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Something I’ve realized through this Harrison Butker ordeal is a fundamental misunderstanding of Catholic lingo, even by Catholics.
In our world today, vocation and career are often used interchangeably and because they are it causes confusion.
Not that I think me explaining the difference will help those who 1. Have been conditioned to be offended and 2. Those who just want to be offended, but, for fun and learning purposes, let’s dive into the difference.
For the Catholic Church, vocations are a state of life. There are only three: the married life, the consecrated religious life, and the single life.
Within your vocation, you live out your career or trade. For example, my husband obviously is a military man (his career), but his vocation is the married life.
My oldest daughter is currently in the state of the single life and her job is a Focus Missionary. She doesn’t feel called to always remain in the single life, but that’s her current state and the Church calls her to live it out well.
Some priests throughout history have been scientists (a job) while living out the state of life as a religious.
There are no other vocations as understood by the Catholic Church. And usually, once you get into the vocation you are called to, you feel like your life starts. This is not to say that your life was meaningless or had no value before, it’s just that you feel most alive.
My daughter told me a story that a priest gave in a homily recently. He was telling a group of teens that when he was a teen he had a girlfriend that he cared a lot about and she was his best friend. His friends convinced him to break up with her so he could date a girl in an upper class and he did, but his life was all off and he could see the sadness in his ex-girlfriend’s eyes.
Once he became a priest, she came up to him, looked him in the eyes and sweetly said, “There you are.” Meaning, she now saw him fully alive in his vocation as priest.
We can live out a career within our vocation, Catholic Pilgrims, but what Harrison Butker was trying to emphasize is that no matter your career in the married life, family comes first and taking care of them will be the most rewarding.
Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Tuesday.
We all have something that we need to be healed of, whether it be spiritual wounds, emotional ones, physical, or even mental. Doesn't it feel, though, that we aren't necessarily getting better--more healed--as a people? One reason that people don't heal is because they want to cling to the pain. That sounds crazy, but it's true. For me, I didn't want to let go of my anger. The anger radiating from my emotional pain fueled me. It allowed me to be the hurt, injured victim that couldn't be blamed for how things were going in my life. I didn't want to let go of my anger, because if I let go of my anger, what would I have left? Well, I'd have to face myself and who I had allowed myself to become and I didn't want to do that. The anger allowed me to direct my focus on others and that took the heat off of me. If we want to truly be healed, we must let go of wanting to cling to our sad story in order to give us a pass for how our life is turning out. A second reason that people don't heal is because they try to fix themselves on their own. You will need Christ. I tried to heal myself, while still clinging to my red-hot anger, mind you, and that went absolutely nowhere. I even--out loud--told God, I was turning my back on HIm. Then I marched off to fix myself. That did not work. At all. Healing doesn't mean that you forget. Healing doesn't mean that you get to a place where you condone bad things that happened to you. Sometimes, we will not be physically healed as we desire. But, God can give us the grace to handle physical issues with dignity and not self-loathe to the point of wallowing in our misery. That misery will always turn to bitterness. A hard truth to accept is that, at some point, everybody's body will stop working for them. Healing does mean that we invite God into our lives to give us grace, that we brave facing the ways that we have poorly tried to cope, that we forgive any who need forgiving and let God deal out the justice, and that, instead of clinging to our pain, we had it over to God and refuse to let it have power over us anymore. Lent is a perfect time to seek healing, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Friday.
Continue ReadingBecause I live on an Air Force base, weekday evening Masses tend to have a lot of civilians present who don't normally come to Sunday Mass because they live off base. The evening Ash Wednesday Mass is always full of unfamiliar faces of people getting off work and coming over to Mass before going home. Sometimes people don't quite get off work in time and so they are a little late. Yesterday, after Mass, a few people had gotten there late and missed getting ashes. Standing in the back, I heard them shyly ask Father if they could get some and he smiled and said, "Oh, don't worry, it's not required." I think he thought they believed they had done something wrong. They smiled and replied back, "Would it still be okay to get some?" "Of course, come with me." There is something about Ash Wednesday that speaks to the human heart almost more than any other holy day. I think the answer to why is found in something I read yesterday. "To take the ashes is to confess kinship with this world of dust, to declare our readiness to abdicate pretensions to omnipotence. Standing before God in this way, I profess that I am not God. I admit the chasm that separates me from Him. I accept the uncomfortable otherness of God. He is what I am not, yet my being bears His mark. I crave a completion no created thing can give. I walk this earth as a yearning incarnate. I am at home, yet a stranger, homesick for a homeland I recall but have not seen." --Bishop Erik Varden Our ashes remind me of us our littleness and our bodily mortality and I think Ash Wednesday is that day, where as lost as we may be, we still want to return and be reminded that we belong to God. Have a blessed Thursday, Catholic Pilgrims.
Continue Reading"Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return." This life is a pilgrimage to our eternal destination whether you realize you are on it or not. The goal should always be to journey towards our true home--Heaven. I pray that you live the faith boldly this Lent and travel well. Have a blessed Ash Wednesday.
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