No one is called to walk alone
Fr Dean Marin, Vicar General and Vocations Director
In reflecting on the Christian life in homilies over the years I’ve often said ‘no one is a Christian on their own’. It’s my way of naming how we are saved in Christ.
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from the Second Vatican Council puts it this way:
‘God...has, however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people.’ It then proceeds to speak of all the baptised as being ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…who in the times past were not a people but now are the People of God’.
We are saved precisely by being brought together as the Church, the People of God. Each of the baptised is part of the Church and is called to collaborate for the sake of being ‘the light of humanity’. Church is not just a nice added extra, but God’s way of saving us. Our faith is deeply personal in terms of a personal encounter and relationship with the Lord, but also essentially communal in terms of our unity as Church.
At this time of National Vocations Awareness Week throughout Australia, encompassing the first two weekends of August, it’s important to understand likewise that every vocation is deeply personal but also essentially communal. No one is called by God in isolation. We hear the voice of God speaking to us through human voices. The poverty of body and spirit of so many calls out to us. We see and experience God and His love through others and we are encouraged and supported to respond because of others. A vocation is nurtured within the context of the faith of a Christian family, parish community and indeed the universal Church and then precisely for service and mission within the Church community for the world.
Upcoming events
61st World Day of Prayer for Vocations – Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 24
National Vocations Awareness Week – Weekends August 3/4 to August 10/11
Vocations Prayer Vigil, Cathedral of St Francis Xavier – (to be announced)
Vocation video prepared for Australian Youth Festival (2015).