Pope Francis on Vocation, a Call to Mission

[[ “All of us are called to share in Christ’s mission to reunite a fragmented humanity and to reconcile it with God. Each man and woman, even before encountering Christ and embracing the Christian faith, receives with the gift of life a fundamental calling: each of us is a creature willed and loved by God; each of us has a unique and special place in the mind of God. At every moment of our lives, we are called to foster this divine spark, present in the heart of every man and woman, and thus contribute to the growth of a humanity inspired by love and mutual acceptance. We are called to be guardians of one another, to strengthen the bonds of harmony and sharing, and to heal the wounds of creation lest its beauty be destroyed.”]] Pope Francis on Vocations

I was asked recently about the charism or gift-quality of a particular vocation. I should also have written a bit about mission, the idea that each of us is sent by God with a particular mission. As a hermit I recognize what another diocesan hermit spoke of as being sent into the hermitage to seek and live the silence of solitude (that is, to live life with God alone), but mission is something every person is given by God. That certainly includes those with secular vocations --- especially when the secularity they are called to is a sacred or eschatological secularity where God more and more is allowed to become All in All.

Pope Francis' comments above speak very clearly to the importance of each and every such vocation. It is especially poignant now that we are beginning to recognize that the perfection or fulfillment of creation is ahead of us, not behind; we have not fallen away from this perfection. God draws us on towards it and Godself. We know now that we are part of an incredibly huge cosmic drama where the universe is evolving towards greater and greater complexity and intelligibility. Human beings, not just Religious, or consecrated, or ordained persons, but human beings as such are part of this evolution and responsible for helping drive it forward in response to the God who summons it into the absolute future which is Godself.