Witness to the truth: Come Follow Me

BISHOP DAVID M. O’CONNELL, C.M., HAS SHARED THIS MESSAGE for World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

We read these words in the Gospel of St. John: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. I have appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you (John 15:16).” That is a profound thought for anyone considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life in the Catholic Church today. It is God who chooses us for his purposes. As a seminarian many years ago I remember reading in Thomas Merton’s great book “No Man is an Island,” that “for each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will: to be what God wants us to be.” He wrote: “Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once wrote: “Each of you has a personal vocation which God has given you for your own joy and sanctity. When a person is conquered by the fire of His gaze, no sacrifice seems too great to follow Him and give Him the best of ourselves. This is what the saints have always done, spreading the light of the Lord ... and transforming the world into a welcoming home for everyone.”

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