What are the "signs" that a particular vocation is for you?

welcome to pause for faith i think we are live to pause for faith just let me check the sound is coming through good nice to be with you to think this morning about the topic you've got it on the video there what are the signs that a particular vocation is for you excuse me the mic is rolling around here there we go what are the signs that a particular vocation is for you how do i know what god wants for me in general in fact some of these things i'm going to speak about today you can apply to lots of different areas of life especially when we're making a decision when we're discerning a bit more deeply but especially when we're making a big decision and trying to discover what god wants for us how does he show us what he wants how do we know i might know what i want in here in my heart sometimes that's not at all complicated i want this or that and i know it but how do i know what god wants how do i all this language how do i listen to him how do i see these signs and just to remind you if if you've just jumped into this video that this is part of a series and i've already given some time to thinking about what is the meaning of vocation what are some of the different vocations and we'll have some more time next week or later this week to look at what you can actually do about it let me read a lovely quotation from father pedro arupay who was um the the master general if that's the proper title of the the jesuit order father arupay said nothing is more practical than finding god that is than falling in love in a quite absolute final way what you are in love with what seizes your imagination will affect everything it will decide what you it will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning what you will do with your evenings how you spend your weekends what you read who you know what breaks your heart and what amazes you with joy and gratitude fall in love stay in love and it will decide everything lovely quotation about loving another person but it's a much bigger quotation isn't it it's about anything that catches our heart that that we love truly and deeply and for father rupe falling in love with god and falling in love with what he's calling us to and to our vocation just to remind you that the word discernment is used to describe the whole process by which we listen to god and listen to our own hearts it's about gradually coming to know who god is calling us to be and where he is leading us so it's not just what job does god want me to be to do it's about who i am who is god calling me to be i am his beloved child and he's he's helping me to grow and he's shaping my life it's not something we just decide to do one afternoon like i'm gonna bake a cake or i'm gonna watch a film the discernment of anything and especially the discernment of our vocation is a journey that involves patience honesty perseverance generosity courage and a sense of humor it's a very personal journey but hopefully it will also involve trusted friends people we know and love and trust and eventually the wider christian community we don't do it alone and within all our discerning what we're trying to do is not just banging on the table telling jesus what we want we're trying to hear the invitation of jesus christ to follow him in a particular way and to become the person he wants us to be all these lovely stories in the bible about jesus calling people to follow him i guess the most obvious one is the the apostles the disciples peter and andrew james and john in their boat washing their nets just come back from the fishing on the shore and jesus calls them after him to follow him now straight away i hope you're thinking okay god calls us to do something calls in inverted commas does this mean that one day we will literally hear a voice telling us what to do wouldn't that be nice how many people have said to me if only god would just simply tell me yeah send me an email write me a letter speak to me in a dream if he would just tell me then i'd be very happy to do it and sometimes sometimes god does speak to us in clear and dramatic ways it does happen really powerful unexpected calls that seem to come out of nowhere the lord speaking to us in prayer or through circumstances and just we get a clarity it doesn't mean we're sure about it because that needs to be tested then and discerned still but we get a kind of clarity that really points us in a certain direction sometimes but more often much more often god speaks to us in ordinary ways he guides us just to summarize what i'm going to say in two main ways through the deepest desires of our hearts calling us from within and the events and circumstances of our lives calling us from without so there's an inner call my my longings my desires my yearnings my passions and there's an outer call circumstances people life opportunities and when the inner and the outer call come together and when that's confirmed then by the church this is when we really begin to to focus and get clarity of about our vocation and in fact i'd really like to do if we have time some some particular sessions on the signs of a call to marriage the signs of a call to priesthood and the consecrated life and etc i think that's worth spending some time on but now i'm just going to list some of the different ways that god can guide us and pull us or push us he nudges us in different ways so really this is just a splurge a big long list of some of the things that we should be listening out for and it might be true of small choices as i say this is under the heading of vocation but we can discern very small things yeah what am i going to do this week what how do i make this decision how do i respond to this conversation it might be a medium-sized thing like a career move it might be a huge thing like a lifelong commitment and a lifelong vocation the assumption here is in in me speaking to you that you're trying to know god's will for you i don't mean you're a saint yes most of us are very attached to things and we want our own way but in your faith as in your life as a christian you're praying the lord's prayer and in the lord's prayer every day we say thy will be done so as a christian you are trying to listen for what god wants to trust that what god wants will be good for you and ultimately will mesh with what's deep in your heart so he's not a slave driver he's not trying to trick you into something that's wrong for you but as i say the assumption is you're not just trying to impose your will on god that's not discernment we do that sometimes and sometimes i'm sure the lord forgives us and he can write straight with crooked lines but but this is not about us banging the table telling god what to do it's us