The Society for Sacramental Mission

For Catholic Mission and Renewal

Vocation and Holiness

A Special Article by Katie Rutlidge

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Do you know where you’re going to?

Do you like the things that life is showing you?

Where are you going to?

Do you know?

 

Do you get what you’re hoping for?

When you look behind you there’s no open door.

What are you hoping for?

Do you know?

 

One of my teachers used to play this Diana Ross song at the beginning of school assemblies to encourage us to ponder our futures. Nearly a decade later, the questions posed here still challenge me: do I know where I’m going in life, and moreover, do I know myself well enough to be able to answer honestly? When asked in a Christian context, these questions naturally lead to thinking about vocation.

 

Since I first plucked up the courage to discuss my increasing sense of God’s call, I have come to realise that vocation discernment is not primarily concerned with ontological questions, what should I be? Nor is it a matter of functionality, what should I do? Rather, discerning vocation is about discerning the reality of oneself (ontological, I know!); it is about knowing who I really am in the light of God and stems from the recognising the nature of Christian identity as “a called identity, a vocational identity.” Our calling into Christ, say Brown and Cocksworth, “precedes what we do for Christ and even how we live for Christ”, while simultaneously it “predetermines our doing and being as Christians, “both of which flow from a vocation, “a calling into a certain sort of relation to him – a relationship of extraordinary grace.”

 

Rowan Williams describes the goal of Christian life as “wholeness – an acceptance of this complicated and muddled bundle of experiences as a possible theatre for God’s work” and our vocation as a willingness to “shed the unreality” and “to be what I am”. In ‘Struggling to be Holy’, Judy Hirst describes holiness as “God being present and our being present to God” and to increase in holiness is to be “in [a more] honest relationship” with God”. Understanding our vocation and growing in holiness are bound tightly together as they are both concerned with trusting ourselves to the God who loves us and allowing him to, in Hirst’s words, “interact with the truth of ourselves, no strings attached”.

 

However, we may well ask, what does this mean given the deeply ambiguous nature of the world and of our own humanity? In his ‘Essay on Man’, Pope writes:

 

                                                                    Created half to rise and half to fall;

Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.

 

In the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular, there are numerous signs around proclaiming ‘this is a holy place’. Given the continuing history of conflict engulfing the region, what might holiness mean in that context?

 

There are several examples of people being called to be found in the Bible. Let us focus on three in particular: Moses, Jeremiah and Jacob. Their stories illustrate many common threads in people’s experience of God’s call. Both Moses and Jeremiah have a profound sense of unworthiness. Moses’ response on being called to bring the Israelites out of Egypt is, “Who I am to do this?” to which God replies “I am with you.” Acutely aware of his shortcomings, Moses argues with God and eventually pleads with him to send someone else. Similarly, Jeremiah’s response to being called is, “Ah Lord God, I do not know how to speak. I am only a child” (Jer 1:6).

 

Now, there is a sense in which this is all very healthy; one might worry about someone who had no doubts whatsoever about their capabilities and suitability! Acknowledging and accepting our poverty, our limitations, can free us “to live gratefully and graciously”, “to live with openness to God and to others”, say Brown and Cocksworth. Indeed, they go on to say that, “Knowing our poverty and being open to God are two sides of the same coin as we come face to face with the truth of ourselves, with our limitations and strengths, our inability to be omni-competent and our riches in Christ. Acceptance of our limitations is integral to holiness.”

 

Self-acceptance is key to holiness; as Judy Hirst comments, “We need to learn to love what we are, both delightful and damaged, and put it all into the hands of the master potter to form it into something unique and beautiful.” Thomas Merton says, “The more content we are with our own poverty, the closer we are to God, for then we accept our poverty in peace, expecting nothing from ourselves and everything from God.” However, there is a danger in all of this that it can add to a sense of unworthiness that becomes crippling. Thus it is also key to remember, as Williams notes, “A God who is only interested in the ‘acceptable’ parts of our life is going to be a sadly limited God.” Just as with the practice of Confession, experience of God’s loving acceptance (“God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself”) is vital here.

 

A second common factor is that of ‘walking by faith’, to quote the title of a sermon by Rosalind Brown. When Moses was complaining about his task, God said, “This is the sign that I have sent you – when you have brought the people out of Egypt you’ll worship me on this mountain.” In other words, as Brown notes, “You’ll know I’ve been with you when you get back here!” This is a call to trust God, to “walk by faith and not by sight”. This sense of being on a journey is central to both everyday discipleship and to vocation discernment. John Pritchard describes the latter as, “tuning into God’s call and staying on course towards God“, until we discover what God wants.

