listen and obey

 I read this and loved it! Thought I would share it with you. God does not ask us to love all in the same way. Phew! What a beautiful gift that is! I think that's also what makes the Body of Christ so dynamic and colorful, and we are then able to express ourselves in the most creative ways of loving. Confident that we have each been given our own path, our own road, we need not compare our journeys with others, but rather, I feel that we can walk alongside one another, supporting each other as we continue to discover Jesus, the One who holds our hands along the way.
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The Calling

God calls all the souls he has created to love him with their whole being, here and thereafter, which means that he calls all of them to holiness, to perfection, to a close following of him and obedience to his will. But he does not ask all souls to show their love by the same works, to climb to heaven by the same ladder, to achieve goodness in the same way. What sort of work, then, must I do? Which is my road to heaven? In what kind of life am I to sanctify myself? Apart from the universal calling of all of us to perfect love, to holiness, to the following of Jesus, and obedience to his will in everything, however small, a calling at the last to heaven, what is the particular and social vocation that he puts before me and each one of us?


This question: "What kind of life am I going to undertake?" is the question of vocation. And it has got to be answered rightly. For if it is answered rightly and we take the way to which God calls us we shall be living obediently to him, we shall be strengthened by his help, and so we shall come to heaven...


There can never be any question of "choosing" a vocation: the word "choice" is excluded by the word "vocation," which means "calling," a call from God. Therefore we do not "choose a vocation" but seek to find our vocation, to do all we can to hear the divine Voice calling us, to make sure what he is saying - and then to obey him. Where vocation is concerned God speaks, calls, commands: we have not to choose but to listen and obey.


- Charles de Foucauld, from Charles de Foucauld: Essential Writings, edited by Robert Ellsberg (taken from A Maryknoll Book of Inspiration by Michael Leach and Doris Goodnough)