Missed a vocation?

[BarbTherese]

http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=9937075&postcount=7

I dont think one can ever 'miss one's vocation'. A vocation and call is only ever an invitation, not a Divine Command. The Loving Will of God is always calling us and with us even if for whatever reason we decline His Invitation in a certain direction (and not a thing to be done lightly at all - with His Invitation comes all the Graces necessary to fulfill that call to holiness.......if one accepts).
If one declines, for whatever reason, His Initial Invitation, there is always another, a new call always with us. God is not a mean and vindictive Lord - His Constant Will is our holiness and He would never deny any person, no matter what, all that is necessary. Our consistent call and vocation is to holiness and His call or vocation comes always with that guarantee of all the Graces necessary and no matter in what lifestyle we follow, whatever state in life. And happiness and fulfillment is in His Divine Will.

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I don't think one can "miss one's vocation" bringing some sort of fixed problems in one's future.

I think the concept of 'missing one's vocation' can be a self fulfilling prophecy at times and a nasty one.  For example, I feel that I have missed my vocation and so those difficulties etc. I am experiencing in the vocation I did choose become a fixed factor because 'I missed my vocation' rather than a problem that can be surmounted with God's Grace, always present, forever faithful.  The self fulfilling prophecy could tell a person that lack of happiness and fulfilment is their mandatory lot - and not so!

Since a vocation is only ever an invitation, God would be entirely mean and poor spirited, vindictive, to permit difficulty and suffering for a person - and simply because they have chosen to love and serve Him outside of that invitation - i.e. declined His original invitation.

When I left religious life in my teens, my novice mistress told me that I was abandoning my vocation.  That statement brought me real misery for a period until I reasoned that God was not at all mean spirited and would simply give me another vocation, or extend a different invitation.   There are going to be problems and difficulties, suffering, along the way in any and all journeys - none of these are fixed factors because one has 'missed one's vocation'.  Our God is not vindictive and mean spirited.

[Credo in Deum]

I believe we can miss our vocation.  Vocations are callings and callings can be ignored or refused.  However, this does not mean God can't bring about our sanctification by other means. God is always looking out for us. He is merciful like that.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Credo in Deum

[Norseman82]

It may not be a question of whether we can miss our vocation but rather can we achieve it.  For example, Mary Beth Bonacci points out about people who are called to marriage but having a difficult time finding a suitable spouse due to the poisoning of the marriage pool.

http://catholicexchange.com/is-the-single-life-a-vocation

[BarbTherese]

Would God extend an invitation and vocation knowing it could not be fulfilled?

[BarbTherese]

I believe we can miss our vocation.  Vocations are callings and callings can be ignored or refused.  However, this does not mean God can't bring about our sanctification by other means. God is always looking out for us. He is merciful like that.

I agree with you, Credo.  It is terminology in the main that I have problems with - i.e. 'missed one's vocation' and incorrect concepts that are often attached to that terminology.  If God say invites a person to religious life and they marry instead, this does not mean that there is no vocation to marriage.  It simply means the initial call and invitation was declined.  An invitation means that there is nothing moral attached to it - one can accept or decline in complete free will without any moral implications.  Be this as it may, an invitation from God is not something to be treated lightly at all. It is a great honour indeed but does remain an invitation and not a command.

[Norseman82]

Would God extend an invitation and vocation knowing it could not be fulfilled?

Well, it happens with salvation - He invites us, knowing full well that many will reject Him.  He knew Adam and Eve would reject Him. That's what happens with free will. 

[Nihil Obstat]

Would God extend an invitation and vocation knowing it could not be fulfilled?

Sure. It is the issue of predestination. God knows all outcomes, but He always knows the means by which we arrive at those outcomes. If a man has a vocation to the priesthood, but wastes his life philandering, his vocation was still legitimate. Even though nobody may ever know it existed.

[BarbTherese]

 

Well, it happens with salvation - He invites us, knowing full well that many will reject Him.  He knew Adam and Eve would reject Him. That's what happens with free will. 

 

 God extends salvation to all and He offers the means to obtain it.  We have the free will to accept or decline.  He does not offer salvation to all without the means to obtain it.   God's Foreknowledge of what will occur in calling all to salvation with the means to obtain it is not contradictory to our free will.

Edited June 27, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

Sure. It is the issue of predestination. God knows all outcomes, but He always knows the means by which we arrive at those outcomes. If a man has a vocation to the priesthood, but wastes his life philandering, his vocation was still legitimate. Even though nobody may ever know it existed.

Agreed.  This is entirely different to an imagined situation where God extends an invitation knowing that it could not be fulfilled (not "would not be fulfilled").  Big difference between "could not" and "would not", although my poverty of expression may have confused things.

In your example above, the man in free will spends his life philandering, therefore it is "would not".

Edited June 27, 2015 by BarbaraTherese

[Nihil Obstat]

Agreed.  This is entirely different to an imagined situation where God extends an invitation knowing that it could not be fulfilled (not "would not be fulfilled").  Big difference between "could not" and "would not", although my poverty of expression may have confused things.

In your example above, the man in free will spends his life philandering, therefore it is "would not".

From God's perspective, I am not sure there is a meaningful difference between would not and could not. For us the differences are myriad. But as far as God is concerned I think the only "could not" is logical impossibility. E.g. a woman could not have a vocation to the priesthood. Everything else for God is merely circumstance. Whether a man is born into poverty and therefore cannot afford to educate himself enough to enter seminary, a woman dies before she can enter a convent, a prospective couple finds that one of the two of them is entirely impotent, these are all circumstances that, as far as God is concerned, could have been otherwise. These circumstances may be well beyond the control of the particular person in question - many other people's choices and random events will be involved. But none of these present - for God - an impossibility.

