“Until Christ is formed in you.” Galatians 4:19

Vocation is a dynamic gift. It changes its focus and pattern over time, while continuing as a constant, intensifying calling. In our lives as adults we discover an evolving and changing pattern of relationships to persons, to institutions, and to causes that characterize our lives. As Christians we know that throughout the orchestra, throughout the mosaic of our lives, Christ is being formed in us through the power of the Spirit. In this time before the Eucharistic Master let us contemplate both the seasons of the adult life of Jesus and the seasons of our own life. In the mirror of Jesus’ life, we can seek the meaning of the seasons of our life, those of joy or sorrow, confusing seasons, seasons full of ministry and generativity, painful seasons of seeming failure…. For each of us the ebb and flow of seasons differs, but in all of us the Spirit is at work.

Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio: Gospel Reflections

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and he stood up to read. 18 "The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…." 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." 22 All spoke well of him. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked. 23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you say: Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' " 24 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.

He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out--the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. 13 When the LORD saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." 14 Then he went up and touched the coffin. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Jesus took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. 29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 35 A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen;

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the LORD Jesus. "Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen!

Actio

“Love has no ceiling, so my vocation is, quite simply, the way that I will rise… Life –every life- finds meaning when lived as a response to God’s call.” Hahnenberg, Awakening Vocation

"The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming." Romans 10:8

"The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming." Romans 10:8

Lectio

Mary made space for the Word to dwell. This is also our vocation. Mary abandoned herself in "the obedience of faith.” with her fiat to the Incarnation. At the foot of the cross she most completely "abandoned herself to God without reserve" (RM, 18). Bl. James Alberione refers to the two high points, in Mary's life of faith, as her “two annunciations”: announcing that she would be Mother of God and Mother of the Church. At the crucifixion Mary shared in Christ's own self-emptying. Her journey of faith did not end here. She was present when the Church's journey of faith began on the day of Pentecost. “The Church is the new incarnation of Jesus Christ, mystical but true and real” (Abbot Rolland). Mary's faith inaugurated the new and eternal covenant. Ratzinger submits that the chapter on Mary in Lumen Gentium, “rounds out the Council’s ecclesiology” by bringing it back to its Christological and Trinitarian starting point (152). Mary is type and exemplar of the Church, herself a mother, bringing forth to new and immortal life children, conceived by the power of the Spirit and born of God. (MC 19). Only when the connection between Mariology and ecclesiology is grasped, writes Ratzinger, will we have understood correctly the “picture of the Church the Council was trying to portray” (150).

Meditatio:

A proper understanding of Mariology is a key to ecumenism. She made space in the world for God to dwell with us. “She carries within her the whole mystery” (151) of the unique and concrete existence of the Church - the body of Christ.

Oratio:

The Church is here in order that holiness, the dwelling of God with women and men, of men and women with God, may come about.  The Marian view of the Church and the ecclesial and salvation-historical view of Mary lead us back in the end to Christ and to God the Trinity; because here it becomes clear what holiness means, what the dwelling of God in man and in the world, actually is…” (152).

Actio:

You have the 'Word of God so close to you, in your heart and in your mouth - this is the covenant promise of your baptism. How do you share faith with your family and your neighbors? Does this include "self-emptying" as well as "annuncation?"