God's loves for us and ours for God paves the way to serving others
by Sister Laura Zelten
This week is National Vocation Awareness Week. A good question for each of us to ask is, “How am I being called to respond to the love of God in my life?”
The answer is to love God in return. This is what is meant by the Second Vatican Council’s “universal call to holiness.” Holiness is allowing the love of God to live in us and through us to others. The more we allow God to love us, the more readily we will give ourselves in loving service to others.
Every person is called to serve God and neighbor in some particular way; in the Church we call this our vocation. God calls some to marriage, some to ordained ministry, some to consecrated life, and some to single life. It is important that we ask God how to receive His love and how to share it with others. In living out this two-fold call to love God and to love our neighbor that we come to know God’s will for our lives, which is our surest path to joy. Our lives become a living responsorial psalm, as it were, because we recognize God’s love will see us through any difficulty, any challenge, and any situation in life. With the psalmist we then simply respond, “I love you Lord, my strength.”