trying to listen to god's will to listen to the stirrings of the holy spirit and that you want this is my assumption to try to respond generously when you do hear it's about a relationship with the lord who loves you and please don't over analyze your life you don't need to look for conclusive signs in every mood or event this can become an obsession especially for devout christians there's a there's a slight danger here it can become an obsession discerning like reading the tea leaves or the horoscopes the signs when i use the word sign i don't mean a superstitious message i mean simply things that point us in a certain direction and help us think and listen to what are the possibilities for us in other words they are things to pay attention to to listen to and then to think this is the real discernment what do they mean you see the difference yeah you might have a passionate desire to do something well listen to it this is one of my lists desire listen to that but but you have to listen and say what does it mean you might have fallen in love with someone and long to marry them well that's definitely something to to listen to but you don't actually know what it means until you know where that relationship is going and if there even is a relationship yes you fall in love with a film star or something well that's not going to get you anywhere unless you actually have a living relationship with someone so there are signs there are things we need to listen to pay attention to but the question is what do they mean and when we stand back and take a look at the big picture is there a pattern emerging the different things that are speaking to me is there a pattern that's emerging is it pulling or pushing me in a certain direction does it add up that's a phrase we use sometimes isn't it does it add up to something right here's my list it's long a dozen things here so this isn't simple it's not a checklist this is just in case you don't do this automatically here are some things that you need to pay attention to and listen to and look out for and you can write a little don't do this every day you can sit down with a piece of paper if you like now and then and go through this list and think what what are these different areas mean to me here are some of the things to listen out for and pay attention to and they might be the lord opening up something for you and speaking to you first desire and attraction here you are sitting there listening to this video watching me live you're with me i'm asking you what do you really care about what's your deepest desires and your attractions don't even need the word deep just what you care about back to that quote from father arupay what do you love what do you feel passionate about what would you love to commit yourself to what do you feel pulled towards even if you can't explain it our desire this is obvious in marriage isn't it yet just we we fall in love um it might happen very suddenly love at first sight it might be slow burning and grow out of a friendship and kind of take you by surprise it's not the only element in making a decision about marriage at all not at all yeah but it's it's fundamentally important the love the attraction the desire for your potential future spouse but it's true for religious life for priesthood for the permanent diaconate for consecrated life for different committed forms of single life is is there a love a longing if there's not you'll never be happy and if there's none at all it's surely not for you um i mean god okay i'm getting ahead of myself desire and attraction is a key thing next heading admiration admiration which people do you admire the most is it because of who they are or what they stand for or what they do what is it about them and their vocation that you have been attracted to what does it stir up in your own heart when you think of the people you know around you who would you most like to be when you think of the saints from the past who inspire you most this isn't necessarily the main thing but but it's it can tell us a lot about ourselves the people we look up to and and we want to emulate so admiration and desire and attraction they can they can be connected next enjoyment enjoyment what do you like doing and i don't just mean your leisure activities or fun but what kind of work and activities do you enjoy most what brings the best out of you and gives you satisfaction at the end of a hard day enjoyment it's not an infallible sign but it it says something to us and it connects with a next area of skills skills what are you good at what are your gifts and skills and aptitudes and i don't just mean your academic or professional qualifications although those might be relevant but your gifts of character and personality as well everything you are your your mental intellectual gifts your personality gifts the gifts of your heart the gifts of the way you you relate to people the things you love doing with your your mind your your heart your tongue your hands how could you best use all of this how could you use it and and how can god bless the world through you he's made you in a certain way again it doesn't mean if you're good at maths you have to become a mathematician if you're good at engineering you have to become an engineer if you're a great artist you have to become an artist it doesn't mean that but just part of the listening of oh where is my life going and the bigger question i wonder what vocation god has for me is he wants to use your gifts now here's a different heading what do you value what do you value not just desire not just you're good at but of all the many things that you are interested in and good at and passionate about of the different projects and careers and vocations that you're interested in which of them do you think are truly worthwhile because what you think is truly worth what not just fun and i'm good at it but what is truly worthwhile that will say something to you what do you think is not just a waste of time but is really changing the world what do you believe in do you see what you want to prepare to promote and i don't just mean you have to choose the charitable the work in the the charitable sector it's great to work in the charity sector but just i don't mean that in kind of objective worldly terms you have to do what appears to be good and worthwhile and selfless and self-giving i mean what you really see as being worthwhile it might be something in the world it might be something very ordinary we have to believe in what we're doing not just because god's called us but because we can see so he might call us from from sideways sometimes but we've got to believe in what we're doing if you get married you've got to care about loving your husband or wife and