“Come Follow Me!”

“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.” John 15:16

After my ordination to the priesthood in June 09, 2007, there is a greater certainty that my vocation is totally God’s call and gift.

There are many ways to Follow Jesus, in the Priesthood, Religious Life, Consecrated Life, Lay Apostolate, Married Life, Single Life...We are all asked to live our life as a vocation and as a gift from God to share God’s love with others in whatever form that may take.

Jesus calls you to be His follower, His disciple in building up the kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

Our Lord has already called many people to pursue their calling in life, this is known as a vocation. Most of us are called to follow our vocation as lay men and lay women, some people may however, be called to the Priesthood and Religious Life. Your call begins when you are baptized in the Roman Catholic Church.

What is a Vocation?

'Vocation comes from the Latin word “vocare” which means 'to call'. For the Christian, a vocation is not simply a job or a career that God asks us to accept. To be called by God is part of being human and part of being baptized. A vocation is not so much about 'something I have to do' as it is about 'the person God has created me to be.' The unique call God has for me is, in fact, part of who I am. To freely discover and accept the vocation God has for us is to freely discover and accept who we are made to be. God has a plan for each one of us and we need to find out what that plan is.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter and Andrew that He wants them to fish for people — to save souls. And this may have been just the hook that was needed for Peter and Andrew to follow Jesus. They will still be fishing, but only now they will be trying to catch souls instead of fish. 

Jesus could not have chosen a better metaphor to help his first disciples understand what their job was: to fish for people and to catch people for Jesus Christ. Jesus always used metaphors that his common and ordinary disciples could understand.

The meaning of this story two thousand years later is that we contemporary disciples are to become fishers for men and women. We are to fish for people. But not simply fish but we are to catch people for Jesus Christ.

That was the first and basic mission of the first disciples and the early church and the church two thousand years later. So it is for us today.

God, through people, went fishing. Let us pray we can be part of that fishing expedition. How can you be part of God's fishing expedition? Remember Jesus is the Captain of the boat.

VOCATIONS CONTACT INFORMATION

Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.)
Northeast/Southeast Areas
Fr. Daniel Nassaney, O.M.I.
Oblate Vocation Office
486 Chandler Street
Tewksbury, MA 01876
978-851-7258 Ext. 139
[email protected]

Sisters of St. Mary Namur 

Vocations - Diocese of Buffalo