What to say to the
young of today? I can say nothing other than what I tell myself each day: be
holy. This isn’t an abstract question; it’s a concrete question that concerns
each one of us, man or woman, young or old, nobody excluded. I need to be convinced
of this: I might attain all the fortunes of life: health, wealth, pleasure, honors
and power, but if I don’t become holy, my life will have been a failure.
On the other hand,
I might experience trials and tribulations of all sorts, I might appear a
failure in the eyes of the world, but if I become holy I will have attained the
true and only purpose of my life. Man was created to be happy. There is only
one way to be happy: be holy. Holiness makes for man’s happiness and the glory
of God.
But how to be holy? By following my
vocation. The vocation which God is calling me to. Following one’s vocation
means doing the will of God. Whatever the vocation, it’s all about God’s will for
us.
Each person has
their own specific vocation. What God asks of each soul, represents its
vocation, which is the special form Providence wants each person to work and
grow in. Every man has a special vocation since each has been wanted and loved
by God in a different way. There are no two creatures alike, nor, in the course
of history, have there been vocations absolutely alike, seeing as the will of
God is different for every creature and every creature that has entered time,
from nothingness, is unique. Father Faber dedicates one of his spiritual
conferences to this theme: “All men have
a special vocation” (Spiritual
Conferences, Burn & Oates, London 1906, pp. 375-396). Each man has a
specific vocation, different from that of any other man, since God loves every
one of us with a special love.
What does this
special love of God for me consist of? First of all, God created me, giving my body and soul the characteristics and qualities
that pleased Him. God did not only create me, He keeps me alive, providing me
with the being in which I live. If God ceased even for a second to imbue my
being, I’d fall into that nothingness from which He brought me forth. God,
after creating us, has not left us to the mercy of chance. Each hair on our
head has been counted (Mat. 19, 30), and not one hair falls without the Lord’s
permission. (Luke, 21,18). And if the number and fall of my hair are all
calculated – what then, is not going to be calculated in our lives?
“God does not look at us merely in the mass
and multitude”, writes Father Faber.
“From all eternity God determined
to create me not simply a fresh man, not simply the son of my parents, a new
inhabitant of my native country, but he resolved to create me such as I am, the
me by which I am myself, the me by which other people know me, a different me
from any that has ever been created hitherto, and from any that will be created
hereafter”. “It was just me, with my
individual peculiarities, the size, shape, fashion and way of my particular
single, unmated soul, which in the calmness of His eternal predilection drew
Him to create me” (Spiritual
Conferences, p. 375).
In short, God has
traced the laws of my physical, moral and intellectual development along with
the laws of my supernatural growth.
How did He do this? Through instruments. What instruments? These instruments are the creatures I
meet in my life. The Carthusian, Dom Pollien, invites us to calculate the
number of creatures that have been part of the reality of our existence (Cristianesimo vissuto, Edizioni Fiducia,
Roma 2017). The physical influences of time, seasons and climate, the moral
influences of relatives, teachers, friends and [even the] enemies we have met
along the way; all the books we have read, the words we have heard, the things
we have seen, the situations in which we have found ourselves – nothing is by
chance, given that there is no such thing as chance – everything has a
significance.
These influences,
these movements are the work that God performs in us. All these creatures,
explains Dom Pollien, are placed in motion by Him and they do nothing other
than what God wants them to do in us. Everything occurs at a given time; it
acts on the right point, it produces the movement necessary to exercise a
physical, moral or intellectual influence on us. This influence is actual
grace. Actual grace is the supernatural action that God exercises on us at every
moment, through creatures. Creatures are instruments that bring grace. They are
the instruments of God for one purpose only: the forming of saints. Everything that happens, all that one does,
St. Paul says, everything without exception, contributes to the same work and
this work is the good of those that the will of God calls to holiness (Rom,
8,28). Nothing fails towards this purpose, everything converges towards this
outcome. Actual grace is everywhere and intimately connects the natural and the
supernatural. And God proportions the quality of His graces to the needs of our
life, according to the designs of His mercy towards us and according to the
response we lend to His action.
How do we respond to
this uninterrupted action of grace on our souls? We let God act on our souls, without
ever worrying about tomorrow, since, as the Gospel says ‘sufficient for the day
is the evil thereof’ (Mathew,
6, 34). “Let God act”, said
Cardinal Merry del Val: “Remember that
circumstances which you yourself have not occasioned are God’s messengers. They
come a thousand times a day to tell you the different ways in which you may
show Him your love”. Val (Let God Act,
Talacre Abbey, 1974, p. 2).
A
religious who lived very closely with St. John Bosco was asked whether the Saint
was ever worried in the midst of his countless works, in his sometimes
tumultuous life. The religious replied in this manner: “Don Bosco never, not even a minute before, thought about what he was
about to do a minute later.” Don Bosco, who understood the action of grace,
always sought to do the will of God in the present moment. And following this path
he fulfilled his vocation.
