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Lepanto
Guest
I don’t get it. Being called to a vocation means forgoing any other vocation.
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curlycool89
Guest
That’s not entirely true. Yes when you decide to become a priest you can’t get married. But vocations are “mixed” quite a bit.
For example, religious priests have a vocation to the religious life first, and then they may be further called to the priesthood within their religious life (but they are a religious first and priest second). That’s 2 distinct vocations.
A second example could be a man who was married and is later widowed. After his wife dies, he could conceivably be called to the priesthood or even to religious life. You could say that he has lived 2 vocations in his life.
Same thing with the diaconate. I’ve heard the permanent diaconate called a “vocation within a vocation” before because more often then not it’s a married man. You could also have a single celibate permanent deacon. Heck, we’ve even got married priests in some places in the Roman Catholic Church (clerical converts from Lutherism and Anglicanism for the most part I believe), and married priests are the norm in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church’s.
So I guess the answer is yes and no. It depends a lot on circumstances (no 2 vocation journeys are going to be the same) and on what is the norm/doctrine in the Church.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
Do not forget that the Eastern Catholic Churches (and the Orthodox) have always had a married secular clergy.
That is they ordain married men to the priesthood.
I do not think the Church has ever stated that a person can only have one vocation.
That is they ordain married men to the priesthood.
I do not think the Church has ever stated that a person can only have one vocation.
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Formosus
Guest
So what do you think of consecrated religious priests? Aren’t they called to two vocations.
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Ocarm
Guest
There are also people called to marriage and to private vows within a secular institute or third order. Both are distinct vocations, but they are also compatible in a way that e.g. married life and religious life are not.
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momor
Guest
It’s not unusual at all. Lot’s of people have a professional vocation as well as a marriage vocation. Medicine is a good example of a professional vocation every bit or more demanding than the diaconate.
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Lepanto
Guest
The catechism does not mention being in the medical field as a “vocation.”
Being a doctor is a profession, not a vocation. There is a big difference.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
But being a doctor can be a vocation as it is in service to our fellow human beings.
The Catechism really does not lay out specific vocations, it tells us what vocations are.
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123defiant
Guest
Lepanto
My local Ukraniane Rite Priest is married with children, from my observations he fulfills both faithfully - who are you to say that a man cannot have two vocations? religious priests are another case in point
My local Ukraniane Rite Priest is married with children, from my observations he fulfills both faithfully - who are you to say that a man cannot have two vocations? religious priests are another case in point
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JReducation
Guest
A vocation is a call. God can call us to do and be several things at once, as long as they are not mutually exclusive.
Someone said that a physician is not a vocaton, but a career or profession. It can be both.
There are two religious communities that come to mind: the Alexian Brothers and the Medical Mission Sisters. The men and women called to these two congregations must also have a vocation to be doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians, and so forth. For them, the work of saving lives is not a career. It is part of their consecrated life. It is their ministry. They are called TO BE consecrated religious and called TO DO something very specific for God’s people.
A vocation is a call. God can call us TO DO and he can call us TO BE or both. A call to marriage is a call to be: husband and father. A call to the diaconate is a call to do: to minister to others, to serve.
Do you see what I mean?
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Someone said that a physician is not a vocaton, but a career or profession. It can be both.
There are two religious communities that come to mind: the Alexian Brothers and the Medical Mission Sisters. The men and women called to these two congregations must also have a vocation to be doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians, and so forth. For them, the work of saving lives is not a career. It is part of their consecrated life. It is their ministry. They are called TO BE consecrated religious and called TO DO something very specific for God’s people.
A vocation is a call. God can call us TO DO and he can call us TO BE or both. A call to marriage is a call to be: husband and father. A call to the diaconate is a call to do: to minister to others, to serve.
Do you see what I mean?
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
We do not want to limit vocations to religious though.A vocation is a call. God can call us to do and be several things at once, as long as they are not mutually exclusive.
Someone said that a physician is not a vocaton, but a career or profession. It can be both.
There are two religious communities that come to mind: the Alexian Brothers and the Medical Mission Sisters. The men and women called to these two congregations must also have a vocation to be doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians, and so forth. For them, the work of saving lives is not a career. It is part of their consecrated life. It is their ministry. They are called TO BE consecrated religious and called TO DO something very specific for God’s people.
A vocation is a call. God can call us TO DO and he can call us TO BE or both. A call to marriage is a call to be: husband and father. A call to the diaconate is a call to do: to minister to others, to serve.
Do you see what I mean?
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
A doctor, nurse, etc. may have have vocation to be such outside of religious life.
Many people are under the mistaken impression that there are only two, or three, vocations.
Holy Orders
Marriage
(and some) Religious Life
This is not true. I believe there are as many vocations as there are people.
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Lepanto
Guest
Wow, this thread has gotten off topic…but anyways…
Although I understand the politically-correct desire for some to think that everyone has a vocation, and that every job or way of life is a vocation, that is NOT what the catechism says. Please read it for yourself, starting around paragraph 1533. The catechism is very exclusive and specific regarding what the Church considers a “vocation.”
Besides the PC motive, I think some people confuse “vocation” with “avocation,” “profession,” “career,” or even “job.” The end result is that the true religious meaning of “vocation” is watered down.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why so few people today are drawn to the priesthood and religious life?
Although I understand the politically-correct desire for some to think that everyone has a vocation, and that every job or way of life is a vocation, that is NOT what the catechism says. Please read it for yourself, starting around paragraph 1533. The catechism is very exclusive and specific regarding what the Church considers a “vocation.”
