1. “Life is vocation”
Dear friends, readers of the Salesian Bulletin,
I am pleased to be able to greet you in this New Year of 2011, which I hope will be for you peaceful and full of the blessings which the Father wanted to give us in the incarnation of his Son.
One of the most important and beautiful blessings on our lives can be found in the magnificent hymn in the Letter to the Ephesians, which speaks of God’s plan of salvation. There we read: “Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless and to live through love in his presence determining that we should become his adopted sons …” (1:4-5). In his Letter to the Romans Saint Paul expresses the same thought: “They are the ones he chose specially long ago and intended to become true images of his Son …” (8:29).
Here then the great and most important blessing: In the plan of salvation God has already made, we are called, indeed we have been created by Him in order to reproduce the image of his Son through the only thing which can make us like Him: love.
The two texts quoted above make us think about what makes human life significant, in other words the discovery of the meaning of human existence the dream to be fulfilled, the mission to be undertaken in this world, in a word the vocation which fills our life with meaning, joy and vigour making it fruitful.
If in the previous year through the monthly articles I said something about “my Jesus,” this time I want to speak to you about life as vocation, also because between evangelisation and vocation, according to what the four evangelists say there is a very close connection. Jesus evangelises, gathers together and sends out.
Nevertheless, after this article which serves as an introduction, in the following months I won’t speak about vocation according to its anthropological, theological or pedagogical dimension, but by telling you about some real experiences of people who both as human beings and as Christians have lived to the full precisely because they discovered and followed their vocation.
Life as vocation and the vocation of life
The first step which I am proposing is “a return to Don Bosco”! I believe that it is important to know his experience in order to discover his criteria and attitudes which were the features of his activity and so can throw light on our commitment to vocations.
Don Bosco lived, in a climate which was hardly encouraging and opposed to the fostering of ecclesiastical vocations. There was a growing opposition to the Church as is happening today. Freedom of worship and the active Protestant propaganda had disturbed the ordinary simple people, projecting a negative image of the Church, of the Pope, bishops and priests. This had created among the people, and especially among the young, an atmosphere filled with liberal and anti-clerical ideas.
Don Bosco did not become discouraged! He tried to find the signs of a possible vocation in the boys he met; he tested them among their companions and accompanied them in a process of development. He made himself, in other words, a co-worker with the gift and the grace of God.
He had very precise aims.
He set out to create an atmosphere then in which the suggestion of a vocation could be welcomed positively and brought to maturity. He cultivated a real vocation culture characterised by a presence among the boys of a joyful witness; a family atmosphere which encouraged an opening of hearts.
To nourish this culture Don Bosco provided a strong spiritual experience, sustained by a simple but constant form of sacramental and Marian piety, and by an apostolate among their companions, carried out with enthusiasm and readiness.
A second element on which Don Bosco concentrated was spiritual accompaniment. He acted according to the different the needs of the young people or the adults, aspirants to the ecclesiastical life, to religious life or simply to the life of a good Christian and upright citizen. A spiritual director attentive and prudent, sustained by a deep love for the Church.
This is what Don Bosco teaches us! Let us live our vocation with joy and enthusiasm and propose to the young and to adults, men and women the Salesian vocation as the appropriate response to the world of today and as a life plan capable of making a positive contribution to the renewal of present society.
Creating and fostering a vocation culture
We have seen how Don Bosco tried to create around him a setting, or better, a culture of vocation.
A “culture” requires a shared way of thinking and of attitudes by a community which lives, bears witness to, and proposes in unison Christian values. It cannot be expected from the isolated activity of someone who is acting in the name of the others; a vocation culture requires the systematic and thoughtful commitment of the efforts of a community.
A vocational culture, operates in three areas: the anthropological, the educational and the pastoral.
The first helps to understand the way in which being a human person is seen and presented intrinsically as vocation; the second aims at fostering an appreciation of values conducive to vocation; the third pays attention to the relationship between vocation and the underlying culture and draws conclusions from this for vocation work
Every action or thought is based on a particular view of mankind, one that is either spontaneous or the result of reflection, and influences what we say and do. The same applies in the educational and pastoral fields.
For the Christian this view of mankind evolves through his experience and understanding in the light of faith and in keeping Christ as the model.
Christian revelation therefore is not superimposed on human experience but reveals its more profound and definitive significance. From this point of view vocation is not an extra, given only to some, but a view of human life seen as a “call.”
A first task then of a vocational culture is that of drawing up and promoting a view of human life seen as “a call and a response.”
Since the human being is part of a network of relationships, a vocational culture needs to lead a young person away from a subjective view of life which makes the individual the centre and the only criterion for self-assessment, which sees personal fulfilment in defending and seeking his own interests, rather than in openness and self-giving. Life is openness towards others lived in daily relationships and openness to transcendence which shows the human being as a mystery which only God can explain and only Christ satisfy.
The unique nature of existence demands that it is focused on important values which are realised in the choices which are made. As they grow and develop young people gradually place their success on a plan of life and on the quality of life. They need to decide on the direction of their lives in the long-term, having various alternatives before them. They cannot live their lives twice over, they have to take the plunge. In the values they choose and the choices they make at stake are their success or failure in their plan, the quality and the salvation of their lives.
Jesus puts it very clearly: “Whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to forfeit his life?” (Mk 8,35-36). The task of a vocational culture is to encourage people to want to listen to such questions, to enable them to reflect deeply on them. The role of a vocational culture is also to help people to grow and to make the right choices regarding the Bonum, the Verum, and the Pulchrum, since it is in responding to and appreciating these that a person’s full development consists.
Discovering and accepting life as a gift and a task is a further role of the vocation culture.
Vocation is the name a person gives to his life when perceived as a gift and a call, conducted with responsibility and freely planned. Reading the Scriptures one discovers that the gift of life has within it a plan; this is gradually revealed as he reflects on it in the light of his own experience, of history, of God, and it requires a personal response.