 

The two pictures below illustrate some of the paradoxes involved here. In one sense we are journeying on an extremely well-trodden route, following in the footsteps of Jesus himself and of countless numbers of faithful Christians before us. Equally however, our uniqueness means that no-one has come this way before and the choices before us can seem threatening (more on this later). Yet, as Brown argues, “God has made us for more than following directional arrows!” A famous prayer of Thomas Merton begins, “I have no idea where I am going / I do not see the road ahead of me,” yet concludes “You will lead me by the right road / Though I may know nothing about it / Therefore will I trust you always.” We are called to place this kind of trust in God.

 

A classic story about journey is the ‘Lord of the Rings’. Frodo Baggins’ quest begins in earnest when he agrees at the Counsel of Elrond to carry the Ring to Mordor, “though, I do not know the way.” Later, in conversation with the elf-queen, he says of his task of bearing the Ring, “I know what I must do, it’s just that I’m afraid to do it.” Later, the elf-queen comments, as Frodo has been taken prisoner by the men of Gondor, “Frodo begins to realise that the quest will claim his life.” His adventure illustrates the themes of journey, uncertainty, danger and cost, and it is the latter to which we now turn.

 

Jacob wrestles all night long with God prior to meeting with his brother Esau (Gen 32:22-end) and in the end is forced to give in as God wrenches his hip out of its socket. In the ensuing conversation, after asking the mysterious man to bless him, Jacob is renamed Israel but is left with a limp. The symbolism employed is very powerful here. In the giving of a new name there is a new creation, a theme we see repeated throughout the Bible; yet, there is a cost to pay.

 

Moses deals with being blamed when life outside Egypt is not all the people had hoped for. Jeremiah complains that God has ‘deceived him’ and of being ‘ridiculed all day long’ (Jer 20:7) Yet, despite the hardships involved, there was no ignoring their calling: “If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more his name”, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jer 20:9). One might recall the words of Peter here: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68). Vocation is “what is left when all the games have stopped”, when we have stopped playing at reality, and we are, whatever the cost, “in the truth”.

 

One might also speak of a sense of arbitrariness here; along with feelings of unworthiness there is often an accompanying cry of “why me?” This is to be found throughout the Bible and beyond in various situations. One might consider the poetry of psalm forty-two, say, of George Herbert: “I struck the board and cry’d, No more,” or of R. S. Thomas, capturing the experience of lament described by Brown as, “the hard-won certainty that we can ‘hope in God, for I shall praise him again’, a certainty we may come to on our knees”:

 

Often I try

To analyse the quality

Of its silences. Is this where God hides

From my searching?...

… There is no other sound

In the darkness but the sound of a man

Breathing, testing his faith

On emptiness, nailing his questions

One by one to an untenanted cross

 

According to Williams, vocation here is, “a dreadful falling into the hands of the living God, being bound upon a wheel of fire.” We are called to be obedient, to “bear the crucifying consequences” because although it may seem arbitrary, “the clay does not argue with the potter” and loving God and doing his will is “the one ultimately, unconditionally worthwhile thing a human being can do.” This does, however, raise questions about God’s grace. Of course, “Grace with conditions attached isn’t grace at all,” but isn’t it supposed to fulfil, rather than frustrate?

 

Starting from the premise that, as Michael Ramsey and John V. Taylor put it, “God is Christlike and in him there is no un-Christlikeness at all,” we can perhaps begin to see why we might have cause to place the kind of trust in God that seems to be demanded here. To declare as the Nicene Creed does that the Son is of one substance with the Father is to say that Christ’s “character and nature is to be defined exactly as the Father is defined.” Put simply, “What is seen in Jesus is what God is.”

 

Williams illustrates this with the image of a musician: “All of their strength, their freedom, their love is focused on bringing to life the work and vision of another.” We see the “vision and imagination” of another not “displacing” but rather “saturating” the performer’s humanity, their being, for the duration of the performance. In Christ, we see a life “given up to performance” of God’s love, where “the humanity of the performer is most full and real in the performance.” One may think of Jesus’ life as “God’s life ‘translated’ into another medium.”

 

We may thus speak of the Incarnation as that event which lays bare God’s ‘agenda’; Christ is “supremely the one who makes God credible, trustworthy,” as in him, “God’s action is at work without interruption or impediment.” Yet he prays, and speaks of putting his will and decisions at the service of his Father. He is in a “relationship of dependence” on the Father and in him as well as “divine purpose, power and action” there is “humility, responsiveness, receptivity.”