Besides the PC motive, I think some people confuse “vocation” with “avocation,” “profession,” “career,” or even “job.” The end result is that the true religious meaning of “vocation” is watered down.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why so few people today are drawn to the priesthood and religious life?
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momor
Guest
I really appreciate what you have written. As a nurse, I feel it is very much my vocation even though I have also been called to be a wife and mother. Nursing is a part of who I am and what my calling is on this earth. I believe that I minister to my patients physically, emotionally and spiritually. I wanted to be a nurse from as early as I can remember and have never wanted to be or do anything else. It is much more than a career or a job or a paycheck.
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The_Geographer
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curlycool89
Guest
Don’t forget the single life (like non-married, not a priest, not a consecrated religious). All of us have to live the vocation of the single life for the first 20 or so years of our lives. Some people are single their whole lives and are happy, functional, God loving people.
Everyone does have a vocation because God has a plan for each and every one of us. He leads us to a life where we will be both happy and get closer to Him. For some that means ministering in the Church, for some that means healing and caring for the sick and dying, for other it means to teach the next generation, and it goes on and on.
Having more priests and religious is what we all pray for, but the last thing we want is a bunch of people who are not happy with that choice or feel that they have been forced into it. After all God gave us free will so that we could freely choose Him. That’s love.
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Ocarm
Guest
CCC1533 Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist are sacraments of Christian initiation. They ground the common vocation of all Christ’s disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the mission of evangelizing the world. They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland. *
Also:
*
CCC 863 The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin: and in that she is “sent out” into the whole world. All members of the Church share in this mission, though in various ways. “The Christian vocation is, of its nature, a vocation to the apostolate as well.” Indeed, we call an apostolate “every activity of the Mystical Body” that aims "to spread the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth.*
And:
CCC 2442 It is not the role of the Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political structuring and organization of social life. This task is part of the vocation of the lay faithful, acting on their own initiative with their fellow citizens. Social action can assume various concrete forms. It should always have the common good in view and be in conformity with the message of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. It is the role of the laity "to animate temporal realities with Christian commitment, by which they show that they are witnesses and agents of peace and justice.
I don’t believe these extracts support your position. They indicate that we can all find our vocation in the mission that God gives us to evangelise and show Christian charity to others, which can be accomplished by many different types of praxis or profession.
I carried out a search of the catechism using the term ‘vocation’ and found nothing to suggest that it was a concept employed in a definitely singular way. Please indicate the sections that do so, if I missed them. Unlike the magisterium, I’m not infallible.
That’s quite a bold assertion, predicated - rather uncharitably - on the idea that those people here who don’t agree with you are acting in bad faith by being ‘PC’. Perhaps in all conscience they just don’t see it your way.
There are several religious contributing to this thread. Your response is to accuse them of watering down their own status in life because of political correctness.
Perhaps one of the reasons that there are so few priests and religious today - or at least so few here on CAF - is because very often so little charity is shown by one person to another, and also because there are too many cases where simple opinions are cited as though they were dogmatic truths, with those who disagree being somehow cast in the role of being unfaithful to the magisterium and to God. This is a very unattractive kind of ecclesiology by which to encourage people into a lifelong commitment.
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CWBetts
Guest
Everyone does have a vocation. I read article 1533, and as it says we all have a vocation to holiness and the mission to evangelize. This is not limited to the priesthood and religious life.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
I do not read 1533 to say what you say it says.
For me it says that everyone within the Church has a vocation.
I also fail to see how we have “gotten off topic”.
The topic is vocations and what they are. Everyone has a vocation, they may chose not to follow it but they have one.
People have always had two, as you put it but for me it is one for that person, vocations.
There have always been married priests within the Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, there are, as have also been pointed out, the religious priesthood.
Care to comment on those? and why you seem them as wrong?
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Mrs_Sally
Guest
Something else to consider about married permenant deacons is that the Church, in her wisdom, expects the wife to go through all the trianing and discernment that the husband does. So if so ways, this is one vocation for two people. Even though the deacon’s wife is not ordained in anyway and does not have any official role within the Church, she is still expected to do this. I imagine the same would be true for the wives of Anglican or Luthern men who convert and are called to the priesthood within the Catholic church. Does anyone know if similar expectations are placed on the wife of an Orthodox or Eastern Catholic priest?
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envchemist
Guest
As a spouse of a Deacon—it’s not easy. They have the demands of house and work and Church. But it’s a vocation because you have been CALLED. My Priest made a really important statement I think that will live with me the rest of my life. " When God asks you to do something, he gives you the graces and ability to do it." Sometimes also the courage to step out when you (both) are fearful. One other very important thing is that both of you must love the Lord **more than each other **so that sacrificing the time of the husband becomes an act of love. Just my 2 cents.
The Deaconate IS NOT my vocation, although I do help my husband when asked. Because I am so strongly extroverted, I tend to wait to be asked because the Lord has called my husband not me. Some of us are fortunate enough to go to classes. I could not because we had an elementary school child. Even if I had gone-I would not consider this my vocation.
Nydia
The Deaconate IS NOT my vocation, although I do help my husband when asked. Because I am so strongly extroverted, I tend to wait to be asked because the Lord has called my husband not me. Some of us are fortunate enough to go to classes. I could not because we had an elementary school child. Even if I had gone-I would not consider this my vocation.
Nydia
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