“HOW DO WE PEOPLE ANSWER THIS – OUR DIVINE CALLING?” This is a question posed by Blessed John
Paul II in his homily on June 24, 1988.
Today, June 24, 2012, as we celebrate the Solemnity of the Birth of John
the Baptist, I wish to ponder on the same question.
First of
all, what is our Divine Calling?
Blessed John Paul II
answers this with the following words: “God called John the Baptist while he was
still ‘in his mother’s womb’ to be the “voice that cries in the desert” and
thus to prepare the way for his Son.
Similarly, God has “laid his hand” on each one of us. To each of us goes a special call; to each
person a particular task. In every call,
which we can experience in a variety of ways, the same voice of God is present
which spoke through John: “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mt. 3:3). Every person should ask what he, in his
vocation, in his position, can do to help bring about the Lord’s entrance into
the world. Whenever we are open to God’s
call, we become, like John, God’s precursor among men.”
What is
man’s being that deserves this Divine Calling?
Blessed John Paul II
again answers this as follows: “Man is that being which God calls by
name. For God he is the created
“you”. He is, among all creation, that
personal “I” who can turn to God and also call him by name. God wants to have in man that partner who
turns to Him, the divine “You”, acknowledging Him as His creator and Father,
and saying, “You, my Lord and my God”.
Further he
says: “Man is therefore conscious of
himself – what he is, and what he was from the beginning, from conception. He knows he is a being whom God wants to
encounter and with whom God wishes to enter into dialogue. God wishes to encounter in man the whole of
creation. For God, man is “somebody”
unique and unrepeatable. He is, in the
words of the Second Vatican Council, “the only creature on earth which God
willed for itself”(GS n.24).
What is man’s response to this Divine Calling?
For those who have a living
relationship with God, there grows an
awareness of the uniqueness and value of one’s life and personal dignity. Blessed John Paul II says: “Amid his concrete life situations, man
knows he is called, sustained, and spurred on by God. In spite of prevailing injustices and
personal suffering, he realizes that life is a gift. He is grateful for it and feels responsible
to God for it. Thus God becomes the
source of power and trust from which the person is able to shape a life of human
dignity and selfless service to others.”
For those,
however, who abuse the Gift of Freedom, instead of heeding the call, they
distance themselves from God and become self-centered. Without
this connection to his root, which is God, man becomes impoverished of
inner worth and gradually succumbs to an
attitude of loss of respect for life and to the catastrophe of self-destruction.
May all
respond positively to this Divine Calling.
By: Buddy Cagurangan
June 24, 2012
