Religious life is about falling in love with God in quite a unique and life giving way… Dare to dream… “You know, young people still fall in love.” Think about this… young people still fall in love… then what’s getting in the way for them to fall in love with God in a quite unique and special way … a way that has been part of life since time began… where all the great religious traditions and even indigenous religions have had people live life and have lived it to the full as a celibate religious man or woman… I am convinced that God is still drawing people into falling in love in this unique way… however, what I sense is that we are either not hearing that call or that something else is blocking that call.

Here lies the challenge and maybe the question.

I want to look at a couple of areas that might help in the area of understanding the vocational call in the life of young men and women today.

I would like to begin with a little of my own story. Then look at some of the issues facing us who are working in our secondary schools, universities and young adult ministry in parishes…

There is an old Hasidic saying that goes something like this… “Carefully observe what way your heart draws you, and then choose that way with all your strength.”

This saying is about both the heart and the head… it’s a ‘both’ ‘and’ statement… working on both levels… the heart… and the head…

But when we are younger it seems that only one function works at a time and we need help to bring both the heart and head together.

When I was young, or in my late teens, and I had just been told by the secondary school that I was attending that I neither had the capacity nor the capabilities of ever doing year 12… and I remember walking home from that meeting after seeing all my teachers, and as I kicked a can along the road, an incredible feeling came over me, a feeling that I believe, as I look back, was saying to me: “it will be alright. You’re OK!”

I think that was the first experience of being drawn into the God who loves me and walks with me… but at the time it was only a feeling, a feeling of comfort, and a feeling of hope. One could say that it was the initial stirrings of the heart.

As the Hasidic saying says: Carefully observe what way your heart draws you…”

All of us need to develop skills of attention to oneself… noting how one feels, thinks, reacts to external and internal feelings and stimuli.

After leaving school and joining the National Australia Bank, I still had this sense that God was asking of me something different than working in a bank, getting married and building a picket fence around my life, that there was something more…

This stirring led me into running a Christian Meditation group in my home… and so in running such a group I had to know all about meditation, all the ins and outs of it, and to do that I committed myself to meditating each day… just to know all about it, and to be able to say that I was the ‘expert’ in it… God works on crooked lines… however, as I went further into this mediation, I discovered something else, I began to fall in love…

Each of us needs a circle of close friends – trusted advisers – to walk with us enabling us to grow in self awareness… we see this with Jesus when he asks his mates, “who do you say I am…”

After some time of running this meditation group and still working and being promoted in the bank, I happened to ask my uncle, a Carmelite priest who ran a retreat house to come and give a talk about prayer and contemplation to our young group… which he did… and it was at this night that the stirrings within stirred enough to put me on a plane and to do a retreat in Western Australia…

I still remember the first night… and the question of “what are you looking for, what do want…” from John’s gospel awoke in me a longing to discover what is it I most want?

The first principals of Ignatian rules for prayer and discernment is the necessity of knowing what one desires.

What is the passion that captivates my heart?

What – for me – is the “pearl of great price” [matt 13: 45-46] for which I would sell everything?

It’s at tthis point that we need to make a choice!

As the saying which we started with this morning says: “then choose that way with all your strength:” not looking back… as scripture says: putting our hand to the plough and giving ourselves wholeheartedly to that which has captured our heart.

Discernment engages us in a process leading to a decision for life – for God.

In his own personal journal published under the title, Marking, UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, describes this process well:

“I don’t know Who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remembering answering. But at some moment I did answer YES to someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal. From that moment I have known what it means ‘not to look back’, and to ‘take no thought for the morrow’.”

Fr. Bill Barry, SJ – articulates some helpful assumptions and “rules of thumb” that I want to borrow by way of summary. First, he speaks of four basic assumptions about the discernment of vocation:

1) “God has a purpose in creation and is actively working out that purpose. God’s purpose or dream is to draw all of us into God’s our relational life, to draw us to live in friendship with God . . . with other human beings and with the whole created universe.”

2) “We can live in harmony with God’s purpose . . ., or out of harmony, or somewhere in between. The person discerning religious life needs to have a strong desire to live in tune with God’s purpose.”

