St. Alphonsus Liguori

COUNSELS CONCERNING A RELIGIOUS VOCATION

 I - We Ought To Conform To The Designs Of God In The Choice Of A State Of Life, Whatever It May Be.

It is evident that our eternal salvation depends principally upon the choice of our state of life. Father Granada calls this choice the chief wheel of our whole life. Hence, as when in a clock the chief wheel is deranged, the whole clock is also deranged, so in the order of 1 our salvation, if we make a mistake as to the state to which we are called, our whole life, as St. Gregory Nazianzen says, will be an error.

If, then, in the choice of a state of life, we wish to secure our eternal salvation, we must embrace that to which God calls us, in which only God prepares for us the efficacious means necessary to our salvation. For, as St Cyprian says: "The grace of the Holy Spirit is given according to the order of God, and not according to our own will;"1 and therefore St. Paul writes, “Every one hath his proper gift from God."2 That is, as Cornelius a Lapide explains it, God gives to every one his vocation, and chooses the state in which he wills him to be saved. And this is the order of predestination described by the same apostle: “Whom he predestinated, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified, . . . and them he also glorified?” 3&4

We must remark that in the world this doctrine of the vocation is not much studied by some persons. They think it to be all the same, whether they live in the state to which God calls them, or in that which they choose of their own inclination, and therefore so many live a bad life and damn themselves.

But it is certain that this is the principal point with regard to the acquisition of eternal life. He who disturbs this order and breaks this chain of salvation will not be saved. With all his labors and with all the good he may do, St. Augustine will tell him, "Thou runnest well, but out of the way,"5 that is, out of the way in which God has called you to walk for attaining to salvation. The Lord does not accept the sacrifices offered up to him from our own inclination, “But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect.”6 Rather he threatens with great 2 chastisement those who, when he calls them, turn their backs on him in order to follow the whims of their own caprice. “Woe to you apostate children,” he says through Isaias, “that you would take counsel and not from me, and would begin a web and not by my spirit.” 7&8

Notes:
1 "Ordine suo, non arbitrio nostro, virtus Spiritus Sancti ministratur." — De Sing. cler.
2 "Unusquisque proprium donum habet a Deo." — 1 Corinthians 7:7
3 "Quos praedestinavit, hos et vocavit; et quos vocavit, hos et justificavit; quos autem justificavit, illos et glorificavit." — Romans 7:30.
4 In another work (Volume XIII.) the holy Author expresses himself in these words: "God wills that all men should be saved, but not in the same way. As in heaven he has distinguished different degrees of glory, so on earth he has established different states of life, as so many different ways of gaining heaven" (Ch. II. 2). The choice is not arbitrary: "To enter into any state of life, a divine vocation is necessary; for without such a vocation it is, if not impossible, at least most difficult to fulfill the obligations of our state, and obtain salvation" (Ch. X.). The reason of this is evident; for it is God who in the order of his Providence assigns to each one of us his state of life and afterwards provides us with the graces and the help suitable to the state to which he calls us. We ought to be persuaded and ought never to forget that from all eternity God thinks with love of each one of us, just as a good father thinks of his only son.
5 "Benecurris, sed extra viam."
6 "Ad Cain et ad munera ejus non respexit." — Genesis 4:5.
7 “Vae, filii desertores, dicit Dominus, ut faceretis consilium, et non ex me; et ordiremini telam, et non per spiritum meum." — Isaias 30:1
8 From this it follows that the great and only affair which ought to preoccupy the minds of young persons of both sexes is to know the designs of God relatively to the state of life that they are to embrace, and to obtain from him the strength to conform to it. The means to adopt in order to be successful in this affair are indicated in an appendix to this treatise.
     But we should know that God does not always call one all at once and suddenly to the most perfect state. Some he calls sooner, others later. There are some who are raised to it gradually, others who are led to it by a circuitous road, more or less long. Sometimes when we correspond well to a first vocation God grants us a better one; and occasionally our Lord is satisfied with making us understand the advantages of this or that vocation, in order that by esteeming it we may desire it, and by desiring it we may endeavor to obtain it by prayer and good works. We must conform to the will of God, and be united with it as well during life as at death.

[In 1750, St. Alphonsus published the Counsels concerning the Religious State, followed by Considerations on the Religious State, having especially in view the young men who presented themselves to be admitted into the Congregation (Tannoia, book 2, ch. 34). In the Counsels, which we divide into five paragraphs instead of two, the author treats at first of the necessity of conforming to the designs of Divine Providence in the choice of a state of life, whatever it may be, and then enlarges upon vocation to religious perfection. To this little work, which is one of the productions of the holy Author, we unite all that he afterward wrote about this important matter, and we complete the collection by adding to it a short treatise on vocation to the priest hood, drawn from his well-known work entitled Selva (Volume XIII. Ch. 10).]