In
Rome, next to the central station, stands the Basilica of the Sacred Heart,
built by Don Bosco just before his death, at the cost of immense sacrifices.
The Basilica was solemnly consecrated on May 14th 1887 by the
Cardinal Vicar in the presence of numerous civil and religious authorities. On
May 16th 1887, Don Bosco himself offered Mass at the altar of Mary,
Help of Christians: it was his only celebration in the Church of the Sacred Heart and, as a plaque appended on the centenary of the event commemorates, the
Mass was interrupted fifteen times by the sobs of the old priest, who
understood the significance of his famous “dream of 9 years”. God showed him the vast panorama of his life
and revealed to him how, from his childhood, he had been prepared and led by
God to fulfill his earthly mission.
Every soul has its
vocation, because it has its different function in the Body of the Church. He
who has the vocation of marriage, doesn’t have it for himself, but for the
Church. He who has a religious vocation, doesn’t have it for himself, but for
the Church. This vocation, writes Father Faber, flows directly from our eternal
predestination, but is entrusted to the hands of our free will and depends on
it: “I clearly belong to a plan, and have
a place to fill and a work to do which are all special; and only my
speciality, my particular me, can fill this place or do this work”. This means that I have a tremendous
responsibility. “Responsibility is
the definition of life. It is the inseparable characteristic of my position as
a creature” “From this point of view
life looks very serious” (Spiritual
Conferences, p. 377).
There is no other
path that leads man to the holiness which everyone is called to, in order to be
happy. Let us go along this path with the help of Our Lady and the Angels. God
has placed us near an Angel to guard our vocation. Our Guardian Angel is our
vocation perfected; our vocation fulfilled. He is the model for our vocation.
For this we need to pray to him and listen to the words he whispers.
There are vocations
for single people; there are vocations for families, which are not only natural
ones, but also those spiritual families, with their charisms; there are
vocations for the peoples of nations, which Plinio Correa de Oliveira spoke of frequently.
Each nation has a specific vocation, which is the role that Providence has entrusted
to it in history. But we were not only born into a family and a nation. We live
inside a historical age. And since history is also a creature of God, in every
historical age God asks for something different. Every historical age has its
vocation. The predominant vocation in
the first centuries of the Church was the predisposition for martyrdom. Is
there a vocation in the 21st century, in which one can find one’s
individual vocation?
The vocation for
our age is to correspond to the desire of Heaven which Our Lady Herself showed us at Fatima: In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. This is the vocation of those in the
cloisters, in the public squares, who, with prayer, penitence, words and
action, battle for the fulfillment of this promise.
The triumph of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary is also the triumph of the Church, since the Immaculate Heart of Mary
is the very Heart of the Church Itself. This triumph suggests a great battle
preceding it. And since this triumph
will be social, public and solemn, this battle will also be social, public and
solemn. Today, being saints means fighting this battle, which is fought, first
and foremost, holding the sword of truth. It is only upon the truth that the
lives of men and nations can be built, and without the truth, a society breaks
down and dies. Today, Christian society has to be remade; and to remake it, the
prime necessity which is called for, is that of professing and living the
truth. When a Christian, with the help of
Grace, conforms his own life to the principles of the Gospel and fights
in defense of the truth, he cannot be hindered by any obstacle.
In his discourse of January 21st
1945 to the Marian Congregations of Rome, Pius XII states: “The present time calls for fearless
Catholics, for whom it is the most natural thing [in the world] to profess
their faith openly, through their words and actions, whenever the law of God
and the sentiment of Christian honour require it. Real men, upright men,
resolute and intrepid! Those who are such merely halfway, the world itself
discards, rejects and crushes.”
“God
and the Church – writes Dom Pollien in Cristianesimo
vissuto – ask for defenders, but real
defenders; those who never shrink back one step; those who know how to be
faithful to orders until death; those who are formed in the rigours of
discipline, in order to be ready for all the heroisms of the fight.” (p.
162).
The French writer
Paul Claudel, enunciated this great truth: “Youth
was not made for pleasure but for heroism”. The young of the 21st
century cannot be attracted by the invitation of compromise with the world, but
are asking the Church for a call to heroism. Cristianesimo
vissuto means militant Christianity. In the Middle Ages, at the building of
a cathedral, architects, stone-masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, bishops,
princes, illustrious and unknown personalities all participated, united in the same desire to render glory to
God through the stones they raised to Heaven. We are also participating in a
great project. Each one of us today is called to build the immense cathedral
dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the ruins of the modern world -
which is nothing other than Her Reign in souls and society. Our hearts are the stones and our voices proclaim
to the world a dream that will come true.
Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana
