The phrase “call within a call” is frequently associated with Mother Theresa.
In 1946, during a train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she called, “the call within a call.” The Lord asked her to begin a new religious community that would live and work with the poorest of the poor.
People, myself included, assumed that “call within a call” means a vocation within her vocation to religious life. She was a Sister of Loretto, an Irish community known for their missionary work in India. That is certainly a legitimate understanding.
However, we also often implicitly limit the word “vocation” to the special consecration of religious or priestly vocation.
Pope Francis has challenged me to expand my understanding of a “vocation within a vocation!”
He writes
On this 59th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I would like to reflect with you on the broader meaning of “vocation” within the context of a synodal Church, a Church that listens to God and to the world.
Called to Build the Human Family
Pope Francis’ understanding of vocation
He writes…
The word “vocation” should not be understood restrictively, as referring simply to those who follow the Lord through a life of special consecration.
All of us are called to share in Christ’s mission to reunite a fragmented humanity and to reconcile it with God.
Within this great common vocation, God addresses a particular call to each of us.
As Christians, we do not only receive a vocation individually; we are also called together. We are like the tiles of a mosaic. Each is lovely in itself, but only when they are put together do they form a picture. Each of us shines like a star in the heart of God and in the firmament of the universe.
In this broad sense, not only individuals have a “vocation”, but peoples, communities and groups of various kinds as well.
At every moment of our lives, we are called to foster this divine spark, present in the heart of every man and woman, and thus contribute to the growth of a humanity inspired by love and mutual acceptance.
He continues
Synodality, journeying together, is a vocation fundamental to the Church.
Only against this horizon is it possible to discern and esteem the various vocations, charisms and ministries.
We know that the Church exists to evangelize, to go forth and to sow the seed of the Gospel in history.
All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization” (Evangelii Gaudium, 120).
Why is this important?
Pope Francis warns…
We must beware of the mentality that would separate priests and laity, considering the former as protagonists and the latter as executors, and together carry forward the Christian mission as the one People of God, laity and pastors. The Church as a whole is an evangelizing community.
When we speak of “vocation”, then, it is not just about choosing this or that way of life, devoting one’s life to a certain ministry or being attracted by the charism of a religious family, movement or ecclesial community. It is about making God’s dream come true, the great vision of fraternity that Jesus cherished when he prayed to the Father “that they may all be one” (Jn 17:21).
Our primary vocation is to journey together and so “bring Good news!”
Echoes of the great St. Augustine
“I am fearful of what I am for you, but I draw strength from what I am with you. For you, I am a bishop, and with you, I am a Christian. The former designates an office received, the latter the foundation of salvation.”
Do we understand ourselves called as a community of “evangelizers”?
Click below for an early version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
I like this reflection. A callous seminarian many years ago described persons such as myself (those who left the seminary or religious life) a “vocation dropout.” I hope he has lived to hear those words of Pope Francis describing what our genuine vocation is.
I think I had looked upon the fragments of my life as being parts of a puzzle, but your reflection helped me to see them as oddly shaped but necessary tiles in a mosaic. A puzzle has a defined shape and an ultimate solution. A mosaic can magically turn into a ceramic dish or a expansive mural spanning a block or more.
In spite of my years, God and I are still working on that “vocation” and I don’t expect to “dropout” until I get to see him face to face.
“Dropout” seems to me to pale in comparison to “defection.” But no matter how it is described or characterized, now I see, thanks to you and John and Pope Francis, that it may just be part of a Providence-engineered train ride.
I am consoled by Larry Huber’s comment. Great!
This Mindwalk will definitely be somehow part of the book I’m writing with my own story: from being a consecrated woman in a life of virginity in one of the modern movements of our dear R.C. Church to having to leave it in order to maintain my mental sanity while others, there, had to enter into psychiatric clinics and having to choose to follow God in a different way of life.