Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote that for him, there is only one worthwhile joy: the feeling you get from cooperating rightfully within the big picture of things, from taking our place within the great jigsaw puzzle of life. Joy and meaning come from being that tiny piece within the big picture.

To find our call we must start from developing deep encounters of the heart

At first this might all seem a bit abstract, but in reality there is only one thing that can bring real meaning and joy, and that joy is only when we fill in with our own lives that particular space that has been uniquely allotted to us.

This will lead us to search in depth, in a discerning attitude to God’s will which is communicated to us through His Word and through our particular history.

William James said: “I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual… which, if given time, will destroy the hardest monument of pride.”

In fact, human touch and relationships can really put us in a position of open trust as we know that the deepest and most important things that most affect us are usually not big and extraordinary events, but what lies hidden deep within.

Very little of what affects us is seen from the outside. Like the human body we have developed an elaborate system we call the immune system, which protects us. Whether we are healthy or sick at a given moment depends largely on countless, silent, hidden processes. Everything is interconnected; no part does anything that doesn’t affect everything else.

This is true of every human life, as if we really wish to understand each other we have to go beyond the surface and see the invisible, silent and hidden life that can only be visible through an intuitive gaze of love. In fact, the most important realities of life are invisible and call forth faith.

This applies also to the body of Christ, which is more than what meets the eye. St Paul invites us “to live a life worthy of our calling”. It is against this background that I strongly believe that our personal call must develop. We are called in the world for a specific mission.

As we live in a world of appearances our natural instinct is to protect ourselves, to be suspicious, to be hard and to be cynical, but Christ calls us to descend and go deeper and touch the truth of who we are and to move from the house of fear to the house of love; only after we have explored the depth of our inner being can we really give ourselves as a gift to others.

There are times when our fears take over and we act out of them, just as there are other times when grace opens us beyond fear and we can act in graciousness and love.

I am convinced that to find our call we must start from developing deep encounters of the heart which do not start from institutions but rather from human personal relationships. The more we come to know ourselves and our calling, the more we feel at ease with diversity, realising that we are a small part in a greater whole, that we need each other and can never be self-sufficient without the experience of each other.

In his classical book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran theologian and martyr, writes that “only the person who can live alone can live in a community, and only the one who can live in a community can be on his own”.

Only when we develop an attitude of deep respect for others we can “remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative”.

As Christians and as human beings our call is to discern our unique contribution, our true calling. Happiness comes from discovering our particular vocation in the big jigsaw puzzle that we call the Body of Christ.

ciliamartin@hotmail.com

Fr Cilia is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul.

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