Chapter TwoGod’s Plan for Your Life

“Finding a calling” is different from “finding a profession”

A profession is associated with a career

Career:

• A chosen occupation that is more likely to express one’s talents than a job

• While one might have several jobs, people tend to change careers less frequently

Finding a Calling

While thinking about future professions, it is also important to choose a course of life based on vocation

The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, which means “to call”

The primary Christian vocation is to love and serve God by loving and serving other people

Finding a Calling

Laity

• All of the baptized faithful except those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders

• Seek the kingdom of God by engaging in daily, worldly tasks and directing them towards God’s will

Finding a Calling

Married people

Finding a Calling

Share a love for each other and raise a Christian family

Priests Dedicated to the service of the Church

Bishops Entrusted to teach, sanctify, and govern the Church in the name

of Christ

Religious sisters and brothers

Engage in missionary work dedicated to community

Created in God’s Image

A person’s vocation is much different from having a job or choosing a career. The risks

are greater but so are the rewards.

Journeying to Perfection

Besides choosing a college and an academic major, you will face other decisions involving a particular Christian vocation

Will you enter the ordained priesthood?

Will you be married?

Will you be a religious sister or brother?

?

??

Journeying to Perfection The universe, including each person, is “in a state of journeying” toward an ultimate perfection

Divine Providence: the ways in which God guides his creation towards perfection

• Jesus tells us to put our trust in divine providence, the will of God

• Trusting in God means we depend on him for every detail of our lives

Journeying to Perfection

The more we seek God’s plan for us, the more we advance toward perfection

When we resist God’s plan for our desires we go backward.

• We are given free will, the choice to shape our own lives and direct ourselves to the goodness that God intends.

• Because this choice is free there is a possibility of going astray and committing evil acts

Discernment through Prayer Constant and consistent prayer helps us determine

what God intends for us.

Types of Prayer

Meditation

Contemplative

Vocal

Discernment: name for a process of prayer that incorporates many types of prayer

• Helps us determine what God intends for us

• Calls us to look at many sides of decisions considering all of the different alternatives

• Involves praying over a decision and asking for guidance from the Holy Spirit, then making a decision and evaluating it

Discernment through Prayer

A first step for discernment is finding a time and place to center prayer

Discernment through Prayer

This is done with the purpose of finding God within the depths of yourself

As a child you may have been taught that prayer is “talking to God”

However, prayer is a dialogue with God in which the most important part is listening to what God has to say to you

Other sources of prayer:

Sacred Scripture

Liturgy of the Church

Practice of Virtues

1. 2.

3.

Discernment through Prayer

Steps of Discernment:

Discernment through Prayer

Step One: Find a quiet place to pray. Relax and find a comfortable position. Close your eyes and become aware of God’s presence.

Step Two: Select a special word that makes you think of God and recite this word over and over in order to keep distractions away.

Step Three: Thank the Lord for his presence, tell Jesus of your love for Him and ask the Holy Spirit to remain with you always. Then slowly recite an Our Father.

Planning for a Vocation

A discernment process is not intended to predict what may end up being your ultimate vocation, only to begin the journey to a particular vocation while allowing God to direct and guide you.

Prayer is the most essential element of this process

Three steps of planning:

Dream and imagine

Gather information

Pray over the options

Discernment is really a prayerful pondering or deliberation of the many options available to you in life.

Planning for a Vocation

The more you pray and think about the many options in life, the more likely a sense of direction will emerge

Exploring Christian Vocations

Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist are intended for our personal holiness and salvation

They provide us with the graces we need to live a life in Christ and evangelize the world with our words and

actions

Holy Orders and Matrimony are directed to the holiness and salvation of others

These sacraments are also called Sacraments at the Service of Communion

Exploring Christian Vocations

Committed Single Life

• Single people can have a dedicated devotion to their career

• They have a greater opportunity for silence and solitude leading to a deep prayer life

• Single persons are free to love all and have deep friendships with many men and women

• Loneliness is a large challenge faced by single people

• Living a chaste life is also difficult in this day and age

Exploring Christian Vocations

Exploring Christian Vocations Consecrated Life

• Those who have made a commitment to follow Christ and give themselves to God above all other things

• Teaching and the operation of Catholic education has been one of the primary ministries of religious

• Many are involved in various types of service to the Church

• The most common characteristic is belonging to a community

• Contemplative religious spend their days in solitude and silence, praying, studying, and doing penance (eremitic life)

• Active religious are out in the world participating in active ministries

Exploring Christian Vocations Other types of Consecrated Life

Consecrated Virgins • Women who live a life of perpetual virginity but remain lay women and support themselves

• Support clergy through prayer and sacrifice

Secular Institutes • Forms of consecrated life for single lay people and diocesan priests

• Profess evangelical counsels but do not take public vows or live in communities

Exploring Christian Vocations Other types of Consecrated Life

Societies of Apostolic Life • Members do not take public vows

but engage in many good works for the church

• Example: Knights of Columbus

Exploring Christian Vocations Marriage

• Modeled after Christ’s union with the Church

• Man and woman work in their marriage to duplicate for each other the committed and eternal love that God has shown to them

Priesthood

• Holy Orders confers a sacred power on the priest for the service of the faithful

• Conferred only on baptized men following the example of Jesus

Vocabulary

Career

Laity

Divine providence

Free will

Centering prayer

Seminarians

Evangelical counsels

Eremitic life

Vocation director

Messianic secret

Religious novices

Sacraments at the Service of Communion