"All vocations involve some form of being 'wedded' to another"

Dating is to Marriage what Seminary is to Priesthood
Rev. Brian Bashista, Director of the Office of Vocations
Arlington Catholic Herald, June 10, 2009

Our ultimate goal in life is to get to heaven, to become a saint. This call or invitation by God to be united with Him and one another forever in paradise is a universal call. However the way we live out this universal call is not universal. It varies according to the specific purpose or mission for which God has created each of us. This mission, simply put, is our vocation. . . .

Christ has called us all by name, our first name in fact, at our baptism to share His life, to share His mission of salvation. Therefore we all have a vocation. We are all called in some way to play a role in salvation history for love of Christ and His people. All vocations are therefore rooted in love because they are rooted in Christ. This love is sacrificial and self-less, in other words, it is Christ-like and other-directed. . . .

A vocation begins with Christ’s total gift of Himself to us and is then realized in our response to His gift, namely our total gift of ourselves to Him for the sake of others. . . . Love is not chosen, it is discovered and responded to. Properly speaking, someone does not choose another to marry but discovers, with the other, a mutually shared Christ-centered love that eventually leads to an invitation to enter sacramental marital love. The same is true for priesthood—one does not choose to become a priest, they discover with and through the Church, Christ’s invitation to be one of His priests. . . .

All vocations involve some form of being “wedded” to another. This union involves the offering of mutual love and support which then is open to bringing forth new life. For most men this wedded life will be freely entered into with a wife through the beautiful sacrament of marriage and the openness to father children through the order of nature. For other men, those who are called to be priests, this wedded life will be freely entered into with a “Supernatural Wife,” the Church -- his Spiritual Bride with whom he will father new sacramental life or supernatural children through the order of grace. It is vital that we discover our vocations. Our fulfillment, our blessedness, our salvation, and more importantly the salvation of others depend upon our acceptance of the mission, the vocation that Christ invites us to embrace. . . .

Once someone has sensed that God might be calling them to this vocation or the other, they must act upon these inspirations. Rather than resist the promptings they should move toward and act upon them. They should place these thoughts before the “other” to see if they are mutually shared. . . . It is as unrealistic for someone to be certain they will marry someone before they date them as it is for someone to be certain they are called to the priesthood before they enter the seminary. Dating is to marriage what seminary is to priesthood. Both are a type of courtship that leads to the discovery of where someone is truly called, or not called. . . . This discovery or discernment is a process of getting to know the other and responding positively to the love Christ is calling them to share. . . .

Fr. Bashista is the director of the Office of Vocations, Diocese of Arlington.
He can be reached at vocations@arlingtondiocese.org.
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