Ave Maria University |
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Questions and Answers
Does everybody have a vocation? | There exists a specific vocation for every living person connected to the simple fact of existing. The vocation is the providential thought of the Creator for each creature, it is His idea-plan, like a dream found in God's heart, because the creature is found in his heart. God the Father wants this to be different and specific for each living person. Holiness is the universal vocation of every man. We recieve the power of God to be His children and to be holy, as He is Holy, in the sacrament of Baptism. In other words, we can express our vocation to holiness as a call to love as God loves. This general vocation is fulfilled in the specific state of life in which God calls each person to live, namely marriage, ordained ministry or consecrated life (religious and secular). All these particular vocations are born in the Church and are at the service of holiness. |
What does it mean to discern a vocation? | To discern a vocation then means to look for the plan that God has for my life. This requires docility to the Holy Spirit in reflecting and deciding on one's future according to God's plan. Not only according to one's own aspirations and abilities; not only in the spaces which the world allows; but above all in harmony with the plan, always hidden and unforseeable, that God has for each one. |
Why do I need to discern my vocation? | Fidelity to one's Baptism urges one to ask ever more precise questions about one's life and oneself; above all in order to encourage oneself to live life not only based on human aptitudes, which are also gifts of God, but based on His will; not according to worldly perspectives, so often of little matter, but according to the wishes and plans of God. Though discerning a vocation can sometimes be difficult and a little uncertain, Pope John Paul II firmly believed it is something that must be taken seriously. He declared, "Who would dare to say no to the Lord? No one can afford to make a mistake about his path in life. Therefore reflect well, pray to have the light necessary for your choice" (The Meaning of Vocation). |
What means | Through a commitment to daily mass, adoration, Morning prayer, weekly Discernment meetings, monthly retreats, living in community life with other girls who are discerning, and optional spiritual direction, the girls in the program can grow in their personal relationship with God. As JPII pointed out, this is crucial in the discernment process because it is through prayer, especially in front of Jesus in the Eucharist, that a young woman can truly make God the center of her life and thus clearly see what God is asking of her. The Eucharist becomes the source of every Christian vocation; at the Eucharist every believer is called to conform himself to the risen Christ totally offered and given. He becomes an icon of every vocational response; as in Jesus, in every life and in every vocation, there is a difficult fidelity to be lived even to the extent of the cross. |
| JPII tells women: "The dignity of every human being and the vocation corresponding to that dignity find their definitive measure in union with God. Mary, the woman of the Bible, is the most complete expression of this dignity and vocation. For no human being, male and female, created in the image and likeness of God, can in any way attain fulfillment apart from this image and likeness." (Mulieris Dignitatem, 5.21) Since Mary is the "complete expression" of what every human being discovers in their relationship with God, she is the model for the Women's Discernment Program where every girl should be striving to respond to the dignity and vocation that God has given to her. Mary's words to the angel Gabriel, "Be it done unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38), should be the prayer of every young woman who is honestly seeking to follow God's Will. |
Is Discernment only for those who want to become religious sisters? | No matter what a young woman's vocation is, she can learn from her time in the Discernment Program how to better respond to God's love for her with openness and fidelity. JPII challenges and encourages every woman to respond to their vocation to holiness: "In our own days too the Church is constantly enriched by the witness of the many women who fulfill their vocation to holiness. Holy women are an incarnation of the feminine ideal; they are also a model for all Christians" (Mulieris Dignitatem, 27.52) |