from that, in many diverse expressions.  I’m convinced it is in and through this living out our essential vocation that the call to consecrate one’s life more deeply emerges.

I think vocation is above all a response to God’s call, (normally) discerned in the ordinary circumstances of one’s life, expressed in the direction a soul feels attracted in the practice of one’s faith, exercised in charity.  Just as the married couple realize the vocation of matrimony, so the soul desiring a deeper consecration of self, realizes a vocation to the religious or priestly life.  It is not simply a lifestyle or career choice.