Question: As students, there is a great pressure
put on us about education and careers. It is easy for us as students to
separate school from relationships. I am looking for answers about the
"real world", after graduation. More specifically, in married life,
what is the order of vocations? i.e. God, spouse, jobs, children, etc.
I would also appreciate it if you could
recommend any further readings, insight, or reasoning to better learn about
prioritization.
Answer (by Kristine Cranley): In order to
answer the question ‘how are we to act’ regarding the various obligations of
our life, we must first ask the question of ‘what are we created for’. If we know the end goal of our lives, we have
a better sense of how to order our actions toward that goal. Thus in his exhortation which addresses
family life, (Familiaris
Consortio) John Paul II begins by defining the human person. In paragraph 11 he writes:
“God
created man in His own image and likeness: calling him to existence through
love, He called him at the same time for love
God
is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and
continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman
the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility of love and
communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human
being”
In other words, the human person is created in order to
share in the divine communion of love through Jesus Christ. We are created by love for love. Through the total self gift of Christ on the
Cross we receive the grace to become sons and daughters of God in baptism, and
thus sharers in divine life. However in order
to fully participate in this divine communion of love, we must respond to His
grace by giving ourselves back to God in total self abandonment to Him. The more we surrender ourselves to Him, the
more we are purified of selfishness and become vessels of His love to the
world. It is for this reason that John Paul II so often quoted the famous
passage in Gaudium et Spes 24 “man, who
is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find
himself except through a sincere gift of himself”.
Thus our first
priority in ordering our lives as Christians is always to give ourselves over
to God and to obey His leading in all things.
It is for this reason that whenever anyone would attended a silent
retreat with St. Ignatius in search of God’s will for their life, the saint
tailored all their prayer meditations to lead up to the praying of the Suscipe prayer at the end of the
retreat:
Take Lord, and receive all my
liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and
possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine,
dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for
this is sufficient for me.
Living the ‘vocation to
love’ according to one’s state in life
This
“fundamental vocation to love” is going to be fulfilled differently in every
individual human life, according to the plan of God for each of us. Generally speaking however, the ‘finding of
ourselves through a sincere gift of self’ will for most of us take the form of
an irrevocable vow or promise spoken on the day of our wedding or our consecration
to the Lord’s service. Continuing his
thoughts quoted above, John Paul II writes:
“Christian revelation recognized two specific ways of realizing the
vocation of the human person in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its proper form, an actuation
of the most profound truth of man, of his being “created in the image of God.”(FC
11)
Through marriage or consecrated celibacy, a person gathers
up the whole of one’s life, past present and future, and gives it to God in a
specific state in life. From that day
forward every activity in one’s life will be a fulfilling of (or in the case of
sin, a denial of) the sincere self-gift offered to God. One’s professional life at work must
therefore be imbued with the spirit of fidelity to the vows one has made to God. One is no longer one’s own. Professional work is placed at the service of
the total self gift of love to God and one’s family. In this way work is made into love, and as
such into liturgy – the worship of God and offering of ourselves to Him.
What does Love
Require?
If it is true that the fundamental vocation of every human
being is to love, then questions regarding professional life must be answered
in light of the essential question “what
does love require”. This is a
question which ultimately can only be answered in dialogue with God and in
consideration of those you have vowed your life to serve.
The Sisters of Life,
a religious community in New York City ,
make a 4th vow to “protect and
enhance the sacredness of every human life”. They often receive requests for their service
in various aspects of Church life. Each
request must be discerned in light of the vows they have made. Would
this request help further their mission to protect vulnerable human life or
distract from it? Are they already so
overworked that granting it would erode their time for intimate personal
communion with Jesus in prayer, through which they draw their strength to
remain faithful to their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience?
In married life it is necessary that a family earn the means
to feed and care for their children. Catholic
Social teaching speaks of the importance of employers providing a family wage in which breadwinners are
able to receive adequate compensation which enables them to support their
spouse and children. The loss of this
practice within society forces many families in our day to have two wage
earners, making it difficult if not impossible for a parent to refrain from
professional work in order to be home with their children.
This is not to deny that women, including mothers of
families, can be actively called by God into the professional work force. All have different gifts which God has given
for the purpose of building up His kingdom here on earth. I know a woman doctor who believes God has
called her to serve Him in the hospital, despite the fact that she has young
children and a husband who himself had a good income. She has been a great force in helping her
hospital retain its Catholic roots, and patients that are in critical condition
are frequently healed under her care in what seems to many to be an almost
miraculous rate. I believe she truly has
been anointed by God for this work in the world. Even so, she admits that she must daily ask
the Lord to guide her as she discerns how much time to spend at work and how
much time to reserve to family life.
The words of St. Edith Stein speak poignantly to women (and
men) in my friend’s situation:
“Many of the best women are almost overwhelmed by the double burden of
family duties and professional life – or often simply of only gainful
employment. … Where are they to get the
needed inner peace and cheerfulness in order to offer stability, support and
guidance to others? … To have divine
love as its inner form, a woman’s life must be a Eucharistic life. … Whoever seeks to consult with the
Eucharistic God in all her concerns, whoever lets herself be purified by the
sanctifying power coming from the sacrifice at the altar, offering herself to
the Lord in this sacrifice, whoever receives the Lord in her soul’s innermost
depth in Holy Communion cannot but be drawn ever more deeply and powerfully
into the flow of divine life, incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ,
her heart converted to the likeness of the divine heart” (Woman
p. 54, 56)
Those of us, still waiting upon the Lord to reveal what form
of life He desires our self-offering to Him to take, have a greater
availability for professional work or missionary activity. Perhaps He may ask us to dedicate the whole of
our lives to such service. However if
this work is to help us fulfill our ‘vocation to love’ then it must be embraced
as a means of loving God and those He brings in our paths.
Edith Stein writes “Whoever regards his work as a mere source of
income or as a pastime will perform it differently from the person who feels
that his profession is an authentic
vocation.” (Woman p.
44)
Professional work can be made into self offering to God when
it is embraced in the spirit of mission. In an exhortation no less binding for men, St.
Edith Stein reminds her feminine listeners, “Whether she is a mother in the home, or occupies a place in the
limelight of public life, or lives behind quiet cloister walls, she must be a handmaid
of the Lord everywhere.” (Woman p.
54)
Do whatever He tells
you (Jn 2:5)
In conclusion, although the above mentioned principles can assist
us as we discern how to prioritize our obligations in life, ultimately the answers
are going to come from dialogue with the Lord in prayer. Has he
‘anointed’ me to work in the world or to stay at home with my family? In what way can I best fulfill my vows to Him
in my state in life? Is my work so
consuming that it is interfering with the fulfillment of the vows I have made
to my spouse and to God? What does love
require of me in this situation? If we
are taking our questions to Jesus in the intimacy of prayer and choosing to
respond as we believe He is leading us we can trust that He will cover over our
mistakes and weaknesses and work all our efforts for His glory and the good of
those we love. In this approach we have
no better guide than Our Lady, patroness of both married and consecrated life,
in her advice to the servants at Cana : “Do
whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5).
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