3) This is not easy. We have divided hearts . . . and we need to be aware of and honest about this ambivalence.

4) “Discernment requires attention to [one’s] inner states, to the movements of one’s heart and mind.”

Bill Barry’s “rules of thumb” are two:

1) “First, examine your ordinary life.” What is the general orientation of my life? Am I drawn to the mystery at the heart of life – which is God? Am I moved with compassion toward people in need? Am I cognizant of the unity at the heart of life and do I strive to cross boundaries to live out of that belief?

2) Bill’s second rule of thumb is this: “Be aware of God’s consolation.” This is Ignatian language that brings us back to our starting point in the saying of the Hasidic master. Listen to what gives you joy; pay attention to what delights your heart at it deepest level and then choose that with all your might. Or, as the Rabbi said:

“Carefully observe what way your heart draws you, and then choose that way with all your strength.”

This is a sure path for discernment of God’s desires for us. And as another wise Rabbi once said, “All the rest is commentary.”

Vocations Today:

Of course vocation in this deepest sense applies to all Christians in every manner of life.

Christian life itself is a vocation which is strongly tied to the sacrament of baptism.

While the theology of vocation remains the same as that for all baptized, that the mission of God is for the baptised… the role of religious and priest has its own specific and essential distinctions as a ministry of leadership within the church, a role we cannot afford to be embarrassed about.

Let’s think for a moment…. Has there ever been a time in our collective memory when the need for the vocation of the priest in the church has been more urgent? The action of the Eucharist—the most distinctive role of the priesthood—reveals the priest’s essential work: to draw a diverse and sometimes fractious community into the unity of prayer and faith, to preach the gospel with power and clarity, to live an exemplary gospel life that inspires the people of God, to work with skill and sensitivity with lay co-workers in building up the community, to be a source of unity and not division, to publicly represent the mission and purpose of the church with integrity. These are some of the functions of the priesthood and they are desperately needed for the church to be healthy and alive in our time.

Or has there been a time in our memory when the need for religious life was more urgent?

In a world filled with violence and with increasing chasms of hostility between cultures and races and ideologies, to demonstrate that it is possible for people to live together in harmony and love—that human and Christian community is possible through God’s grace? To witness in a public way for a whole generation that thirsts for authentic spirituality that a life of holiness is indeed possible in our time? To be willing to take up the missions that so often governments and private agencies are tempted to abandon: working with victims of Aids, feeding the hungry, throwing one’s lot with the homeless and abandoned, demonstrating for peace? To represent in the life of the church that charismatic dimension of God’s spirit that must not be suppressed? These are some of the reasons the church desperately needs vocations to religious life and priesthood…

Finally, none of this attention to Religious life or the priesthood dominates in the least the flowering of the lay vocation in the church today – something that is a blessing of God in our time.

As John Paul II noted shortly before his death, the more the laity become involved in the life of the church, the more we will need good priests and religious. The more abundant the life of the church, the more the need for pastoral leadership and the witness of holiness.

This brings us to the students we are working with…

Like myself who searched for spirituality outside the church at the time, who looked and wanted to be depth in something more than institutional religion, young people, today are on that same search… as I said, young people still fall in love… however, where the difference is today, is that in the past I still belonged to a parish community, no matter how dry that may have been… it connected me to the universal, to a living faith community, and the ancient spirituality of the mystics/saints/and ordinary people who have gone before us.

One of our important tasks, I believe today, is to overcome the unfortunate split between spirituality and religion, which contributes to the private spirituality in our culture.

While “spirituality” is generally a positive word, institutional religion carries negative connotations of rigid authoritarianism and stifling hierarchical power.

As people journeying with our young adults, our senior students, we have to demonstrate by our love that the doctrines, creeds, rituals and laws of Christian religion have an inherent power to make us wiser, more fulfilled and more loving persons.

Christianity, from my own life’s perspective, provides a solid foundation for the spiritual quest and powerful motivation for pursuing it whole-heartily.

Our task is to root our kids in a solid foundation that is both theological and spiritual. One of the biggest problems with in our culture, from about my age down, is what I call religious illiteracy… which is clearly affecting that group of young people, whom we call the millenials.

