Called to Mission

One of the great twentieth-century Catholic theologians, Hans Urs von Balthasar, described his call from God to the priesthood, saying he felt as if he had been "struck as by lightening...It was simply this: you have nothing to choose, you have been called. You will not serve, you will be taken into service. You have no plans to make, you are just a little stone in a mosaic which has long been ready. All I needed to do was to stand there and wait and see what I would be needed for."*

I absolutely love this quote. In many ways, I feel as though my call to FOCUS was along these same lines. One day I just woke up, and knew I wasn't going to law school in 2012. I was going to apply to FOCUS. I dithered about it a little bit, trying to find another program I could do instead, still looking at LSAT test dates. But I knew, deep down, that God had called me to FOCUS, to serve Him as a missionary.

I think many of my life decisions are made in this way. Most of the big decisions I've made are one's I've just known. I never really seriously considered going anywhere else for college except UW-Madison. When I took my first Religious Studies class, I knew that was what my major would be. Once I heard about spiritual direction, I knew I needed it. Attending the FOCUS National Conference was a decision I seemed to make on the fly, same with the FOCUSequip training last summer. All of these I tried to get out of, tried to un-hear God's call, but like the prophet Jeremiah, I couldn't.

You deceived me, LORD, and I let myself be deceived; you were too strong for me, and you prevailed ... I say I will not mention him, I will no longer speak in his name. But then it is as if fire is burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding back, I cannot! (Jeremiah 20:7, 9)

Or I think of St. Augustine who writes in his Confessions, "my heart is restless until it rests in You." Von Balthasar's works are some of the most beautiful I've ever read, and the idea that I am just "a little stone in a mosaic which has long been ready" is one that really touches my heart. The trust that Von Balthasar had in God, to be able to trust that all his thoughts and actions were aligned with the Divine Will, is encouraging. It takes the pressure off. It reminds me to be humble. In a mosaic, it's not the tiles that stand out, but the image they make. I want my heart to long for Jesus so much that I step outside of myself more and more, to everyday be better able to conform myself to the pattern He has already made; knowing that His pattern is greater and more beautiful than my little tile could ever be.

*English translation by Peter Henrici, SJ, "Hans Urs von Balthasar: A Sketch of His Life," in David L. Schindler's Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work.