Vocations to the Work

Through the mouth of Jeremiah, God foretells the future liberation of the Hebrew people from exile and announces that, just as earlier he had brought his servants out of Egypt, so now he will bring them de terra Aquilonis et de cunctis terris.⁷ These words lead me to consider how there will be many people called to the Work of God, without discrimination of any kind. God will draw them from every social class, with all kinds of talents, from those in high positions and those in low ones, and even, as Jeremiah also said, from those in the depths of the earth.

Listen to the prophet: I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways (Jer 16:16-17).

We are instruments in the hands of God, qui omnes homines vult salvos fieri (1 Tim 2:4), who desires all people to be saved. Because of the truly contemplative formation that our spirit gives them, my children should experience within their souls a constant need to seek out God and speak to him without interruption, looking on him with love in the midst of the labours of their ordinary work, which are earthly concerns but purified and raised to the supernatural order. They must also feel the need to convert their whole life into apostolate, which flows from their souls and takes form in external deeds: caritas mea cum omnibus vobis in Christo Iesu (1 Cor 16:24), my love be with you all in Christ Jesus.