Vocation is never entitlement.
This is something I want women in particular to hear. Please hear it.
When I accepted the Catholic Church’s teaching on the ministerial priesthood, I did not suddenly become useless.
God had not erased decades of experience.
My ability to teach did not disappear.
My desire to communicate the Gospel did not vanish.
My writing did not become worthless.
My theological study did not suddenly cease to matter.
Instead, I had to ask a much more difficult question:
Lord, how do You want these gifts used within Your Church?
That is a radically different question from:
How can I make the Church give me the role I believe I deserve?
The first is discernment.
The second can easily become entitlement.
And vocation is never entitlement.
Catholic Tradition Gives Us Extraordinary Examples
The history of the Church is filled with people whose influence cannot be measured by ecclesiastical office.
Think of St Catherine of Siena.
She was not ordained.
Yet she advised popes, challenged corruption and became one of the great spiritual teachers of Christianity.
Think of St Teresa of Ávila.
She was not a priest.
Yet her writings on prayer continue to form Christians centuries after her death.
Think of St Thérèse of Lisieux.
She died at only twenty-four years old, having lived a hidden life in a Carmelite monastery.
By worldly standards, her “platform” was almost non existent.
Today she is a Doctor of the Church.
And think of St Hildegard of Bingen—abbess, writer, visionary, composer and teacher.
These women did not need priestly ordination for their lives to become extraordinarily fruitful.
The Church eventually bestowed upon these women one of the highest teaching honours she can give:
Doctor of the Church.
Their lives tell us something our achievement-obsessed culture desperately needs to hear:
Fruitfulness is not the same thing as status.
God Often Calls the Unlikely
St Paul understood this.
He reminded the Corinthians:
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:27)
That verse destroys the myth that God’s kingdom depends upon impressive people.
Christianity began with fishermen, tax collectors and ordinary men and women transformed by encountering Jesus Christ.
Mary herself provides the supreme example of receptive vocation.
At the Annunciation she does not present Gabriel with her qualifications.
She says:
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
There is the heart of vocation.
Here I am.
I belong to God.
Let His will be done.
For a more in depth theology on this teaching follow this link to My Sub Stack
https://paularoseparish.substack.com
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