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Vocation of Mankind
By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi,
O.C.D.
(Veni Sancte Spiritus…)
“The Vocation of Mankind”
My dear Sisters in Christ,
Once, when I was a recently ordained priest, I was sent on an assignment, which required that I remain for several days at a parish rectory. The Pastor, now deceased, was a kindly old man who had a great love for extraordinary gadgets. He kept them all over the place even on the dining room table. He used to derive great pleasure out of asking his guests to guess what each one was to be used for. He got a lot of mileage out of my stay there because he and the curates would laugh and laugh at some of my stupid guesses I would make. And then they would laugh again when they saw the surprised look on my face when I found out what purpose they really were designed to fulfill.
I recall this incident at the beginning of the retreat because it helps us to face up to the fact that we can’t be satisfied with guessing about the meaning and purpose of the more serious things in life. It helps us to accept the fact that, in particular, we can’t be satisfied with guesses about the purpose of mankind itself. Human beings are creatures no less than the lowliest gadget. If we have to appeal to the manufacturer of a product for detailed instructions as to its purpose, use and maintenance, it stands to reason that we must listen to the author of mankind telling us about our individual purpose or vocation. We have to listen with humility and docility to what God tells us about ourselves.
Let us, then, take a look at the book of Genesis. From it we will try to discover what our vocation as human beings happens to be. For in the instructions to man newly brought into being we will learn something about what we are and why we were created.
The book of Genesis preserves the story of man’s creation in two separate accounts, each of which is distinct, and each of them differs from the other in detail. From them we derive the following bits of information:
These bits of information, helpful as they are in themselves, do not allow us to construct a complete picture of our divinely given vocation. We should also look at the account of the creations that preceded man’s. It is in contrasting the two that we see the dignity and scope of mankind’s vocation. In describing the creation of the earth and all its appointments, the Sacred author presents God as merely stating His desire, that is of just expressing His will, and immediately the effect is achieved. And once the will of God is accomplished, God looks upon His handiwork and finds that it is good. Both of these elements are lacking in the story of the creation of man. In His dealings with His human creatures, God did say “Let us make man to our image and likeness”, but this expression of His will is not followed by the announcement: “And so it was done”. The text does say that man became a living person, but it also follows up immediately with an account of the instructions God gave to His human creatures. These we have already noted. The element we now take note of is utterly new and different from the elements of the creation accounts preceding man’s creation. We see that man has been given responsibility. He is given a task. It seems clear that he is given the task of taking over from God and continuing the work of creation, which God has begun. God addresses man; God enters into communication with man. Obviously God is aware of all His creatures. Here we now have a creature that is aware of God. What a tremendous difference.
Another astounding element in the account of man’s creation is the fact of his freedom. Were man not free, a directive, a command would not make sense. In giving us freedom, God is, in effect, giving us the power to fulfill or not to fulfill what He has in mind for us. Thus, it is given to us to be able to say about God’s will for the entire universe: “And so it was done.” In other words, we are the ones who give efficacy to the words of God “Let us make man to our image and likeness.” God has robbed His will of some of its power and transferred that power to us. We are able to enter into the creative word of God. We are the one’s who complete His word. I repeat: what I am trying to say is that God, immediately upon bringing man into existence as a living person did not say “And so it was Done” and “God found it good”. He did say eventually that the relationship established between man and the rest of creation was ‘very’ good, but He does not say that man, as an individual is yet good. It is up to us, by the way we actualize the relationship established between the rest of the universe and ourselves, to make ourselves ‘good’, and to allow God to look upon each and every one of us then say: “It is good”.
But now that I have mentioned the word good, it occurs to me that we should have expected God to say not simply that the words of His hands are ‘good’. We should expect them to be perfect. Wouldn’t it be beneath His dignity to create anything less than perfect? Would He really be God if He can’t (or doesn’t) do a thing perfectly? Well, we certainly ought not expect to pass judgment upon God, but we can say that surely it belongs to His ‘perfection’ that He deliberately created the universe less than perfect so that we human beings might have the joy of helping him to make them perfect. The task of bringing all things to the level of perfection has fallen to us. This idea seems to find confirmation in the command of God to man: Subdue the earth! And His commands that man exercise dominion, that is, control, over creation.
The word ‘subdue’ suggests that the earth is wild, that it is in some way savage, namely, it tends to get out of hand, it develops without plan or purpose. The other expression, exercise dominion, suggests the idea that man has the obligation to introduce order and harmony, has to restrict and to set free so as to shape and mould creation to fit a plan and a pattern. And if this is so, and the whole thrust of Divine Revelation points to this, then this also supports the contention that it is our duty to make perfect what was originally created less than perfect.
