In My Place

I little loving vocational smack down from my morning meditation...

God, indeed, has no need of any of us. Preacher, priest, worker, rich and poor, old and young may try to do their best; but all that they achieve their whole life through, God could have effected by the single act of His decree. Yet He has allowed me the high privilege of partaking with Him in the continuance of the world’s history. He has allowed me to become a partner, a member of His firm, a helper in His voluntary aid society.

Perhaps I long to be this or that, to feel powers within me that are clamorous for expression, yet find no opportunity to put them to their full advantage. I become miserable, discontented, perhaps bitter. Can I never learn that to wherever God calls me, the road must always lie open? If I cannot do what I would like, it is because what I would like is not what He likes. There may be obstacles that I must endeavor to surmount, but do not let me become impatient of them. Perhaps my vocation is only to struggle, never to achieve. As a model husband, citizen, parishioner, nay, as a model Catholic, I have a vocation sacred and unique. I can imagine a higher vocation than I have, but, for myself, it is certain that there is not a holier one. 

--Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P. (1881-1934)

Thanks.  I needed that.