Vocations

When Bishop Kenneth Untener, now deceased, was first introduced to his diocese of Saginaw,
he stood up at his first Mass as bishop and said, "My name is Ken, and I will be your server."
There were many other things he said in that first address, but all those have been forgotten.

His greatest impact lay in his claim to serve.

She had to work at a restaurant to help her family survive where she discovered that she was a gifted waitress.
She explained to me once that the careers were not all that different.
She did not want to be an actress to entertain or to garner fame for herself; she simply wanted to make people happy.
That was not all that different from what she did in the restaurant.
And serving others made her happy.

Every vocation, if it is real, is a call to serve as Jesus did.
And real service has the rebound effect of making us happy.
Our job or career may not be our primary vocation;
we might live out our vocation in our families or in our volunteering in community.
When a vocation does not allow us to serve, it is no longer a vocation, and it is time for us to find a different source of fulfillment.