Vocation – journey into God’s love ...
ONE DAY my spiritual director gave me three words, ‘journey’ (Isaiah 2.1-5); ‘build’ (1 Peter 2.1-5), and ‘profess’ (John 21.15-19). He explained how they summed up my life. With some reflection, I was able to see the beauty of God’s word unfolding in my
life. I believe this is the story of every child of God as well.
I cannot forget June 18, 2006, when my journey began with baptism; water was poured over me and I was brought into the Catholic faith and given Holy Communion for the very first time. It was an amazing experience: the Lord choosing me, whispering in my heart that He has a plan for my wellbeing, and that He wants me, just as I am, with unreserved surrender.
LOVE TESTED
But I falter at times in my journey; I struggle to understand who God is; and, my fidelity to His love is often tested. But the journey continues, because He keeps repeating in my heart: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit ...” (John 15. 16).
Soon, I found out that He calls me to be built into a spiritual edifice for Him. He does not hesitate to use the chisel of love and the hammer of discipline to smooth out my rough edges, reshape me to become His beloved. Just as the journey continues, so also the building up of this spiritual edifice. The chiselling and hammering must go on, as the commandments of God and of the Church, the Constitutions and Regulations of the Franciscan Order, good Christian sense and, of course, ‘the notso-common’ common sense to guide me, I will be built into the spiritual edifice for my Beloved.
The word ‘profess’ implies witness; it is a confession of personal and intimate knowledge of the one who calls me; it is my confession of my day-by-day transforming and conforming into the image of Christ, and even
‘carrying in my body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Christ may be manifested in me.’ (2 Corinthians 4. 10). It is allowing the world to see the power of God’s transformative love at work in me.
There is beauty in yielding to God’s call to holiness: journeying in His grace, building oneself into a spiritual dwelling, and in professing the beauty of this process of becoming Christ-like. Knowing this, how could we resist His call to be made new in His love?