Category: VOCATION

  • “A common misconception in people early in their vocation is that they think they should be capable of the work before they’ve done it—when it is doing the work that creates the individual that is capable of it.”

    — WE REACH OUR IDEALS THROUGH THE WORK, JOEL UILI

  • No one can be fully known to the world, regardless of his/her accomplishments and even when the accomplishments are prominent, the soul remains unknown. Although we are insignificant, we still have an inner realization that we are extremely valuable. In reality, this self-realization can only be known through God. The self searches for validation and waits to be fully known. This cannot be achieved in the world.

    The Lord’s Prayer
    Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away. Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put together.

    Work
    Hugh Black

  • The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not those who belong to the “more perfect state,” but those who love and suffer most. This is why they can move ahead of so many others whose lives, apparently, were more successful.

    VIRGINITY
    A Positive Approach to Celibacy for the Sake of the Kingdom of Heaven
    Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

  • the man who is born with enough to live upon is generally of a somewhat independent turn of mind; he is accustomed to keep his head up; he has not learned all the arts of the beggar; perhaps he even presumes a little upon the possession of talents which, as he ought to know, can never compete with cringing mediocrity; in the long run he comes to recognize the inferiority of those who are placed over his head, and when they try to put insults upon him, he becomes refractory and shy. This is not the way to get on in the world.

    The Wisdom of Life
    Arthur Schopenhauer

  • The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess, and accordingly to follow such pursuits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other; consequently, to choose the position, occupation and manner of life which are most suitable for their development.
    …

    Imagine a man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got—compelled, that is, to leave unused the powers in which he is pre-eminently strong; a man placed like this will never feel happy all his life through.

    The Wisdom of Life
    Arthur Schopenhauer

  • Do whatever falls to your hands, in your circle and in your situation– and believe that this is and will be your true work; nothing more from you is expected.

    …
    It is a great error to think that you must undertake important and great labours, whether for heaven, or, as the progressives think, in order to make one’s contribution to humanity.

    …
    That is not necessary at all. It is necessary only to do everything in accordance with the Lord’s commandments.

    …
    Just exactly what is to be done? Nothing in particular, just that which presents itself to each one according to the circumstances of his life, and which is demanded by the individual events with which each of us meets.

    —St. Theophan the Recluse, The Spiritual Life

  • Do not consider great the missionary to Africa or the significant inventor. Great is the little person who forbears the madness, the injustice, the persecution, the pain of his neighbor and of his own life.

    —Monk Moses the Athonite

  • We seldom fully realize that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we have to choose how, where, and with whom to live. We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide how to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do. These tasks may be very specialized, or they may be the general task of loving one another in everyday life.

    —Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life

  • “What does God want from me?” is a question we all ask, not once and for all but throughout our lives. Should I get a job or go back to school, get ordained or do lay ministry, teach or preach, work in another country or closer to home, get married or stay single, have a family or join a community? There are many facets to a life fully committed to God’s will and way. What I tell others who ask these questions, and remind myself with surprising conviction, is this: “God has a very special role for you to fulfill. God wants you to stay close to his heart and to let him guide you. You will know what you are called to do when you have to know it.” New vocations are full of promise. Something very important is in store for us. There is a hidden treasure to discover.

    —Henri Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life