Vocations Sunday 2016

A reflection for Vocations Sunday, 17 April 2016, from the National Office for Vocation:

Isn’t it strange that people have to change in order to stay the same? So, for example, people who ran stagecoaches with horses had to change to motor coaches with engines if they wanted to stay in the transport business. Of course, they could have kept with the stagecoaches but then they would soon find themselves in the leisure business and no longer a serious transport provider.

Human beings are the same. Being a disciple who follows Christ involves continuous development. Childhood prayers must evolve into adult prayer, an easy going friendship may lead to marriage, a person working at a simple task could aspire to the demanding responsibilities of leadership. If prayer, relationships and work never change over a lifetime then the person will no longer be as fully alive as God intends Christian disciples to be.

That’s why Blessed John Henry Newman’s insight is so important: ‘to live is to change.’ Those called to consecrated life and priesthood live this out in a special way: a divine disruption takes their lives in unimagined directions. In turn, their changed lives influence others and help many people make the changes necessary to growing in faith, in relationships and in responsibility.

The apostles are the most startling example of divinely disrupted lives. ‘Follow me,’ said Jesus, and they left their fishing nets and went, so that untold numbers of people might hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. Today we pray especially that those God is calling may allow the divine disruption into their lives so that they might become the disciples Christ intends them to be as priests and religious.

Find out more at www.ukreligiouslife.orgwww.ukpriest.org or www.ukvocation.org.

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