“He called us to follow the Lord and respond to our own vocation. Included in his understanding and explanation of what constitutes a vocation was Christian marriage and family life, alongside of priesthood, consecrated and religious life. He called us to all to be revolutionaries: God calls us to make definitive choices, and he has a plan for each of us: to discover that plan and to respond to our vocation is to move toward personal fulfilment. God calls each of us to be holy, to live his life, but he has a particular path for each one of us. Some are called to holiness through family life in the sacrament of Marriage.” Pope Francis.
Let me look into my heart and write.
Vocation… The word brings to mind priests and religious only. To think of my state as a response to a call seems a bit out of the ordinary! Images that prop up when I hear the word “vocation,” are cassocks, habits, scapular and the like…
When I come to think of it, I am still what I am, because I believe I am accountable, answerable to a God whose dream fulfilment my life is. Even before I had a face, He saw me; even before I was moulded, He knew I would be 5 feet 7 inches tall and a daughter-wife-mother-teacher in this role-specific set up. He alone knows the paths I am yet to tread. He sees the thoughts in my brain even before I think them.
Born as the eldest daughter into an aristocratic Catholic family with six kids, both parents being professionals, my childhood, adolescence and early youth were an almost uneventful smooth-sailing. God and religion were powerful influences but somehow never in the foreground. Jesus was a comfortable presence, but I can’t say with certitude that I had “unshakeable” faith etc. No big claims!
But stepping into the new set-up after marriage at the age of twenty-two, I felt the jolt. It was like being uprooted from familiar ground. The shade that I always had overhead was suddenly taken away and I withered under the ‘scorching sun’. It is then perhaps that I looked inwards to see the ever-present Consoler who had been patiently waiting for the moment when I would acknowledge that perennial cool shade and support. Difficulties, shocks, disappointments, misunderstandings, lost opportunities, friendlessness… problems stifled me from all directions. Now, as I look back, I acknowledge with all my heart that I traversed the rough patches just because I knew God was there showing the way, lighting my path, directing my steps. The seeds for this had been sown in my childhood.
Specifically to my call: Marriage is never what one expects it to be. I don’t think any wife or mother (or husband, for that matter) would disagree with me. It is all about ‘making it good.’ It is a constant and continuing exercise where one has to invest all that one is/has one hundred percent.
He never leaves me alone: When no one seems to listen, when efforts go unseen, when children fail to fathom the depth of the love and care lavished on them, when the partner fails to care enough to ask ‘What’s wrong? Are u tired?’ when appreciation never features in life’s journey, when things go wrong one after the other (partings, losses, sickness…), when one fails miserably, when one is lonely and desperate, I have found that there is ONE unfailing support that never abandons me. I must confess that it must have taken a lot of effort on the part of Heaven to bring me to this particular awareness level. It took patient guidance and loving accompaniment for years to shape my heart into the pattern of responses and evaluation that it is in now. If I can claim to be reasonably Christian, it is because God in His infinite mercy decided that I should be this. Well, there is always the element of choice. And I cannot say I always chose the right thing, the hard thing, the selfless thing, the noble option, etc., but I should also admit that I always heard God’s voice whispering in my heart, “ithaanu vazhi, ithile povuka” (“This is the path; go this way.”) (Isaiah 30:21).
The challenges faced by all Christians seem to me the same. It is about choosing the right thing. Whenever I made a wrong choice, it was because I was blindly selfish. I was clinging to things I thought would give me peace and happiness. In them, I never found peace and joy as I thought they would give. Such eye-opening experiences help/helped me make the right, albeit difficult, choices. Every moment the option is open: With Him? Against Him? Irrespective of vocation or status, I think, this is the only real challenge that a Christian faces every moment of his/her life. This is what life has taught me.
Being wife-mother has its rewards, but by no means is it an easy post to hold (non-remunerative, 24-hour, mostly thankless job, as vouched by hundreds I know). When I felt like shouting at my kids or being unpleasant to my partner, or when the thought “why I should do it” plagued me, when ignoring someone was easier, when feigning sleep was a strong temptation too hard to resist, when hurling abuse at a difficult relative would calm my shattered nerves, when sending back a beggar would save me a lot of trouble…well, each time HE unfailingly gently reminds me. “Choose Me, Choose wisely, lovingly.”
Well, I can never ignore Him. He spent His life for me, He suffered for me, He remained silent for me, He never judged me, He forgave me a million times. I am this respected, dignified, well-placed professional now because He chose to ‘cover’ me in many what-could have-been-embarrassing, compromising situations. Not once, but many times. He chose the option of the Absolute, the highest Love for me. How can I not respond in Love, though never in equal measure?