[BarbTherese]

From God's perspective, I am not sure there is a meaningful difference between would not and could not. For us the differences are myriad. But as far as God is concerned I think the only "could not" is logical impossibility. E.g. a woman could not have a vocation to the priesthood. Everything else for God is merely circumstance. Whether a man is born into poverty and therefore cannot afford to educate himself enough to enter seminary, a woman dies before she can enter a convent, a prospective couple finds that one of the two of them is entirely impotent, these are all circumstances that, as far as God is concerned, could have been otherwise. These circumstances may be well beyond the control of the particular person in question - many other people's choices and random events will be involved. But none of these present - for God - an impossibility.

We agree again.  Myriad would be the circumstances why a person could not or would not accept an invitation to vocation.

None of these circumstances present for God an impossibility for sure; however, for His Mysterious Reasons he permits (Catholic theology of Permissive Will of God) certain circumstances in a person's life that present a "logical impossibility" or impediment of some kind for a person follow a certain path.  This "logical impossibility"/impediment means that the person does not have the qualities or circumstances necessary for a certain vocation and therefore is not called to that vocation.  Where God invites, He also fully provides.  This can be very difficult for a person who has a strong attraction to a certain vocational path, but does not have the necessary requirements, qualities, circumstances.

[Credo in Deum]

 

I agree with you, Credo.  It is terminology in the main that I have problems with - i.e. 'missed one's vocation' and incorrect concepts that are often attached to that terminology.  If God say invites a person to religious life and they marry instead, this does not mean that there is no vocation to marriage.  It simply means the initial call and invitation was declined.  An invitation means that there is nothing moral attached to it - one can accept or decline in complete free will without any moral implications.  Be this as it may, an invitation from God is not something to be treated lightly at all. It is a great honour indeed but does remain an invitation and not a command.

I agree.  There are many men who have been engaged who later pursued the priesthood.  Yet this doesn't mean that the ones who didn't are then doomed to be horrible fathers and husbands. On the contrary.  Once the vowes are exchanged in marriage then the man can be assured his marriage is now his vocation and that God will offer the graces necessary for the man to fulfill his duties as a husband and father.

Edited June 27, 2015 by Credo in Deum

[Nihil Obstat]

We agree again.  Myriad would be the circumstances why a person could not or would not accept an invitation to vocation.

None of these circumstances present for God an impossibility for sure; however, for His Mysterious Reasons he permits (Catholic theology of Permissive Will of God) certain circumstances in a person's life that present a "logical impossibility" or impediment of some kind for a person follow a certain path.  This "logical impossibility"/impediment means that the person does not have the qualities or circumstances necessary for a certain vocation and therefore is not called to that vocation.  Where God invites, He also fully provides.  This can be very difficult for a person who has a strong attraction to a certain vocational path, but does not have the necessary requirements, qualities, circumstances.

I am not sure it is correct to say that God will "fully provide" for the full execution of one's vocation. In general, many graces are not provided by God because we are not disposed to receive or even to ask for them. The reception of some graces might be contingent on others, perhaps in a very long chain. While I think it is probably tautological to say that God provides the grace necessary to find and live one's vocation, I think it is also certainly true that for some people the grace to find and live their vocation is actually contingent in a very, very long chain, and therefore quite distant. I think it might be most correct to say that God fully offers sufficient graces in all things, as in vocations, but not necessarily efficacious grace.

[BarbTherese]

I am not sure it is correct to say that God will "fully provide" for the full execution of one's vocation. In general, many graces are not provided by God because we are not disposed to receive or even to ask for them. The reception of some graces might be contingent on others, perhaps in a very long chain. While I think it is probably tautological to say that God provides the grace necessary to find and live one's vocation, I think it is also certainly true that for some people the grace to find and live their vocation is actually contingent in a very, very long chain, and therefore quite distant. I think it might be most correct to say that God fully offers sufficient graces in all things, as in vocations, but not necessarily efficacious grace.

Poverty of my expression.  I should have stated "offered" and not "provided".  I think too that a person might indeed be invited (with necessary Graces offered) to say religious life, but leadership of the community refuses the person for some reason.  I have no idea what "tautological" means and Google was beyond me too!......nor can I grasp (without making research a difficult exercise for such as I) the difference between sufficient and efficacious grace.  Certainly, Actual Grace is always dependant on a person's free will - if that is somewhere near your meaning.  And while a person may choose to act on a specific Actual Grace, the carrying out of the response might be frustrated or impeded by other factors and perhaps factors beyond the person's control.  Overriding any and all factors is the fact that God is in control and we can be assured of that as often mysterious indeed it is to us - or me rather.

The problem I have seen on Catholic Discussion sites rather often related to the terminology "missed my vocation" is a mental attitude adopted that one must mandatorily settle for a degree of lack of fulfilment or whatever.  The result of this is that when problems come along in their now journey/vocation there is a risk that the problems are written off to the result of "missing my vocation" and the problems not engaged in and worked through with God's Grace to a happier and fruitful conclusion.  There is not even any sighting nor belief that such engagement and working through to a happier and fruitful conclusion is a possibility.

What I have noticed too is that there can be an engagement/relationship with concepts, rather than an organic relationship with a very personal Living Loving Merciful and Understanding God and Father etc. (or those many facets/faces/aspects of a very personal relationship with God).