Friday, November 12, 2010

Praise your Creator by following the path He meant you to follow


"The choir is filled with the light of an early spring morning. With all the windows open to the south one might almost as well be in the garden, and the birds cry good morning to the sun from the topmost branches of every tree. As I kneel in the first faint sunlight, the first act is to thank God for the grace of one's vocation, while I can be happily certain that every other sister in choir is doing the same. God loves gratitude, and there is no greater grace for which to be grateful to Him than the grace of vocation, whatever that vocation may be.

Whenever we follow our true vocation, whether we are aware of it or not, we are rendering glory to God. It may be conscious or unconscious, but it is always praise of the Almighty, because it is following His divine plan for us, doing the thing for which He created us, fitting into His scheme. In this sense, vocation always brings with it its own grace. How many thousands of people in the world, and all over the world, would be surprised to know that they are praising their Creator by the mere act of following the path He meant them to follow, using the gift He gave them, and doing whatever they happen to have chosen supremely well, just because the gift and the choice come from Him!

They would raise their eyebrows no doubt; they would smile a superior smile; they would shrug their shoulders; but that would not in any way alter the fact. It is a praise which we cannot deny to God so long as we use His gifts and follow His plan for us. We may call it by every other name; we may try to steal the glory by glorifying, as we think, in our successes as if we were the authors of them; but nothing can alter the fact that these are the successes of the Divine Creator, and that His creatures are only displaying the wonders of God by showing what richness He has put into human nature, and what variety into human capacity.

Here we have the reason why people who are genuinely following their vocation usually do whatever they are doing so well, or, if not perhaps so quite so well as they sometimes think, at all events so happily. It is because they are using the grace of God which goes with the gift and the call to use it - the grace which accompanies any action of God and enables us to fulfill His purpose."

-- Catch us those little foxes by A Carmelite Nun

2 comments:

Victoria said...

Thank you for creating and maintaining Louange de sa gloire, and thank you for this most precious entry; the words and the image penetrate to the depths of the heart. What joy in God's promise that the call to express His gifts is accompanied by the grace to fulfill the calling.

aspiring... said...

I'm writing to offer my thanks, too for this post. It's pointedly far reaching for me. And such an eloquent response from Victoria above which moved me as much as the post did. God bless you both.