and long to to build a family and believe that that marriage and family are something worth living for and worth dying for you have to believe in marriage and family and not just fall in love with an individual could you imagine falling in love with someone and not actually wanting to build a marriage and family together and then if you got married it will go pear-shaped because you don't have the same commitment to this wonderful vocation and this project if you like marriage is bigger than just falling in love priesthood is bigger than just wanting to be a priest it's wanting and caring passionately about the things that priests do because you think they're really worthwhile and important next heading events and circumstances so we're looking a bit um outwards here it's not just what's in my heart sometimes an opportunity comes up unexpectedly and you want to make the most of it think of careers and jobs yeah we we've got this tidy career and then we get a job offer from from nowhere and we think oh that looks interesting it wasn't planned or you're not quite sure how it will fit into the rest of your life but you feel an instinctive enthusiasm a door opens and you think wow i could just seize the day sometimes though events i don't mean a surprising event we are just waiting on events we're just waiting yeah we've we've done an exam and we're waiting for the results we've gone for a job interview and we're waiting for our feedback we've we've gone for a medical and we're waiting for the medical results i've just had this this weekend literally i'm not telling you anything confidential here i'm the vocations director in westminster diocese and we've just had two weekends in fact a weekend of interviews for the men who were applying to be priests in westminster diocese and then on saturday they met the cardinal and then the cardinals as the bishop with after consulting with the the selection conference and and his auxiliaries and me and so it's a great team effort of discerning with the men and with the the those people advising but ultimately the bishop makes the decision um and and these men after their interviews they're waiting to hear from the bishop yeah they've listened to their hearts and the people around them but they're now they're listening to what the bishop says so it's my job to ring them up and i'm not going to tell you where these conversations have gone because that's very confidential i'm just speaking generally and sometimes we have to wait on circumstances the the lord opens doors and he closes them sometimes through the ordinary events of life through the decisions that others make and through the concrete situations we're in we can trust in god's providence this is really important you can trust that god is guiding you through the circumstances and again i don't mean every sign is something to follow i just mean if there is a brute fact of providence we have to trust that that this is god's will um if if you ask someone to marry you and they say no and then six months later they're married to someone else it's heartbreaking i'm not i'm kind of half joking but i've i know many people who've been in this situation and it's heartbreaking but look the circumstances have have conspired to say this is not the path for you the lord has another path events the lord has spoken to you through events and circumstances and even if their circumstances and events you didn't want if they're quite clearly providence reality then it's to trust that this is god's will really come again all the parables and the the parallels um if someone is sick um it's tough it's really tough but just to to trust the lord to to pray to get better to seek all the help we can to get better it's not to become passive but just in this moment here i am sick to try and be trusting and accepting and trust god's providence and it's true of so many circumstances the lord is leading you he is more powerful than all the other forces it doesn't mean we are as it were at the mercy of circumstances it means we are in god's loving providential hands and one of the ways he speaks to us is through the events around us and the yeses and the knows we get from other people from relationships from the church and the doors that open and the doors that close this is part of the way we learn another heading of how the lord can touch our lives is through other people other people if people encourage you in a particular decision or way of life if they believe in you this can be a sign can be not always sometimes other people can see your own potential more clearly than you can yourself you might be afraid or lacking confidence but they can see the possibilities and they can encourage you to go in one direction or perhaps discourage you from going in another it's good to talk to people that you know well people that you trust friends family teachers priests the right person i don't mean go and splurge to everyone but one or two people that you trust with faith so they've got a god perspective on things they're solid christians and you trust them so to talk to one or two people and i don't mean you have to have a spiritual director and see them every month for a year although that's very wonderful for some people at a certain time whatever decision you're making however you're discerning please don't make the decision on your own completely if you're about to apply for seminary join a religious order propose to someone make sure you've sounded this out with at least one or two people you trust because they might have another perspective they might just confirm you and it's great to hear someone say yeah i can hear you but other people can also get things wrong yes this is not infallible they can become over enthusiastic yeah the number of times i've had young men say to me oh every time i sit in the church three people come up to me and say oh you know you should think about being a priest well maybe one in ten of them will become a priest and i've had people tell me that this has been part of the vocation story but it's not true for everyone i'm sure there's people in churches praying and every single time a young person comes a young man comes into the church they go and say hey you know the lord said i think you should be a priest so we mustn't listen infallibly to everyone but we should be encouraged and we should certainly listen but not uncritically and back to desire this is a little bit more subtle i'm becoming a bit more spiritual now obviously this is part of it it's not just these external things you might have an inner conviction an inner conviction that's just a feeling a sense that something is right for you almost like an unshakable knowledge of who you are and what is important for you so this