Reflections 2006
Called to be witnesses

The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord is celebrated every year on 6 August. This year, it is given more prominence than usual by reason of the fact that it falls on a Sunday.

Sunday, 6 August also marks the beginning of National Vocations Awareness Week. It is now ten years since the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference approved Vocations Week as an annual observance in 1997, and we have begun to see the effects of this regular emphasis on vocations. There has been a measurable turnaround in the numbers of young men offering themselves for priesthood in our Melbourne Archdiocese.

But Vocations Week is not restricted to vocations to the priesthood. “It is designed to heighten awareness of the meaning of the word ‘vocation,’ and thereby to spread the good news that everybody has a vocation,” says Catholic Vocations Ministry Australia. How true this is! Every human being is called by God to seek and find fullness of life in being a disciple of Jesus. This calling is activated by the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, through which God graces us with the gifts we need for our calling.

There is an urgent need to foster a ‘culture of vocations’ in the Catholic Church. It should be natural for every member of the Catholic community to ask themselves: ‘What is my vocation? Who is God calling me to be?’ The answer to that question may lead to investigating a call to the priesthood or religious life. It may lead us to ask ourselves how our gifts may be offered for the good of our parish community. It may also lead to a deeper commitment to our work in the world: in the life of marriage and the family, or in the life of a chosen career that is used to serve God by serving our neighbour. St Josemaria Escriva was especially keen to emphasise that holiness is lived out in the vocation of daily life.

Since National Vocations Awareness Week begins on 6 August, we may ask ourselves what message this Feast has for the Church regarding vocations. Here we may make several observations:

1. If we are to discover our vocation, we must first discover who we are. When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, God the Father spoke from Heaven and said, “This is my beloved Son.” We remember that a similar event occurred at Jesus’ baptism. From this we learn something of our identity. Through Jesus Christ, we have become God’s children. When you were baptised, God called you “My beloved son” or “My beloved daughter.” Vocation starts at this point: understanding our identity as a child of God.

2. Vocation means “calling.” Therefore, if we are to follow our vocation, we must listen to the voice that is calling us. When Jesus was transfigured, the voice from Heaven commanded the disciples to “listen to Him!” It is necessary that we learn to listen to Jesus. We need to become attentive to His voice, especially at those times and places when He is speaking to us: in the reading of His Word, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, in the prayer of the heart that sits silently and obediently waiting for His voice. Like Peter, James and John, we are called to be Jesus’ disciples, and so we too must listen to our master’s voice.

3. Jesus takes His most intimate disciples up on to the mountain with Him: Peter, James and John. The Holy Father, in his regular Wednesday audiences, has spoken at length in recent weeks about these three figures, and about their experience on the Mountain of Transfiguration. While talking about the apostle St James, he said:

“[St James] was able to take part, along with Peter and John, in the moment of Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in the moment of Jesus’ transfiguration. Therefore, it is a question of two very different situations: in one case, James, with the other two disciples, experiences the Lord’s glory, sees Him speaking with Moses and Elijah, sees the divine splendour revealed in Jesus; in the other, he finds himself before suffering and humiliation; he sees with his own eyes how the Son of God humbles Himself, becoming obedient unto death.”

The Holy Father highlights the vocation of the apostle James as a witness to Jesus’ glory and, at the same time, a witness to His suffering. The vocation of every Christian follows along the same lines. Indeed, we are called to participate in the glory of Christ. Each of us is destined for resurrection and, through the Eucharist here on earth, we have a foretaste of the glory that awaits us.

But paradoxically, we bear witness to the glory of Jesus by living out His suffering in the world and for the world. At the same audience, Pope Benedict noted that “The glory of Christ was realised precisely on the Cross, in taking part in our sufferings.” St Peter wanted to stay on the Mountain of the Transfiguration. He wanted to build three shelters – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But Jesus indicated to the three disciples that they could not stay there. They were called to walk with Him on the mission that carried Him down the mountain and onto the Cross.

In the same way, our vocations will always carry us into the world, not away from it. St Augustine once expressed this vocation most beautifully: “Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth. Life goes down to be killed; bread goes down to suffer hunger; the Way goes down to be exhausted on his journey; the Spring goes down to suffer thirst; and you refuse to suffer?”

So, in connection with the Transfiguration, we can say three things about vocation. We must discover our identity as children of God; we must listen to the voice of Jesus that calls us to our vocation; we must be prepared to walk the Way of the Cross in order to reach the final destination of our vocation.

In this week, from Sunday, 6 August to Sunday, 13 August, I invite you to join with me by praying for vocations in our Church. Especially, I ask all of you to be unceasing in prayer for vocations to the priesthood. But also, as you pray, keep your ears open for the voice of Jesus as He calls you to your own personal vocation, and be ready to follow the voice that answers your prayer.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne