The One Vocation We’re All Called To

When Catholics hear the word “vocation,” they often think of states of life, such as marriage or the priesthood. We are each called by God to follow a particular path in life and go through a process of discernment to discover His plan for us.

But there is an even more profound vocation than marriage, priesthood, and religious life. It’s a vocation all of us are called to.

It’s the call to heaven.

Our earthly vocations are meant to lead to our heavenly home.
Marriage, religious life, and the priesthood are not the ultimate goals of life. They are paths that lead us to heaven. The joys and struggles of each one help us cultivate perfect charity.

They also provide a faint picture of what life in heaven is like. There, our union with God will be exclusive (nothing coming in between it), fruitful, and permanent. In other words, it’s covenant love.

Marriage reflects this by bringing together a man and a woman in a fruitful, exclusive relationship that lasts until death. Religious life and the priesthood require people to forgo marriage and live for God alone, yet priests and religious enjoy a type of fruitful parenthood by begetting spiritual children — such as when the priest brings new people into the Church through baptism. Priests and religious embrace their state of life until death and priests enjoy a permanent spiritual mark of their priesthood into eternity.

As beautiful as these states are, they offer only glimpses of the joy and fulfillment we’ll experience with God, who alone can satisfy all of our desires. We’ll behold Him face-to-face without mediation.

This is why we shouldn’t make idols out of the states of life, saying, for example, “I won’t be happy if I don’t get married,” or “Religious life alone will solve all my problems.” Only union with God heals, and you discern a state of life simply to discover the best path back to your Creator.

It’s also why you shouldn’t despair if you never enter one of these states during your life. You can still attain charity — and thus heaven — without them. God has given you superabundant means to grow in charity, including prayer, the sacraments, and the people He puts in your life.

None of this is meant to belittle the vocations of marriage, priesthood, and religious life. But without keeping our primary vocation in mind, we’ll lose the right perspective on these secondary vocations.