We Can Be More Fully Ourselves
Posted by Andy Otto in Discernment
When I was a Jesuit, people often told me I had a higher calling. It seems common language for those who’ve felt called to priesthood or religious life, but I don’t believe anyone has a “higher” calling. We’re all simply called to be the people God made us. God calls us to all sorts of paths, choices, and careers, but none is higher than another. If we’ve truly discerned what we’re good at and confirm that God desires it too, then we’ve followed our calling.
Tim Reidy, in a recent America Magazine podcast, talked with James Martin, SJ, about the end of the series Mad Men. He noted that Don Draper, after finding some personal growth at a retreat, returns to his work in advertising. “This happens,” Reidy says. “People find themselves, but that doesn’t mean they have to abandon all they’ve done before.” Don is good at what he does, so he returns to it. Choosing to follow God more nearly doesn’t necessarily mean going in search of some other vocation. It means returning to our vocation as better, more whole people.
Some vocations may be more demanding than others, but no one is better than another. My wife’s job as a campus minister could be quite demanding, at times more so than my graduate classes. She would sometimes be envious of my chance to take theology classes, and I would find myself envious of her full-time ministry. We’d idealize the other’s calling. But what we needed to remind ourselves of was that God had called each of us to where we were at that moment. And I believe that God took delight in us using our gifts and talents in the best way we could.
God does not call each of us to some “higher” vocation on some metaphorical pedestal. God calls us instead to a deeper sense of self, to be someone who is fully human and can pay attention to his or her gifts and flourish. And if God ends up calling us to another vocation or state of life, it’s not to somewhere that’s higher, but to somewhere we can be more fully ourselves.
To Labor and Not to Seek Reward
Posted by Marina McCoy in Reflections
The Prayer for Generosity gives us words that assist us on a lifelong path of becoming more fully surrendered to God.
St. Ignatius’s words “to labor and not to seek reward” can include larger vocational decisions to seek God’s call for its own sake, and not for external rewards such as wealth, honor, or security. Instances are choosing to be a social worker, or starting a small business that can benefit my community, or beginning a family. However, this kind of decision is only a first step. As we encounter various obstacles in life, the question of our own motivation is continually challenged; our love purified; and our surrender to God deepened.
Students who undertake service projects at my university often constructively question their own motives: do they take up a service project for the sake of the others whom they serve? to increase their own learning? as a good resumé builder? to feel pleasure in helping another? Often our own motives are not clear even to ourselves until problems arise. For example, a person at a homeless shelter is angry because no more beds are available, and though this is not the student’s fault, she feels badly about the lack of gratitude and asks why she is there.
At such times, we confront not only a lack of “reward” but also a certain impurity in our own motives. Acknowledging that our own actions are not as other-centered as we thought can be humbling. Then we often have to choose how and why to continue. Ignatius’s words encourage us to take up these challenges as an opportunity for the purification of love.
We can also labor without seeking reward by letting go of the fruits of our own labors. Often, we do not know our actions’ effects. A small act of kindness to a stranger on the morning commute may encourage another to act more gently in the next part of her day at work. A student who sits in the back of a class with cap pulled down low may later tell his teacher that the class was transformative.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote of her desire to come to God at the end of her life with “empty hands,” so that God would take her not for her works, but only for herself. Like Ignatius she recognized that we are loved unconditionally. When we know of that love, then our gifts to God and others can then also be freer of self-concern. We can surrender ourselves into God’s hands in all our labors, trusting that God will use whatever we offer to bear fruit.
Purpose in this Moment
Posted by Lisa Kelly in Reflections
So often in our lives we want that big picture, the clear road map, the understanding of the infinite, whether it is to know what the future will bring, what life’s purpose is, or even where this Ignatian Adventure might lead. But skipping to the end of the book would miss the point. Being human means we can’t know the whole picture. No human in history has clearly seen his or her complete road map, so it isn’t going to start with me.
Faith means taking the journey even though we don’t know how it will end. All I truly have is the present moment, and each and every moment holds a purpose. In each moment I get to make a choice to keep my feet firmly planted in the enormous love of God for me or to let my disordered attachments pull me into actions and worldviews that take me away from reflecting that love.
St. Ignatius recognized in his Principle and Foundation that we can easily be preoccupied with what our lives will be down the road—will I be rich or poor? Will I be sick or healthy? Will I live a long life or a short one? And in that preoccupation we miss the presence of the Spirit in the current moment.
How can I “praise, reverence, and serve God” right now? In this moment? In this one little action or gesture? The choices we make within each moment will bring us one step closer or farther from our heart’s desire. Our purpose in life need be no bigger than our purpose in this very moment. What’s yours?
