We are called for a specific purpose, and it is in living this purpose that our lives have meaning. There is also a correlation to between purpose and productivity. Knowing and living according to your unique purpose is good for you and good for business.
Vigil Audio – CLICK HERE to listen
Day Audio – CLICK HERE to listen
Welcome to the thirteenth episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please subscribe at the bottom of the page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace, and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist. Actually, there are two sets of readings, one for the vigil and another for the Mass during the day. Whichever you heard, all the scripture readings spoke about being called.
The Prophet Isaiah said (in the first reading of Mass during the day – Is 49:1-6) “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name” , the Prophet Jeremiah wrote (from first reading of the vigil Mass – Jer 1:4-10) “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.”, and Luke writes of John the Baptist (Vigil Mass Luke 1:5-17 and Mass during the day Luke 1:57-66, 80), He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.” “For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”
The Word of the Lord is spoken to us to remind each of us that we are uniquely made and from our mother’s womb, we are called for a specific purpose, and it is in living this purpose that our lives have meaning.
This is a very important topic and for years, psychologists and sociologists have studied man’s search for meaning in life. While they differ in specifics, in general they conclude that there is a direct link between a person’s happiness and whether they’ve discovered and are living their purpose. Two very important and distinct elements – discovered and lived. Unfortunately, the majority of us have failed in this fundamental aspect of our lives.
In fact, Richard Leider, in his TEDx presentation titled “How to Unlock the Power of Purpose,” quotes a statistic from the Centers for Disease Control, “only one-in-three people has a clear reason to get up in the morning.” If this is true, it means almost 2/3rds of the population lives a life without meaning. That is sad.
Perhaps you are one of the minority, one of the lucky one-in-three who have discovered and are living your purpose. Congratulations! But if you are, then you are likely working with a great number of people who go through the motions every day without meaning and purpose and their productivity shows it.
These people, our co-workers who live without purpose, can be a great source of frustration and a drain on company profits. While this may be true, unfortunately it is also how most leaders view them – a drain. As a result, instead of treating these people as children of God who also were called from their mother’s womb, they are treated as obstacles to the company’s success, which serves neither the individual nor the company well, as many employee engagement studies have proven.
Perhaps you are one of the two-out-of-three whose life lacks meaning and purpose and one of the two-thirds of employees who are disengaged. If you are searching for that “something” that is missing in your life, statistically speaking, you are not alone. So, whether it is you, a co-worker, or your spouse who struggles through each day thinking “there must be something more to life than this,” what can you do?
Perhaps before you do anything, you should take time to remember why you were created. The answer to this question is easy. We are all called to be saints. We are all called to holiness. Or in the words of the old Baltimore Catechism, “to know, love, and serve God in this life so that you can know, love, and serve Him eternally in the next life.”
“Your vocation, understood, embraced, and lived is what makes you feel truly and fully alive.” ~ Andreas Widmer, The Pope and the CEO @AndreasWidmerIn his book, The Pope and the CEO, John Paul II’s Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, author Andreas Widmer refers to this as our Universal Vocation. “Your vocation, understood, embraced, and lived is what makes you feel truly and fully alive.” He adds that there is not just one vocation to which we are called, but three.
- The Universal Vocation is to know, love, and serve God in this life so that you can know, love, and serve Him eternally in the next life.
- There are four Primary Vocations: married, dedicated single, priest, religious. Each is a chosen gift of self and it is when we give ourselves most fully that we fulfill ourselves most effectively.
- Finally, our Secondary Vocation is how we use our gifts and talents in service to God and others. This is typically expressed in our profession and is integral to who we are as human beings.
These three vocations are not independent of each other but are intrinsically intertwined. The first give us our ultimate purpose, the second is the path, and the third is what we do on the path. We are fully and truly alive when all three are in alignment. When they aren’t, we tend to wander aimlessly at best, or at worst, live pain-filled and miserable lives.
God does not want us to settle for a bland and mediocre existence. ~Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate @Pontifex_esGod does not want us to settle for a bland and mediocre existence. In Gaudete et Exsultate, Rejoice and Be Glad, Pope Francis writes to us about the true life, the happiness for which God created us. In this Apostolic Exhortation, the Holy Father reminds us that God wants us to be saints. He also proposes how to respond to “the call to holiness in a practical way, for our own time, with all its risks, challenges and opportunities.”
