Loving and serving in vocation involves an act of self-denial for the sake of someone else. That is, it involves a sacrifice. The world is preoccupied with self-assertion and self-fulfillment. Vocation, on the contrary, is about self-sacrifice. That is to say, vocation involves bearing the cross: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23, emphasis added). The cross doesn’t just signify suffering; the cross is also an instrument of sacrifice. The word daily suggests that this passage refers not so much to martyrdom but to the
...more
