VOCATION, A JOURNEY TOWARDS ONE'S FATE.

June 26, 2022.
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – C.

Readings: 1 Kgs 19:16b, 19-21; Ps 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; Gal5:1, 13-18; Lk 9:51-62.

An Ivorian proverb says: “When a tortoise embarks on a journey he does not ask for directions, because he does not want his enemies to know where he is going.” And a Japanese proverb adds: “Life is a long journey with a heavy bag on its back.”

Vocation is a journey. The specificity of this journey is that it is undertaken after a call and it leads to one's fate. We all have a singular call that changes the course of our lives and determines our future. Someone said, when God calls, nobody can say no. The Holy Bible, in that sense, is filled with vocation stories. Many of them are quite very explicit, while some others are suspicious and mysterious.

The readings, on this thirteenth Sunday in the Ordinary time, bring us on to journey in some vocation stories with their specificities and their aims. In the first reading, we have the calling of Elisha. The Lord sent his Prophet Elijah to go and anoint Elisha as a prophet after him, to take his place. One beautiful and very relevant element in this calling is that the call of God meets the one who is called where he is and in what he is doing, and it changes the course of our life. We read that Elisha was plowing twelve acres with his pairs of oxen. It is then, while busy at work on the farm, that God, through Elisha called him. The answer of the young man was, "I will follow you..." Not so much with a condition, but with a request to be allowed to say goodbye to his father and mother. Then Elisha left everything and followed the Prophet as his attendant.

The Gospel speaks of the vocation of every Christian, rooted in the Vocation of Christ. It is a call to ascend to Jerusalem and face all types of trials and tribulations. The Christian life is a journey we undertake with the Lord. It is not made only of triumphs and glories. Rather, it passes through many hardships.

I watched some few days ago a short video of a pastor telling in what consists of our following of Christ. She said that we should stop letting ourselves be deceived by people preaching a gospel without suffering. Some tell their followers that once you embrace the life after Christ you will no longer know tribulations. They promise fortune; social and economic stability to the jobless, marriage and children to women longing for it, peace, harmony, prosperity, and so on. The reality is that those things, the none Christians have them and even more. The most richest people in the world are not Christians, and they have not gotten their riches through praying. The people in higher authority have nothing to do with the Bible and some of them even do not care about religion. So, if you came to Christian life because of prosperity, children, marriage, family, peace... great will be your deception. For, what Christ promises is the cross and all the tribulations that go with it.

Ascending to Jerusalem, Luke says, the Lord was resolute. He knew what was awaiting him there, the Passion, the Cross, and Death. But he accepted to go at the encounter it. Here is what it means to be Christian. To be resolved with the Lord and to go before and meet our daily tribulations and difficulties.

On the way of the Lord to Jerusalem, we have some stories of vocation. Some were willing to follow him: “I will follow you wherever you go.” Others were hesitant: “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” And some others with personal agenda first: “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” In these three cases, we have some lessons as well for you and me. To follow the Lord is to give away all personal projects, to take the risk of abandoning all that is dear to us, even parents and friends, and to be assured of no possessions or properties. If hardship has to keep you away from following the Lord you are not yet Christian. If kinship has to keep you away from following the Lord you are not a good Christian. And if dream of a brighter future has to keep you away from following the Lord you cannot also be a Christian. For, following the Lord calls for greater sacrifices: Family, position, possession, and personal interests. Like Jesus, we all must show signs of resolution and be determined to go after him for the Jerusalem of our present sufferings. And it is only at that cost will we be made worthy of a future glorification.

As says St. Paul in the second reading, the Lord alone can set us free from all that enslaves us and constitute a hindrance to our “Sequela”. In Jesus, we are all called to freedom. This must start from the freedom from the flesh and its desires, freedom from worldliness and material, and freedom to serve and love in the Spirit. In the Lord Jesus, Paul says, we are all called to live by the Spirit and not under the law and the dictatorship of the flesh. Brethren, let us make ourselves free to follow the Lord. For, as his disciples, we are no longer bound by any law, except the Law of Love. In everything, our vocation is to love and serve the Lord in loving and serving our brothers and sisters.


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