The best lesson I have learnt in my almost-half-century-long life is that I need to turn nowhere else for understanding, appreciation and support except to my God, my Lord. (It was not easy, and I cannot claim I am always serene and smiling and perfect and sinless and a saint! No way.) I slip many times daily, but this Love beckons me, constantly compelling me to give my best to Him and to the world, because His gift to me and to all was He Himself.
This Love lovingly pressurizes me to accept, forgive, respect and console. This Love forces me to embrace erring students, difficult co-workers, a judgemental relative, a fault-finding neighbour. In the journey of life when it was very difficult to trust this unseen Helper and when it was so much easier to seek help from those physically present, when the temptation to lean on pillars of support that heaven might find unpalatable, He infused me many a time with strength to stand right. I have been wretchedly ungrateful times galore. When I picked the human option justifying my weakness with the excuse “Oh I am ONLY human” I know how He must have felt betrayed.
This prodigal love reminds me that what I am in this life of mine was ordained by Him. My partner was chosen for me by Him, the kids that He gifted me with are treasures that He has entrusted with me for safe-keeping, each student is His own and I must do my best to help each to the highest possible level of attainment, the co-workers he chose for me (Who am I to label them “difficult,” “unworthy,” “troublesome,”…??), the family into which I walked in is the space He carved out for me with a purpose. Here alone will I ‘fit.” The in-laws, the neighbours, for that matter all who are around, are not ‘accidents’; they are the result of the elaborate design that He has plotted for me. This is my path to heaven. I accept this; I am saved. This is what I understand by my vocation.
Choices: I am aware I can make my choices: I can be happy and make others happy. I can choose to be miserable and spread misery in the space where I am in. Vocation is something that grows on me. I have to nurture it by giving myself totally to it. I remember a retreat preached by Fr Thomas More CMI. He told us something that struck me deeply: “You were appointed in this college by God, not by the provincial of this congregation. Accept these students straight from Him and remind yourselves constantly who your Boss is… He gave His life for His fold. What will you give your students, you, or a part of you?”
My response to my vocation: The struggles of life assume meaning only when I decide to go through them with serenity, when I do it for the greater glory of God. No one has loved me with a love that matches His. I feel the urge to conquer myself only because I am deeply aware that He chose to live and die for me. As a wife and mother, in the moments when I feel the immensity of having thrown away or wasted my life, energy, precious youth, health and time for others—to whom I at times seem virtually nothing—it is the thought of the young and courageous woman of Nazareth who said a firm YES to all the struggles of life with such dignity, courage and strength, that prompts me to hold fast. She was no different from us, but she was sure heroic in her love.
Each day I pray for this grace precisely—to be what He wants me to be, so that I don’t shatter His dream for me.
Teaching in a Catholic College situated in a semi-urban setting, where the majority of students hail from socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged families, may best be described as a vocation. Being there for the marginalised, the not-so-bright, the not-so-smart, the non-elite students has always been emotionally rewarding for me. The gratitude and the immense love in their eyes and the bonds that transcend the portals of the college, are prize enough.
As I spend my life for those God entrusts to my care, I also see my kids at home scaling heights consistently and systematically. God takes care—a free gift I know! Walking many miles extra, doing more than what the time table demands, waiting patiently for the tightly and stubbornly closed doors of young hearts to open, listening encouragingly to problems that seem too big for the youth at their stage in life, being what each student expects me to be, to ‘see’ the individual in the group, to be there with the heart of Jesus, influencing without judging or labelling them… This is what I have been trying to do all the twenty-six years of my teaching. I thank God for the invaluable gift of being able to touch hearts. I should confess I learned more in the process of teaching. I am a better human being because of my students.
The struggles and challenges and difficulties were all strokes on the wide canvas which makes the design of my life complete. As I stand at the threshold of my 49th year to heaven (wife 26 years, mother 25 years, teacher 26 years) my heart is filled with love and gratitude.
To God, my father, for the master strokes;
To all who walked with me on the paths of life;
The treasured friends who willingly lent their shoulders for me to lean on;
For the good experiences and the not-so-good (they made me philosophical!);
For the victories… more so for the failures (they made me strong);
For the gains… more so for the losses (they taught me to live more fully in the present);
For the rewards… more so for the near misses (that made me more detached);
For every single thing that happened in my life I am indebted to you, my God. For the failings, forgive me. For the times when I rose up to your expectations and I did you proud, I thank you, for, now I know, when I thought I did it, it was YOU who actually did it for me! Thank you for the gift of the CALL(s). Thank you for the gift of being a woman, a wife, a mother, a teacher. Thank you for the gift of making me yours!
– Rekha, a wife, mother and educator, actively involved in the church and known for her readiness to reach out and help many, has addressed gatherings of priests, seminarians and faithful.
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