Another ideal concerning our vocation is found in the fact that God addresses Himself to His human creatures. If God speaks to us, it means that we are capable of entering into personal relationships with Him. There is, in other words, the possibility of friendship. This idea is one that ought to fill us with awe. To think that a creator should be able to give a creature the capacity to enter into a relationship based upon mutual need; a relationship that admits of exchange and mutual dependence!! Isn’t this just too far fetched? Well, really, no! It does happen with us and our creations. We humans have invented so many things that we can no longer do without. We invented automobiles, for example. They needed us in order to come into being. They need our care and concern in order to continue in existence and to function properly. And yet we are now so totally dependent upon them. The same could be said of the telephone, of radio, of T.V., of household appliances. We can and do become dependent upon our creations. And so God can become dependent upon us. But there is a difference. God can speak to us, His creatures, and He can also listen to what we have to say. And above all, He has given us freedom. We do not have to fulfill His need for us. We can withhold from Him what He expects of us. These are things we cannot say of our creations, provided of course, they are in good working order.
There is one more idea about creation, which may help us to
get an idea of what our vocation is.
And that is the fact that creation declares the glory of God. This idea is one we are not unfamiliar with
because we do say that every work, every product reveals something about its
author. This is especially true of a
work or art. A work of art is a
tangible, visible, or audible expression of the spirit and the personality of
the author.
A person’s good qualities or bad qualities are revealed in what he does and
says. And these are particularly
revealed in the kind of work he accomplishes, and even more especially in the
personal relationships he establishes and realizes with his fellow man.
The point I am trying to make here, however, is that in Scripture we have testimony that man has looked at the works of God in creation and have been filled with awe and wonder. St. Paul tells us that besides seeing beauty in nature the beauty of God, His strength, His life, order, fidelity, power, we can also discover certain other of His attributes, His ‘spirituality’, His eternal power, and His divinity. These are wonderful discoveries to make; they are wonderful things to know about God. But we have to ask ourselves – “are these the sum total of all the things we can discover about God from His creatures? Is He totally revealed in all that was created before He created mankind?” St. Paul seems to have excluded the consideration of mankind in saying what he did about discovering God in the visible things of the universe. We could learn of His spiritual nature by observing life as it is found in the animal kingdom. We get the idea of His eternal power from the never-ending movements of the heavenly bodies, and of the forces and motions of earth and in the weather. We get the idea of divinity from the total independence of the intelligent power behind the universe from any influence of the powers vested in creatures. He (it) seems to be undoubtedly a law unto itself. There is only one thing that man can add about the knowledge of God derived from His works. But man alone can add this very important fact about God, namely, that God is love.
It was for this reason that God created us in His image and likeness. Being made in His image and likeness means being equipped to love. The capability of communication and exchange, the capability of assuming responsibility, the capability of sharing responsibility, the capability of entrusting what we hold dear to others, the capability of making ourselves dependent upon others, the capability of creative action, that is, of being able to embody in a distinct work some spiritual quality that distinguishes our unique personality: all these things we have from God and enable us to imitate the activity of God. All these capabilities reveal that we can love because love means putting something good where there was nothing or no good before. That is what creation is, basically: putting something where before there was nothing.
You know, there is a way of expressing God’s purpose in creating that makes Him seem rather selfish. Theologians say He made all things for His greater honor and glory. This sounds as if He very selfishly wanted someone to worship Him, to be reverent toward Him, to serve Him and so on. But really, His greater honor and glory is only a by-product of His real purpose in creation, namely, to be Himself fully: to share. The way He is Himself and shares is by loving. When He loves He shares all that is good in Him (which is everything) and this revelation of Himself is what we call glory. The creation of each and every one of us, and of every person we meet is in itself a vocation. None of us have to choose our vocation; it is bestowed upon us. Each of us is called by the very fact that we exist to be a revelation of the love that is in God. This is very consoling because so many of us tend to get dissatisfied with ourselves as human beings, we get dissatisfied with much that is associated with our human nature, especially our bodily life and some of its functions. But really, when we are fully human, then we are fully ourselves, and then we shall have been satisfying our basic vocation of showing that God is love. Our vocation as humans is so basic that we cannot fulfill any other vocation unless we build upon it. Your spirit as Franciscans requires you to see the goodness of God in all creation. The way to communicate that spirit is to allow others to see the goodness of God, His love, in you.
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