is more than just a desire or an attraction it's like a a deep understanding part of your identity it might have been with you for as long as you can remember or it might have dawned slowly or it might have come in prayer as a kind of grace and inspiration these inner convictions they're not infallible we might be wrong and they might be put need purifying or they might change direction but it's certainly something we should listen to if you just have a deep deep feeling that this is what you should do certainly listen to it the lord speaks to us of course in ordinary prayer ordinary prayer when you are praying and talking to god and asking his help or just sitting in silence do certain ideas keep coming back to you when you can let go of your distractions for a moment and open your heart to god in prayer it can allow your deepest concerns to come to the surface and the lord can speak to you again i don't mean voices i just mean you're praying you're listening you're trying to be open to yourself and to the lord and just a feeling comes or an idea comes to mind or a memory or a con your conscience speaking to you or just something seems to come to the surface and when you reflect on it later it seems important for you this could be an inspiration from the holy spirit again it's not infallible but it can be the holy spirit nudging our heart and our mind and and we come back to it then we test it we talk to someone about it we see if it's still there a week later and if it is and if it's growing maybe the lord is speaking and particularly through the scriptures through the bible when you're reading the bible alone or listening to a scripture passage at mass sometimes a phrase can strike you with unexpected force a passage that you've read many times can seem really clear and powerful or it moves you or challenges you or you just think wow this this is meant for me you feel sometimes as if god is speaking to you personally and directly through the words of the bible or through a sermon or through a talk and this is another way that the spirit can inspire and guide you a nudge something stirs in your mind or your heart again just to listen to it i'm speaking about prayer about ordinary listening inspirations holy scripture sometimes the lord does speak to us through extraordinary experiences sometimes but not often sometimes the lord does speak to us almost like a voice or we can see something or we can have a dream and it just feels very significant and it doesn't feel like um we're going mad it just seems very peaceful and and genuine and just the lord touches our mind or heart or steps into our life and it can happen all i'd say is it's rare and when if we have something that feels like a spiritual experience an ordinary experience we have to be very sensitive and careful because we can deceive ourselves we should listen to it but we should pray about it we should never take it as infallible because we can be very mistaken and we can be tripped up by these experiences and we should talk about them i would say with a wise christian if we know a priest we can talk to so that we've got an outside perspective and and we we don't just become the judge of our own experiences we shouldn't trust experiences infallibly but we should be open to whatever is happening in our spiritual lives and what we shouldn't do this is a kind of default rule is we shouldn't pray for extraordinary experiences we should pray for god to guide us in whatever way he wants and normally that's in normal ways that i've been talking about ordinary ways and finally i've kind of said this about circumstances but my final heading is realism you have to be realistic you have many desires and dreams but they must grow out of who you are and what is possible so yes you should have ambition and really want to do the best and and follow your dreams but your thoughts about the future should be rooted in the reality of your life and your situation i'm not saying you're defined by your weaknesses and you give up at the first hurdle but just it takes an ability to dream and a realism and when we put the dreaming and the longing and the desiring and the realism and the solid listening to life and to god's providence then we're in a good place so to summarize god can speak to us in all these different ways life is not like a crossword or a sudoku puzzle where we have to analyze every clue and come up with an answer we just have to get on with life doing the best we can listening to god in all these different ways paying attention to these different areas and out of all of this this this big splurge of things you can't do all this in a day yet we're just generally open and listening out of all of this sometimes a pattern emerges something strikes us with a new force or we just begin to see the picture to use one metaphor or we find that we just keep being pulled in a certain direction to use another metaphor a sense of meaning a big picture a constant pull if that's happening over time with my heart with the circumstances affirmed by people i trust affirmed by my prayer then that's definitely something we should look into again it doesn't give a conclusion conclusion because we might really discern and decide this is the next step we must take and then find that it doesn't work out but if all these things are coming together and pointing in one direction it's definitely something to look into and explore and that's where i'll end do i know enough to say this could be my vocation there's a lot of signs pointing to this this is the picture that's emerging this is the direction i feel pulled in if that's the case then it's to be a bit more proactive in exploring it in looking into it in pushing at the door if it's about marriage it's about thinking well how can i meet someone if if it's about this person it's about how to go forward with them if it's exploring the priesthood then it's to speak to the vocations director if it's thinking about religious life then it's to go and look at and visit some religious communities or consecrated communities the discerning takes us to a point of proactively looking and exploring and that's all i've got us to now what we do next is another talk but i hope all of this has helped you a little bit to think about what is god saying to me and what what things can i look out for and what do i need to listen to good thanks for being with me um i'll put some links on the video commentary description here and i hope we'll have a nice little series about some different topics under the heading of vocation and discernment take care

Channel: Pause for Faith

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Length: 34min 1sec (2041 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 13 2020