“Awakening Vocation Is Not Only a Clear and Creative Work of Theology, It Is Also a Prophetic Wake-Up Call
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“Awakening Vocation is not only a clear and creative work of theology, it is also a prophetic wake-up call. By placing compassion and solidarity at the heart of discernment, Hahnenberg reminds us all of an important truth: We discover our deepest identity by walking with those in deepest need. In challenging us to think about vocation in new ways, this is as good as it gets!” — Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ Author of Dead Man Walking “In dialogue with Luther, Ignatius of Loyola, Barth, Rahner, Ellacuría and many others, Hahnenberg draws the contours of a contemporary recontextualisation of Vatican II’s universal call to holiness. Through vocational discipleship and discernment, today’s Christians are challenged to experience a profound resonance between their deepest identity before God and the particular choices they make in their daily lives. This is an impressive plea for an open Christian identity and an open Church in a world of plurality and difference, suffering and conflict—a must for both systematic and practical theologians.” — Lieven Boeve Past president of the European Society for Catholic Theology and author of God Interrupts History “As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops discussed and approved its guidebook for the emerging lay ministries titled ‘Coworkers in the Vineyard,’ much was made of the need for a comprehensive study of the use of the term vocation in the life of the Church. Awakening Vocation by Edward Hahnenberg is exactly what was being called for. This extensive study will benefit anyone seeking to understand lay ecclesial ministry and its place in the Church.” — Most Rev. Gerald F. Kicanas, D.D. Bishop of Tucson A Theology of Christian Call Edward P. Hahnenberg Awakening Vocation A Michael Glazier Book LITURGICAL PRESS Collegeville, Minnesota www.litpress.org A Michael Glazier Book published by Liturgical Press Cover design by Ann Blattner. Photo courtesy of Photos.com. Excerpts from documents of the Second Vatican Council are from Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, by Austin Flannery, OP © 1996 (Costello Publish- ing Company, Inc.). Used with permission. Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition © 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. © 2010 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, micro- fiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America. 123456789 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hahnenberg, Edward P. Awakening vocation : a theology of Christian call / Edward P. Hahnenberg. p. cm. “A Michael Glazier book.” Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-8146-5389-0 — ISBN 978-0-8146-5733-1 (e-book) 1. Vocation—Catholic Church. 2. Catholic Church—Doctrines. I. Title. BX1795.W67H34 2010 248—dc22 2010016695 For our girls, Kate, Meg, and Abby Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi Slipping into Silence 1. The Breadth of the Callings 3 2. The Depth of the Call 47 Awakening Vocation 3. God Calls . 93 4. Me . 125 5. Through Others . 159 Part One: 6. For Others 193 Conclusion 230 NotesPart Two:234 Bibliography 276 Index 281 Acknowledgments This book has been a journey that I have been blessed to share with others. It began in conversations with family members. It took shape through more conversations—with family, with friends, with students and colleagues. As the writing comes to a close, my main hope for the book is that these conversations carry on, and that others join in. I am deeply grateful for this journey and for all those who have helped so much with this published piece of it. A Pastoral Leadership Grant from the Louisville Institute and a Faculty Development Grant from Xavier University gave me the time and the space to reflect theo- logically on all the questions these conversations raised. Invitations to speak in a number of different dioceses and to various groups of min- isters have given me the opportunity to share what I have been learn- ing—and to learn a great deal in return. In particular, an address at the 2007 National Symposium on Lay Ecclesial Ministry at Saint John’s University provided an important early catalyst for my research on vocation. I am thankful for all of these opportunities. In addition, a number of individuals offered help. Matthew Ashley, Robert Krieg, Robert Lassalle-Klein, Michael E. Lee, Richard Lennan, and Edward Sloane all read portions of this manuscript and offered excellent feedback. I thank them again for their generous responses. My colleagues in the department of theology at Xavier University have been incredibly supportive. They not only provide an ideal context for the theological life but also diverse and challenging models of it. In particular, I thank Ken Overberg, whose offhand comment about Rahner took this project in a wonderfully unexpected direction and whose dependable presence is a source of ongoing support; and Chris Pramuk, whose insightful response to my manuscript has led to one of the richest conversations of the many conversations that are con- nected to this book. I am grateful for such colleagues and friends. ix x Awakening Vocation The team at Liturgical Press has been amazing. Thanks to Peter Dwyer for his early encouragement, to Hans Christoffersen for his generous hospitality and gentle guidance through the publication pro- cess, and to Mary Stommes and Stephanie Lancour for their editorial expertise. Finally, I thank my wife Julie and our three daughters, Kate, Meg, and Abby. In this effort to articulate anew the meaning of Christian discipleship, these traveling companions are not mentioned again. But they are present on every page. In their love, I catch a glimpse every day of that Love that draws us all forward. Introduction “Tell me,” prompts the poet Mary Oliver, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”1 Is there any more pressing question? Is there one that cuts more quickly to the heart, gathering up all of our decisions and our dreams and directing them into the future? Stretched out between birth and death lies my one opportunity. What will I do? Over the centuries, the Christian tradition has asked this question in the language of vocation. And in the years since the Second Vatican Council, Catholics have become more and more accustomed to a broad and inclusive understanding of God’s call. Once it was Protestants alone who spoke of work and marriage, farm and family, as callings coming from God—while Catholics confined the category to the realm of priesthood or religious life. Now Catholics too share this wider view: “Everyone has a vocation!” In a line that glosses over a significant shift, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church states, “It is there- fore quite clear that all Christians in whatever state or walk in life are called to the fullness of christian life and to the perfection of charity, and this holiness is conducive to a more human way of living even in society here on earth.”2 The universal call to holiness extends to all. This widening is welcome. But it has not resolved some of the most difficult theological questions that come with the claim that “God is calling me.” Does God have a specific plan for each of us, or is it more like general guidelines for all of us? What is holiness? And what does it mean within the particular circumstances of my own individual life? When I face difficult decisions, how am I to know what God wants me to do? Is that even the right way of framing the question? Lying just below the surface of these questions is a thicket of theological problems that are not easily resolved: the relationship of the divine will to human freedom, the nature of providence and predestination, the workings of grace and the limits of spiritual experience. The question of vocation taps into our deepest assumptions about God, ourselves, xi xii Awakening Vocation church, and moral commitment. It offers a concrete way of talking about nothing less than the meaning of life. But for all its potential, the category of vocation has been overlooked by theologians and not well understood by Christians.3 It has slipped into a silent slumber. The following pages are an attempt to wake it up. Awakening Vocation argues that what I call “the modern Catholic theology of vocation” is a limited theology that took shape within the context of a dualistic understanding of the nature-grace relationship. That dualistic understanding was abandoned in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and was replaced by a theology of grace that affirms a richer, more biblical and traditional vision of God’s pervasive presence in the world. It was a revolution that touched virtually every area of Catholic theology—but its implications for vocation have yet to be thought out. The task of this book is to do some of that thinking. My goal is to reimage God’s call in light of this theological revolution, in order to offer a theology of vocation that is intellectually credible, pastorally relevant, and personally meaningful. What motivates the work is my conviction that the notion of call offers a constructive alternative to our contemporary cultural default, namely, choice.