The notion of vocation as a calling to a way of life can feel a little bit cold and almost calculative. It sounds dutiful from the perspective of responsibility, meaning that if one has a calling, then there is a burden to be borne and that one should just get on with it. In a sense, to be a priest and/or a religious is to live a public vocation which at times can feel overwhelming and onerous. It is similar to celebrities who live constantly with the social media targeting their back.
Thus, the Gospel provides another way of thinking about vocation which is less an imposition, much less a burden. Instead, it springs from the Heart of Christ the Good Shepherd. To grasp the connexion between Christ and this special vocation of service to the Church, we should define what vocation is in general, before shining a light on the particular calling to priestly and/or religious life.
A little repetition might be helpful. Last week we touched on the forgetfulness of the Apostles in their post-Resurrection experiences. They had trouble recognising the Risen Saviour. Again, today’s Gospel highlights the theme of recognition. Some background information might provide context for understanding the imagery of the shepherd described by Jesus. In an agrarian setting, similar to that of the Semitic people, when different flocks of sheep are brought together, they are enclosed into the same sheepfold. There are basically two ways of sorting out which sheep belongs to whom. Firstly, a shepherd knows each individual sheep by heart that he probably has a name for each one of them. Secondly, on the part of the creature, each sheep recognises the voice of its shepherd.
The mutuality of affection between the shepherd and his flock that can help deepen our relationship with the Lord. Where vocation is concerned, duty does not inspire. Intimacy is the backdrop or framework for God’s invitation. We are called because we are known personally and individually by Christ the Lord. He knows our every move and grasps the very contour of our hearts and despite our failures and betrayals, He still entrusts His mission to each one of us.
The question is how well we know Him and not just know “of” Him. The famous quip of St Jerome’s comes to mind that the “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”. To know Him profoundly we need to travel the length, the breadth and the depth of Sacred Scriptures. But that is not the only way of growing to know the voice of the Shepherd because the Bible is never independent of His Church. We hear His voice through the teaching of His Church.
When lovers are attuned to each other, they become more sensitive to each other’s moods, feelings, desires so much that one can anticipate what the other needs. This is the intimacy that we are called to. When applied to discipleship, we can appreciate how John is called the disciple that Jesus loved. He ran all the way to the tomb but stayed outside because he acknowledged that Peter, the appointed leader, should be the first to go in and confirm for himself. John, the beloved disciple, is whom we are supposed to be—the one who knows, recognises and acknowledges the Lord and His ways because between them there exists a profound friendship.
Friendship is key to our relationship with Christ the Lord. To call Him, our friend may have an indulgent ring to it. It feels so because in a utilitarian setting, “friendship” is often conceived of as a valuable commodity because through “connexions” that doors are open. In general, people accept that to have more well-connected friends is an advantage because it is not what we know but whom we know that facilitates our ascent to power.
So, instead of benefits, think of friendship in terms of Jesus calling God, Abba. There is nothing indulgent in this relationship. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed aloud, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine”. Their intimacy gave Jesus the strength and the resolve to embrace the Father’s will.
To be a Christian is really a vocation of friendship with the Lord. A caveat or a caution is necessary to grasp the true meaning of friendship. When our relationship with God is defined in terms of obligation, then we must ask the quality of our friendship with Him. Where is the love in that? For example, Sunday is not merely a day of rest. It is also a day dedicated to our friendship with God. The “rest” enjoined upon the Christian is so that he or she may spend time with the Creator and Father. When this relationship is reduced to an obligation, then a “forced” or “imposed” rest in order to connect with God does not make sense. And not just that, Sunday is no longer a day of the Lord. It has long been colonised by our work-a-day world which makes the obligation or “imposition” even more odious [1].
Friendship with God is the basis of our vocation. Even though every Christian “is” an expression of friendship with God, still He invites some to a special relationship with Him. He calls some to the public service of the Church [2]. Priests are unique ambassadors of His mercy and love. The Word is accompanied by the life that all priests, in particular and religious, in general, embrace and live. “In persona Christi” means to stand in for Christ. Through this office, Jesus’ instruction to “Do this in memory of me” is central to why the priesthood is a must for the Church. This vocation may have lost its shine in the last couple of decades but it does not invalidate its necessity for the Kingdom, for life eternal as pledged by Christ Himself.
Jesus in affirming the promise of eternal life premised that possibility on consuming His Body and His Blood. How else can that promise be kept if we do not have the Eucharist? No matter how poor the quality of our priestly witnessing, still it does not take away the fundamental truth that the priesthood is the fulfilment of Christ’s promise to feed us for eternity. Without the priesthood, there is no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, there is no Church. Without the Church, how can Christ save us? This sounds like an assertion that limits God’s omnipotence. By the very fact that Jesus Christ was incarnate of the Blessed Virgin Mary, God has chosen a particular way to save us—through the Church who gives us the Eucharist. There is a crisis of vocation which we try to fix by “clericalising” the laity, that is, increasing “lay involvement” in the Church’s sacramental life. It does not address the central issue that God continues to call men, especially, to the service of the altar. Instead, it merely highlights that we have stopped responding.
Increasingly, the life of a priest (and/or religious) is alien in a world where God is banished to the margin. If at all He exists, His function is to serve, fulfil and make us happy. Despite man’s increasing possibilities of accomplishment, achievement and self-realisation, there is still an emptiness, a void, a thirst which cannot be ignored nor wished away. It is in this vacuum and in a world troubled by this agonising loss of meaning that the priests, by extension, the Religious and all who work for the Kingdom of God must live in a manner which affirms that our life here carries with it a meaning far beyond what is in this world.
If religious life is a sign of the Kingdom to come, then the priesthood is the assurance that we can reach that Kingdom. The vocation to the priestly and by extension Religious life is a blessing which God chooses to give to the Church for the salvation of the world. St John Vianney reminds us, “The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Christ”. When what we see around us is failure and decay, do not be surprised. Do not even despair but look beyond the priests, beyond the entire corpus of fallible priests to the gift or love that Christ has given to the Church. This great gift for our salvation—the priesthood—may inspire each one of us to embrace the duty and devotion to pray for all priests that they may have the Heart of Christ to love the world, to serve the Church and to worship the Lord.
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[1] Rituals express our relationship with God. An elaborate rite merely symbolises the rank of the person to whom it is directed. However, what we have done is to “do away” with them because they are inconvenient. In the interest of “accessibility”, we have transferred our major Solemnities to Sundays. Convenience merely masks the “fear” we have of expressing our relationship with God.
[2] The Sacrament of Marriage is also a call to public witnessing.
