The response to one's personal vocation



The sadness of this young man," Pope John Paul II commented, "leads us to reflect. We may be tempted to think that possessing many things, many goods of this world, can make us happy. Instead, we see in the case of the young man in the Gospel that the many riches became an obstacle to accepting Jesus' call to follow him: he was not ready to say yes to Jesus and not to himself, to say yes to love and not to flight! True love is demanding (...). For it was Jesus - our own Jesus - who said: You are my friends if you do what I command you (Jn 15:14). Love demands effort and personal commitment to fulfill God's will. It means sacrifice and discipline, but it also means joy and human fulfillment (...). With Christ's help and through prayer, you will be able to respond to his call.... Open your hearts to this Christ of the Gospel, to his love, to his truth, to his joy. Do not go away sad!".


The Lord's call to follow him closely demands an attitude of continuous response, because he, in his various appeals, asks for a docile and generous correspondence throughout life. This is why we must often place ourselves before the Lord - face to face with him, without anonymity - and ask him, like this young man: What am I lacking, what demands does my vocation as a Christian have today, in these circumstances, what paths do you want me to follow? Let us be sincere: whoever has a true desire to know, comes to know clearly the ways of God. "The Christian thus discovers, in the midst of his ordinary life, how his vocation must unfold through a daily weaving of calls and divine suggestions (...), of significant moments, of concrete "vocations", to carry out, out of love for his Lord, small or great tasks in the world of mankind. It is in the midst of this dialogue with the Lord that a man can listen to that divine voice that asks him to make definitive, radical decisions (...). The word of God can come with a hurricane or with a breeze (1 Kings 19:22) "6. But to follow it we must be detached from every bondage: Christ alone matters. Everything else, in him and through him.


Meditación diaria