If you start with the theory and limit yourself to it you are apt to spend much time trying to plumb the mystery and nature of the vocation - unsuccessfully.

            Like all stories of love, the vocation cannot be grasped by the mind only. Since it is a matter of love, our connection with it, what gives our true understanding, is our heart.  Or perhaps we should speak of intuition rather than something as plodding as understanding. Intuition, with its sudden spark of light, sudden unexpected vistas and simple, satisfying clarity is much more like the Author of the vocation, God himself, the God of surprises, than the drudgery of statistics, hypotheses and confirmations on which we place so much stock today.

            Looking at examples, the phenomenology of vocation, if you will, sparks these necessary intuitions. And for those who are searching for their own way in life, such intuitions can be determining in finding it, although further reflection will have to develop and deepen the first eureka!

            The stories in this book allow us to pierce the experiences of the women who speak, and discover in them the essentials of the vocation. The seeking heart, the patient Shepherd who knows and calls each sheep by name, the creating and creative God who made us for himself and comes out to meet us in such varied ways, the timid, searching, resisting, weak human heart yet capable of being so generous and total in its self-giving once it discovers the touch of love, the absolute conviction based on faith, nourished in prayer and the Sacraments, the desire to serve.

            Read on. Let these women introduce you to the world of Gods extraordinary action in the ordinary things of life. Let their experience speak to your heart so that you may discover his workings in your own life and encourage others to do the same. And may their generosity spark something similar in your soul also.

Fr Anthony Bannon, LC