Home

Greetings to All

It’s amazing how the days are passing and to think that we’re in Lent already is certainly an indicator of either our ageing process or how much we are caught up in the busyness of life.

Here in the CVMA Office we still receive a few enquiries about vocation and discernment. We intent to address all of these in some shape or form over the next few months, especially as we head towards Good Shepard Sunday (17th April 2016).

There is much that can be said and shared about vocation, not only to priesthood and religious life but vocation in general, that is a response to live life according to your full potential and your desire in terms of your responding to God’s desires.

Just as a start might I suggest that if people are asking you anything about vocation you could share the following.

Read the passage of scripture from Isaiah 6:1-2A. 3-8 and from The Gospel of Luke 5:1-11.

The following then can be shared in view of the scripture readings.

KEY VERSE(S)

(Isa) “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips…yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” “Whom shall I send?” “Here I am…send me!” (Luke) “Depart from me, Lord for I am a single man.” Awe at the presence of God. Unequipped to do God’s work? Think again.

STARTER

You and a friend are crossing a parking lot. You trip over a parking bumper, fall and smash your face. Your arm is bent at a sickening angle, with bone protruding through the skin. Someone suddenly appears next to you, bends down and touches your face and arm. Immediately, there’s no blood, and nothing broken. The person anticipates your question and says, “Who am I? I think you know” – and disappears.

LEADING QUESTIONS

What would you feel if this miracle cure happened and why? Probe more deeply than simply “amazed.” How would you feel if, before the accident, you and your friend had been laughing about pornography, or planning to bully and unpopular classmate? Would you then understand and identify with Peter’s “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”? Do you feel called – personally – to do the Lord’s work? If not, for God’s sake (literally), why not?

DIRECTIONS TO EXPLORE

The Jewish belief that seeing God or being in God’s overwhelming presence would be fatal, somewhat like prolonged staring at the sun can kill eyesight. Erroneous extremes: a) God is so “other” as to be unapproachable. B) God is so infatuated with us that we can freely offend, ignore and disregard God – and it won’t make any difference. The breathtaking wonder that in spite of being infinitely ‘other,” God chose to become one of us to save us from ourselves. Our baptism, like the seraph’s ember that cleansed Isaiah, has made us worthy and empowered to do God’s work. The Lord is still saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”

I hope that this will be of help to you at this particular time. I will endeavour to tease these points out in another area on our website. At the moment I’m not quite sure where but the when will be hopefully very soon.

In conclusion could I simply say

It is not a special voice but the needs and imperfections of those around us that constitute a call to God’s service.

A special Reflection for Good Shephard Sunday 2020

On the days when I find myself doubting like Thomas, I need a community to tell me the stories again and to make them come alive, so that I can hear them afresh and perhaps once again come to proclaim, “My Lord and my God.” Liturgy gives me that gift.

Each time we gather to retell the stories and to enact our communal rituals of remembrance, we are there. We are in the crowd hoping for healing. We hear the Holy One say, ‘be not afraid.” We suddenly discover Jesus standing in our midst saying, “Peace be with you.” We are called to be agents of God’s forgiveness and mercy.

Through the gift of our imaginations and the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are present to those past events and those past events are present to us. We experience what Jews call zikkaron and we Christians call by the Greek word anamnesis.

We are connected. Space and time collapse. Physicists who ponder the mysteries of time and space might someday offer new insights into this experience. In the meantime, I shall simply give thanks. I am there…and so are you.

May we open ourselves up to the way God works in our lives.

Greetings to All

CVMA Executive