Last weekend I shared with you the opening sentence of the prologue of St. Benedict's Rule for the Benedictine Order:
“Listen carefully… to the Master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”
How appropriate is it, then, that we hear the following in today's first reading from Isaiah:
“The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.” (Is 50:5)
Other translations read, “I did not refuse, did not turn away.”
The scripture commentary on this verse from Isaiah interprets this as follows: “The servant, like a well-trained disciple, does not refuse the divine vocation.”
Is this a coincidence that we have this reading and interpretation in light of last week's Gospel reading and our discernment of vocations? I think not! In the Scripture and Gospel we are given today, I see the hand of God at work, leading us to the next steps in discernment and following of God’s call.
So, the ears of our hearts are opened by Christ, and we begin to hear his call to vocation. And perhaps we begin to take the steps forward in response, our “Yes” to God’s call. And yes, there are consolations of joy, peace, and life-giving communion in doing God’s will. I recall the early years of my own vocational call, a time which I now describe as “falling in love with God.” But it doesn’t mean that it's all easy and filled with consolations of the Holy Spirit. In fact, what does Jesus say in the Gospel?
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
Jesus doesn't say, “Grab your duffle bag and follow me.” He doesn’t say, “Don your well-fitted backpack and follow me.” No, he says to “take up your cross” – and what is the cross but none other than a heavy instrument of suffering! In order to follow Him, Jesus instructs us that we are to work and to struggle to bear this cross – and yes, at times, to suffer.
We struggle and suffer in a myriad of ways: some ordinary, some profound; some private, some public. We tend to think of suffering as associated with the pain of loss of a loved one or with physical afflictions. Sometimes it is; some times, though, it's the struggle and suffering associated with the loss of a former way of life – the letting go of something that we’ve held onto, and/or that’s holding onto us, and holding us back from Christ’s call to a “divine vocation” to become who God created us to be.
This is important to acknowledge and discuss, because it is in the midst of these struggles and sufferings that we may be tempted to turn away from that vocational call: to rebel, to refuse, to turn back to a former way of life. The question is not whether we will have these temptations – we will – or how do we avoid these moments of temptation – ultimately we can’t – but rather, how do we respond to them? These temptations are opportunities for a deepening of our faith in Jesus, for relinquishing control and placing our lives in God’s hands, for emptying out of ourselves for the grace of God to fill us and act in our lives. This was a hard lesson that I had to learn in responding to my vocational call to be a deacon.
Halfway through the year of discernment in my diaconal formation, the director of formation announced, completely unexpectedly, that we would be asked to start graduate courses nine months sooner than originally planned. This news hit me like an unexpected body blow, and I found myself reacting with a storm of anger brewing inside me. I wasn’t ready for this. It was too much, too fast. How could I keep up? I hadn’t even made the commitment to apply to be a deacon candidate, and now I had to start taking night classes. How would I manage the time, let alone the workload? I was afraid I couldn’t keep up and I was feeling overwhelmed. Immediately after making this announcement, we took a break. While washing my hands in the restroom of the retreat house where we were gathered, the storm of anger welled up and broke within me and I found myself exclaiming at the sink, “I can’t do this!” As I reached for the hand towel, my eyes were immediately drawn to a small ceramic tile on the wall next to the towel, upon which were inscribed the words, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13) Okay, God … in that moment, I was “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” I had to learn to trust God as I said “Yes” to God. My reaction of anger was one of holding onto control of my life when God was calling me to let go, and let the Holy Spirit lead me. Object lesson #1.
Like Peter in the Gospel passage we heard today, despite my previous object lesson, my faith and trust in God continued – how should I say – to have ‘growth opportunities’ throughout my diaconal call. In my second year of deacon candidacy, I recall reaching a point amidst the demands of the totality of my life – which now included this new, big thing called ministry and formation – where I found myself thinking over and over, this time not in anger but rather in resignation, “There is not enough of me to go around.” As I sat with this thought uncomfortably for some time, another thought crystallized in my head, seemingly not my own; a thought in response to my self-admission of perceived inadequacy. This thought informed me, “I will take what little of you there is, and it will be more than enough.”
Okay, God … once again I was “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Who was I to assume what God could do with me – any amount of me? Had I not been paying attention to the miracle of the five barley loaves and two fishes? Did I not see its relevance for me? This was the moment when I think I finally got it: that my worries, concerns, and understanding needed to be placed in God’s hands, not my own. It is a lesson that continues to be re-instructed to me, practiced and exercised yet today. I think that's what it means to be a practicing Christian on a journey of faith!
Sisters and brothers, a call to a ministerial vocation is also a call to trust more deeply in God, and who God calls us to be; to trust in God’s action in and through us and to Christ's call of us to ministry.
In this call to trust, would that we remember the simple prayer of the Divine Mercy Chaplet: “Jesus, I trust in you!”