Vocations
Recognizing our vocation (our calling from God) is not like obeying or disobeying the Commandments. God speaks to us in our hearts and invites us to follow where He leads us.
Etymology
Vocation is derived from the Latin verb, "voco, vocare," from which we get words like vocal, vocalize, vocative, invoke, invocation, convoke, convocation, avocation, evoke, evocation, revoke, revocation, etc.
A vocation is different from a commandment. Responding to a vocation is a free choice that we make. It is not a matter of compulsion or punishment, as is the case with the laws of God.
Universal call to the Church
Universal vocation to holiness
We are all called to take on Jesus' character, to be sanctified by God's sovereign action within us, and to be vessels of grace to the world. "Shine like bright stars."
States in life
The Laity
“By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. . . . It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated, that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and may be to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer" ("Lumen Gentium," 31).
"Apostolicam Actuositatem"--Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity.
Faithful and Chaste Singles
Never married
Those who wished to marry, but who could not find suitable partners. We don't have a truly great name for the disciples of Jesus who follow Him faithfully in the single life.
Separated and divorced
Those who have been abandoned by their spouse.
The widowed
Those whose spouse has died.
Holy Spouses in Holy Families
The Church is not complete without husbands and wives who love each other chastely in marriage and who desire to create a holy family.
Louis and Zélie Guérin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, were great saints themselves. They had nine children of their own after acting as foster-parents for a boy in need. All five of their daughters who lived to be adults became nuns.
Our age is very much in need of such married saints, men and women who will demonstrate the beauty of the sacrament of marriage.
For the Western Catholic Church, the only source for vocations to the priesthood and religious life is from families. The more that husbands and wives practice the faith in their special vocation, the more they can nurture the vocations of their children.
When John XXIII was ordained a bishop, he held out his ring for his mother to kiss. She slapped his hand and held up her wedding ring for him to kiss instead, saying, "If I didn't have this ring, you wouldn't have that one."
Religious brothers and sisters
Holy Orders
"I will appoint over you shepherds after my own heart, who will shepherd you wisely and prudently" (Jer 3:15).
"Every young Catholic man should ask himself whether God is calling him to the priesthood" (Fr. Jacob on "Catholic Answers Live," 10 January 2011).