“Please cite your sources.”
Terms like “vocation,” “state of life,” and “condition” tend to be used with roughly the same meaning depending on the kind of Church document and when it was written. “Vocation” can be implicit in the term “state of life.” But usage varies by document and context, and “vocation(s)” can have a broad meaning (the “Christian vocation in the world”), a narrower ecclesial meaning (religious or ordained life), an meaning or one depending on one’s situation (such as suffering) or even sex (apostolic letter on the Dignity and Vocation of Woman).
But they all relate to something more fundamental. Consult Lumen gentium as the primary source here since it treats the universal vocation of the Christian faithful and then how those various manifestations follow. It is worth your reading.
The Catechism summarizes how the sacraments of Christian initiation bring about the common vocation of all Christ’s disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the mission of evangelizing the world. in no. 1533.
Vocation is used in the code in several places to speak of those professed by the evangelical counsels, and the sacred ministers of the Church: bishops, priests, and deacons. The Catechism references these sacred ministers as those who have received a “sacrament at the service of communion.”
( I’ll add a plug since one of those groups is sometime overlooked as a vocation in service to the Church. In fact, it has been in several posts on this thread!
John Paul II, plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Clergy, November 30, 1995, “The vocation of the permanent deacon is a great gift of God to the Church.” There are more references to that, of course, but . . . .)
Canon 216§1 expressly calls marriage as vocation drawing from sources in Gaudium et spes 43 (n. 52 also mentions the vocation of spouses) as well as Apostolicam Actuositatem 2-4, 7. Canon 1134 also speaks of it as a state. Then too, the Catechism, no. 1603: “The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator.”
Familiaris consortio really has to be read as well. Number 69, for example, speaks of family as vocation and mission. In fact, “Also necessary, especially for Christians, is solid spiritual and catechetical formation that will show that marriage is a true vocation and mission, without excluding the possibility of the total gift of self to God in the vocation to the priestly or religious life.” (n. 69). It is a “priestly vocation” (n. 59). There are “little zingers” like that all through the document.
You will also want to read the Apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici which additionally treats your topic. It expressly mentions “vocations to Christian marriage.” There is a section (n 55+ ) on the states of life and vocations and another one called “Various Vocations in the Lay State.”