We must help students overcome religious illiteracy and gain a more mature understanding of their faith. Karl Rahner put it another way, the more scientific theology is, the more spiritually relevant it will be.

Finally, to connect everything I’ve been trying to say is this: a better way to think about our lives and God’s desire or “plan” for us is to imagine the context of our lives as a great playing field.

God intends that each of us reach the final goal line, but God does not plot out the specific path we must follow.

God desires that we embrace a way of life that is responsive to grace, namely, to that divine attraction that inspires us to choose the good, to live our lives in love, and to do the just thing in faithfulness to God.

If God has a plan for us it is that we grow into the fullness of life that God intends, that we be happy and at peace with ourselves and with the world around us. The biblical name for this kind of life is Shalom—well-being, contentment, human flourishing, peace. For all of creation God desires Shalom. That is, indeed, “God’s plan” for us.

But God also has left us free to choose the particular way to God, or –if we choose– even to reject God’s desires for us altogether. Yet God is continually present in our lives as the One who beckons us to be our full selves in response to divine grace.

Young people still fall in Love…

So, “Carefully observe what way your heart draws you, and then choose that way with all your strength.”

1. Initial Stirrings: Matt 7:28-29 Crowd astonished

Luke 13:10-17 Bent Woman

1 Kings 19:9-13 Elijah in the cave

-“There had to be a beginning...” - there was a moment we can name

-either gradual or dramatic; with persons, in nature, within oneself – some experience that draws us to God

-Elijah knew the LORD not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the “still small voice/whisper.”

-Jesus’ teaching or action “made a deep impression on them.”

2. Gradual Development: John 9 Blind Man/ John 4 Samaritan Woman

(same pattern)

•Progression of awareness •Progression of awareness

-vs.11- “the man called Jesus” vs.9 - “a Jew”

-vs.17 - “he is a prophet” vs.11, 15 - “Sir”

-vs.33 - “if this man were not from God” vs.19 - “a prophet”

-vs.35-38 - “Do you believe in Son Man?” vs.29 - “the Christ”

Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him.” vs.42 - “Savior of the world”

--If one is OPEN to the work of grace . . .the call deepens and matures.

3. Moments of Clarity and Letting Go:

Matt 9:9 Call of Matthew at the Tax Table

John 4:28 She left her water jar

Mark 1:16-17 And they left their nets and followed

-freeze frame scene which presupposes: a past, present, future

-the call of DISCIPLESHIP: following after and being taught in the ways of God

4. “Touchstone” Experiences: Deut 1: 30-33; 4:9-12

Mark 1: 9-11 Baptism

Mark 9: 2-8 Transfiguration

-these become the “litmus test” by which to know the authentic voice of God in our lives.

5. Resistances: Exod 3:9 -4:17 Moses’ call

Jer 1:6 Jeremiah’s call

Isa 6:5 Isaiah’s call

Luke 9:59-62 “Let me first go and bury my father.”

-Exod. = Moses’ resistance -- FIVE objections Moses’ raises:

> Ex 3:11 - “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah?”

> Ex 3:13 - “I need to know your name . .” . . .but no guarantees

> Ex 4:1 - “They will not believe me . . .”

> Ex 4:10 - “Oh my Lord I’m not eloquent; I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Aaron will speak for you . . .

> Ex 4:13 - “Oh, my Lord, send, I pray, some other person.”

6. Call Deepens and Changes: Matt 15:21-28 Canaanite Woman

-The call may be quickened and changed in confrontation with ideas or persons who are different from ourselves.

-The Canaanite woman stretches Jesus’ own understanding of his call in her challenge to him. The compassion of God breaks through the “boundaries” set up by the pious.

The Jewish perspective of “Only to the Lost Sheep of the house of Israel” is radically changed.

7. Strengthened through Pain

and Suffering: Isa 52:13–53:12 4th Servant Song

Jer 20:7-9 The pain and the fire

2 Cor 12:7-9 Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh

-The quality and texture of our knowledge of God is seared, purified through these times of pain and suffering.