2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B – January 17, 2021 Vocation: Calling out to God and listening to your calling, finding Christ and being found Readings: 1 Samuel 3: 3b-10, 19 / Psalm 40 / 1 Corinthians 6: 13c-15a, 17-20 / John 1: 35-42
Prior to coming to the University of Houston, I served as director of vocations for my religious order, the Dominicans, in Texas and the southern U.S. You could say this Sunday Mass has a vocations theme, especially when you consider the first and Gospel readings. As a result, these readings became very familiar to me.
Now that the Lord has led me back to campus ministry, I serve many students. For students, the idea of vocation begins to grow stronger and quickly in their lives and decisions. The term, vocation, seems to be characterized by searching and being called, especially the seeking of God’s will and his way of calling us to follow him and be of service to others and society. However, in my experience, I wonder who does the most searching? Who does the most calling? I sense a tendency for us to think that vocation has mostly to do with our searching and deciding, but prior to that occurring, the Lord has been and is at work. In chapter 15 of the Gospel according to St. John, the Lord Jesus makes it clear: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain…” (15: 16a).
God always takes the first step; his love is the first movement. The dynamic of vocation is the giving of love, the expression of relationship. The initiative is divine, the response falls to us. Bishop Robert Barron sums up quite well the personal – human – and divine dynamic at work in our faith and vocation as he writes, “Christianity, I saw, was not our disciplined quest for God, but God’s relentless quest for us – even to the point of death”¹
It is not difficult to recognize this dynamic at work in today’s readings. The birth of Samuel was God’s answer to the prayer of Hannah, who had been longing for a son. In gratitude to God for her son, she dedicated him to the Lord’s service. Samuel is called by the Lord, but due to his young age does not have the maturity to understand what is happening. However he seeks the wisdom of his elder and teacher, Eli.
Samuel’s response to the call of the Lord, to his first vocational call, is that of obedience and service and openness. His vocation, as shown in this touching story, is about how one must grow in faith. He received his calling from the Lord God, but it was only the beginning.
The gospel reading is a little more dramatic. We hear of John the Baptist being faithful to his vocation and fulfilling his God-given mission to prepare the way of the Lord and proclaim the Lamb of God. Andrew and the other disciple were faithful to John, but they were still seeking.
This account displays for us the dynamic of vocation: a matter of seeking God and his will and finding him and discovering his way and our path. However, even before that, we are called; we are found. It might appear that these two disciples were on a search, but Jesus had already found them because he first loved them. In him we are never lost, never forgotten.
Our vocation requires much patience and time. Growth in the Lord unfolds over the course of your life and at times might not move very fast. However, what God sets in motion is always unfolding according to his time and as part of his plan. A vocation appears and takes shape as our path. The good Lord calls; he provides. We must give the trust.
Before we consider how God is calling us, let us rejoice in how he loves us. As we bask in the light of Christ, let us be glad to be known and found by him. Before deciding and embarking upon a vocational path, let us rejoice in how we are able to love God, our neighbor and ourselves and let us commit ourselves to doing so.
Peace be with you! Fr. Charles Johnson, O.P.
Notes: ¹ Bishop Robert Barron, The Strangest Way (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 11.