Is God calling you?

Recently, some of the daily Gospels focused on Jesus’ calling of His apostles.  This led me to looking at the different lifestyles to which individuals are called to serve the Lord.  No matter which state in life one chooses, all are called to become men and women of faith and prayer, men and women serious about their ongoing conversion and transformation into Christ.  The “ingredients” of the lifestyle may be different but the end result are meant to be the same: union and intimacy with the Lord. Why, then, might one be of greater significance to any one person?  The significance of a state in life lies in whether I am choosing that to which God calls me.  God has an unique plan for each one of us. Is my will in harmony with the will of God in terms of which state in life I choose.  If my choices are out of sync with God’s will, I will not experience the harmony that I would otherwise know. It is like trying to wear clothing too tight or too loose for me. They do not fit right and I feel uncomfortable.  Or other analogies might be putting a round peg into a square hole, or putting tires on a car that are too small or too big for the car—they do not fit together.  If you are struggling to know whether religious life is right for you, talk to a vocation director, that is, enter into a mutual discernment process with the vocation director of the community to which you feel attracted.  If mutually you agree that God might be calling you to religious life, take the steps to becoming a postulant or a novice in that community. The postulancy, novitiate and temporary vow period in a religious community, what is called initial formation,  are also discernment periods in which both you and the community continue the process of discernment prior to final vows.  We might compare these periods of formation (postulancy, novitiate and temporary vows periods) to the periods of dating and engagement prior to  the permanency of marriage.