Vocations

[MelanieM]

Is it possible that someone can choose the wrong vocation? If so, can they still make it to heaven?

[DavidObeid]

Hi Melanie,

The word "vocation" means "calling", that is what we are called to be. We don't so much as choose a vocation as we respond to it.

I often tell people who ask me that your vocation is the thing you end up doing. If you are (or get) married, then marriage is your vocation, if you are (or become) a religious, then that is your vocation, if you (can be and) are (or become) a priest then that is your vocation. It is something that you answer the call to be.

So long as what you have chosen is a legitimate vocation then whatever vocation you find yourself in is never sinful.

That said, however, if God's call to a particular vocation is undeniable and you reject that call out of malice, then the malice (not the vocation choice/rejection) is a sin.

And contrary to my dearly departed Dad's constant jokes, it doesn't matter if you realise after marriage that you should have been a priest or religious, the fact that you are sealed in a particular vocation means that is what God's will is for you.

[God Is Love]

Speaking of vocations, i dont believe people do enough to inform or even guide young people in helping them to discern their vocation.... In also saying that it is also for the person to seek and try understand what God has planned for them (with necessary help).... What can we do to try and figure out God's plan for us? Ultimately we should want what God wants for us, cause he is the one that knows best.

God Bless
St Dominic, pray for us
Joyce Zeitouni

[DavidObeid]

Sounds like a good topic for a talk at Guardians Joyce. It's a little hard to give a proper answer to such a big question here.

[Aussieman]

Yes good question. I believe that perhaps I should have been a priest. I had experienced the holy spirit by this time and I felt a strong urge to be a priest. At the time I made my choice one of my big issues was that I didn't want to miss out on sex. I consider this a time when I let God down. I was refusing to have sex with my girlfriends. I told myself that If I got married and then God took my wife away from me then I would be a priest. I didn't stop to consider that I can't just make a deal with God by myself. So I joined the Police instead. My faith kept me safe physically but the mental cost was massive. I feel like I've been to war and have returned scarred and wounded.

Now i've been married for 11 years and have 2 beautiful daughters. I think now it would have been easier to be a good priest.
I sure could have used some more guidance when I was leaving school.

Dicko..

[Stephen Spiteri]

I also considered the priesthood after leaving high school, but I knew it in my heart that God wanted me to be a husband and a father and be the head of what Pope John Paul II referred to as the "domestic church". Like you, Aussieman, I feel that a bit more guidance during those high school years couldn't have hurt.