This weekend we mark the 60th World Day of Prayer for Vocations and it is a day that always inspires me to look back at my own response to a call – the call to be an Ursuline Sister.
In these Easter days we often read the words in the Gospel – “tell them to go to Galilee, they will see me there” inviting the disciples to move away from the sorrow and destruction of Jerusalem to find the Risen Christ not among the ruins of the crucifixion but to return to Galilee, the place of their first encounter with Jesus. It was here in Galilee that he approached the fishermen at the lakeside and called them to leave their nets and to follow him. In that moment of call their eyes, their ears and their hearts were open to respond to the call of the Lord to turn away from all that was familiar to them and to seek something new, with him. Post-resurrection they are invited to remember with their eyes, their ears and their hearts the first call and to respond again – to follow again the call of the Lord.
Perhaps it is a call to me and to each person who reads this blog, to return to the essence of the first call – the day each of us responded to a call from the Lord to come and follow. We can ask – Why did I say yes? Why did I follow through? Why did I accept the challenge to leave the familiar and seek new places with the Lord?
Karen OSU