Pursuing Our Calling In Life

By Fr. Sebastian Athappilly

Q: Some people say that life is a gift and that we ought to be grateful to God for it. On the other hand, faced with enormous suffering or considering life to be ultimately meaningless, some others might think that life is a big burden, for which they may not feel the need to be grateful to God. They may regard it as something that they long to escape from. If you think life is a gift which we should be grateful to God for, how might you seek to convince someone who thinks life is a burden or a curse of your view?

A: It is a sad fact that for some people, life can turn out to be a burden or curse because of misery in various forms. At this moment they may not be able to be grateful to God for the gift of life. They may then even try to escape from it. But that our life is indeed a gift is evident from the fact that none of us has come to be born of our own will. We are all born. Being born is a passive process. Each one has received life as a gift. Nobody is able to question or doubt this. The real problem for some is, however, not that life is a gift, but that this gift turns out to be a burden. If life is a gift, whose gift is it ultimately?

One thing is sure: I am not the source or author of my life and existence. Is, then, the source of my life my parents? But my parents themselves in turn were not the author and source of their life! I will not be able to trace the source of my life in the rows of all my ancestors! There must, then, be some other source for it, which is beyond this level of mere biological parents. That source must not be again a receiver of life and existence, as I and my ancestors have been, but the Source of life and existence who is Himself life, or who has life in Himself. This Source and Author of life is called God.

Insofar as our life is God’s gift, we are accountable to God, and insofar as life is something good and beautiful, we have to be grateful to God for it.

Strictly speaking, we cannot say that we received the gift of life, as if we first existed and then received life, for in order to receive life, we should first exist. Therefore, we can only say that we came to exist because God called (created) us from nothing to life in its totality. Only so we came to exist at all!

What if the life we happen to live is miserable and full of suffering? Does this give us the license to terminate it? No! To actively put an end to our life is an affront against the Creator. It is protest and rebellion against God. It is, in a sense, returning the gift to the donor with angry words.

This does not mean that one may not do whatever possible to alleviate one’s own pain and suffering and that of others. Even if we may do whatever possible to remove suffering, it may not always succeed completely. What can one do in such circumstances? Here there are two possibilities: One can either curse the parents and God or bear the suffering in faith and trust that God will ultimately overcome the painful situation into joy, either in this life or in the life to come after death. This position is possible only for those who believe in God. I can try to convince others of this by pointing to Jesus, who himself suffered and promised eternal joy to those who undergo or bear unavoidable and inevitable suffering with faith and trust in God. This is applicable also in the case of suffering caused by one’s own guilt. Paul writes: “All things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28) and that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (8:18).The activity of Jesus during his public life also shows that God wants to remove our suffering. The parables of the Last Judgement (Mt 25: 31-46) and of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10: 25-37) that ends with the instruction: “Go and do likewise” (Lk 10:37) clearly express his earnest appeal to each one of us to help our fellow human beings in their needs and sufferings.

Q: God has bestowed each of us with a particular calling in life, and following that calling may be said to be the means for us to fulfil our life’s purpose. How do you think we might be able to discern this calling?

A: It should not be absolutely impossible to discern the calling of God, for it makes no sense that God calls us and yet gives us no clue to this calling. The providential turnings in our life (as long as we are on a sincere search for our individual vocation) will tell us about what God wants from us. This includes the voice of our conscience, inspirations from reading Holy Scriptures and accounts of the lives of holy persons, the messages of our life experiences and encounters with certain persons and events. Listening to the voice of God in the spirit of prayer and meditation is also very helpful in this regard.

Q: Related to the above question, it is said that we should seek to do God’s will, not ours. This could be said to be the way to lead a truly meaningful life and to fulfil its purpose. How do you think we can discern God’s will for us?

A: Discerning God’s will for us has certain norms. Our God-given talents and skills can give us a general clue of the way we have to glorify God in this world. In order to be clearer about this, we need the help of a spiritual guide, who can help us open our spiritual eyes. The discerning should take place in the spirit of prayer and openness to God. The signs of the times and the timely appeals, especially in the context of the needs of our fellow human beings, can help us discern our duties. I think here of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, who discerned her vocation within her vocation, namely to help the poorest of the poor.