WISDOM 18: 6-9
PSALM 32: 1, 12, 18-20, 22
HEBREWS 11: 1-2, 8-19
LUKE 12: 32-48
Today is the last day of the National Vocation Awareness Week. The Australian Church invites us this week to discern God’s call to each of us. How are we to do that?
Vocation is about God calling us to serve Him and the Good News in the world today. Today we are bombarded with so much happening in our lives that it can deafening. Amidst all that is happening, it can be difficult to hear God speaking to us. The business of life and the placing of importance on material things and wealth can make us deaf to God speaking to us.
In our second reading, Abraham is presented to us as one who heard God’s Word and responded to that Word. An important way to be open to God speaking to us is the need to withdraw from the business and desires of our lives and just be with God in reflection and prayer. In this way we surrender ourselves to God. This was what Abraham and Sarah did.
Often too we want to do things for God rather than let God tell us what He wants to do for us.We can so easily become self-centered and not God centered.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus calls us to seek the ways of God and His Kingdom. Some people would like to keep their work and private life separate from their spiritual life. This cannot be, Jesus says.
Wherever we are, whatever we do, we must be at God’s work. Jesus is saying that our faith in God should affect every aspect of our lives. It is in discerning God’s will in our daily routine that we can see and hear more clearly God’s call to us in life. Only in this way can we be ready for the Lord when he comes knocking.
It is one thing to hear God’s call though and another to respond to that call. Abraham followed God’s call to leave his home because of God’s promise to him. He could not see the total fruits of that promise but it was in following God’s Word in trust that he came to understand and what that promise meant.
Some people want full certainty before they are prepared to follow. But the knowing can only come with the journey;………..and the relationship with God become real through trust.
Sometimes people can get disillusioned with their effort to follow God. They may not be able to see the fruits of their expectation. As Jesus tells us in the Gospel, like Abraham again, we will only see clearly if we are focused on God and not ourselves. We may not see what we would like to see but we will see what God chooses to do through us.
On another level let us reflect too on how we have responded to God’ call as a parish. How have we as a parish tried to be witness for God.
And so today in this last day of our Vocations week, let us make our lives an offering to God, that God’s will may be our will and that God’s work may be done through us.
Merredin Catholic Parish 