We don’t often think of our work in relation to a call to holiness. Yet our work is an important and integral part of our lives. In a typical week, 40-50% of our lives are directly focused on our work. If we are to live the joyful life to which we are called, our work must be part of it. St. Thomas Aquinas said “There can be no joy in living without joy in work.”
“There can be no joy in living without joy in work.” ~ St. Thomas AquinasI know I struggled to turn over this part of my life to God. Perhaps it was my “control-freak” nature, or perhaps I didn’t think He was interested in what I did on Monday-Friday. But, Pope Francis says “When, in God’s presence, we examine our life’s journey, no areas can be off limits. In all aspects of life, we can continue to grow and offer something greater to God, even in those areas we find most difficult.”
So back to the question of what can you do if your life lacks meaning?
Begin with the confidence of knowing that God created you for a specific purpose. It is there to be discovered. Pope Francis provides excellent guidance in Chapter 5 of Rejoice and Be Glad for discerning God’s will for your life.
First, ask. Pope Francis says discernment “calls for something more than intelligence or common sense. It is a gift which we must implore. If we ask with confidence that the Holy Spirit grant us this gift, and then seek to develop it through prayer, reflection, reading and good counsel, then surely we will grow in this spiritual endowment.”
Second, be ready to listen. The Holy Father says “discernment must be born of a readiness to listen: to the Lord and to others, and to reality itself, which always challenges us in new ways. Only if we are prepared to listen, do we have the freedom to set aside our own partial or insufficient ideas, our usual habits and ways of seeing things. In this way, we become truly open to accepting a call that can shatter our security but lead us to a better life.” After all, this better life is the “something” more we are looking for.
Third, be patient. Pope Francis says, “An essential condition for progress in discernment is a growing understanding of God’s patience and his timetable, which are never our own.”
Fourth, be generous. The Holy Father writes, “Generosity too is demanded… Discernment is not about discovering what more we can get out of this life, but about recognizing how we can better accomplish the mission entrusted to us at our baptism. This entails a readiness to make sacrifices, even to sacrificing everything. For happiness is a paradox. We experience it most when we accept the mysterious logic that is not of this world.”
Finally, act. Knowing God’s will for our lives is necessary, but not sufficient. We must live it. We must first and foremost know what God wants of us and then we must do it. This can be scary, but Pope Francis reminds us “When we approach God, we can be confident that he will help us to carry out the mission to which he has called us, for the good of our brothers and sisters.
Which brings me back to that co-worker who lacks a clear meaning in his/her life, is frustrating and a drain on company productivity and profits. This annoying person you work with was also created uniquely and wonderfully by God. To the extent that you discover how to discern God’s will for your life, you can share what you learn with them and be an encouragement to them. If nothing else, a change in your attitude about the person’s dignity should help you respond to them in a more positive way, which in turn, may help them respond to you more positively.
Finally, Pope Francis writes, “God asks everything of us, yet he also gives everything to us. He does not want to enter our lives to cripple or diminish them, but to bring them to fulfilment.”
“God asks everything of us, yet he also gives everything to us. He does not want to enter our lives to cripple or diminish them, but to bring them to fulfilment.” ~ Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate @Pontifex_esI will close with the same prayer as Pope Francis closes Gaudete et Exsultate.
“Let us ask the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us a fervent longing to be saints for God’s greater glory and let us encourage one another in this effort. In this way, we will share a happiness that the world will not be able to take from us.”
May God bless you abundantly, and may you give back to God, all that you have received. Go forth and glorify the Lord by your life, the life for which you were created. Amen
Remember to subscribe below and help us spread the word by sharing on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Just click the icons at the top of this post.
Many thanks to Fr. Stan Fortuna for his musical gifts, especially the traditional and contemporary versions of Come Holy Ghost (Come Holy Spirit) that you hear in this podcast. You can find more from Fr. Stan at http://www.francescoproductions.com/ or on Facebook.