 

God’s love involves “both a giving and a receiving, a flowing out and a reflecting back, an initiative and a depending” and thus Christ is both the power and wisdom of God and the one who is “lovingly and faithfully giving back to God what God has poured out”. The life of God is therefore one of “relationship and inner movement and differentiation;” to say God is love as John’s Gospel does is to say that “God never starts being in loving relationship; it’s an aspect of what he is eternally.” As Williams states, God is “the outpouring and receiving of selfless love” and is “always a God of relation and gift.” In other words, as Williams demonstrates, God is gracious.

 

All this has huge implications for how we approach the subject of vocation. In recognising God as the creator of heaven and earth, we need to grasp the purely unconditional nature of it all. God, as Williams says, is “sublimely and eternally happy to be God”. We don’t (and can’t) add anything to God; he “contains all reality eternally and by nature” and thus does not need anything – “God would have been the same God if we had never been created.” Therefore, the only motivation he can have for doing anything is simply to be the kind of God he is; “What he does shows us what he is.”

 

We see what he does in the life of Jesus Christ, and that the love he shows in both creating and redeeming us is completely free. Indeed, reflecting on God’s unconditional forgiveness often leads us to wonder at the freedom of love that brought the universe into being, and reflecting on the beauty of the world may help us to glimpse why God “doesn’t treat us according to our deserving.” As Williams notes, creation and salvation need to be held “inseparably together.” Consequently, we need not be suspicious of God’s motives in calling us, as if vocation is just a mechanism for maximising human frustration (though it might sometimes feel like it!), because God’s “commitment to us is inexhaustible” and his “purposes for us are unfailingly generous”. The service of God is perfect freedom.

 

We must note that “at the centre of freedom is the language of compassion, prayer, self-offering, self-forgetting, crucifixion and resurrection, the language whose ‘grammar’ is the life and death of Jesus.” Jesus’ life is one fully given over to the ‘performance’ of God and paradoxically he is most free when he is nailed to the cross, for there he is most truly “the compassionate and loving Son of the Father.” This is the freedom that inspires the beautiful language employed throughout John’s Gospel: “I and the Father are one.” This is the freedom we inherit at baptism and it has very little to do with avoiding hard choices, as mentioned earlier. Rather, vocation requires us to learn what we want to say but moreover to be free to say it.

 

We need to find “the structure and form of life that is most our own” because it makes us “most alert, most responsive, most open to the never-failing grace of God”. If, as Williams posits, that the “vocation of creatures is to exist” and to “exit as responding-to-God”, then we need to think of God calling us by name, the same name, our true name, over and over again. Just as Jesus played back to God his “self-sharing, self-losing care and compassion,” so we have to find our own particular way of mirroring him, of playing back to God “the love because of which he speaks and calls in the first place”.

 

All this is not to say that we will never experience points of crisis when we realise just how far away the way we have been living and telling the story of ourselves is from the truth. Williams speaks of a ray of darkness that ‘shines’ upon us, confronting us with our illusions, self-deceptions, the games we play with reality. The crisis will often be “severe and shattering” because, after all, answering the call to be really ourselves at each and every moment is “not at all easy”. Encountering the living God changes us, and change hurts. This might sound rather depressing, but the crux of matter is that the ray of darkness is also the dart of love.

 

God isn’t doing this because he is some sort of despot, or a mad psychiatrist who delights in messing with our minds. Rather, he calls us to abandon our false images of him, others and ultimately of ourselves and to be really free to be ourselves, knowing that what we are is “already known and loved and accepted by God”. Moreover, we can trust that God will take the “confused and fearful and partial picture of ourselves” and “make some sort of wholeness” (Creation and redemption being held together!) Looking back to the earlier question of how places of conflict in the wider world and within us could ever be called holy, we can now perhaps see that as David Jenkins puts it, “in Christ, God has entered into the muck and the mess of the world” and when we have done our worst his power to go on being there is not exhausted.  In the resurrection, our brokenness, our rejection of the truth, is turned on its head. God’s love wins through.

As for Diana Ross: well, I’m with Thomas Merton in not being sure where I’m going to, though I think I have some idea. However, it seems to me that the only proper response I can make to God’s gracious call is the trust illustrated in the following prayer from Charles de Fouclaud:

 

Father,

I abandon myself into your hands.

Do with me whatever you will.

Whatever you may do I thank you.

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me and all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul.

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart.

For I love you Lord and so need to give myself,

surrender myself into your hands without reserve

and with boundless confidence

for you are my Father.

Amen