May the Lord give you His peace! With Sunday’s celebration of the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord, the Church comes to the end of the Christmas season. The second reading at Sunday’s liturgy from Paul’s Letter to Titus reminds us. “When the kindness and generous love 
of God our savior appeared,
not because of any righteous deeds we had done 
but because of his mercy,
 He saved us through the bath of rebirth
 and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
 whom he richly poured out on us 
through Jesus Christ our savior,
 so that we might be justified by his grace 
and become heirs in hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). During the Christmas season, we reflected on and prayed about the generous love of God revealed in the Savior who is born for us. In today’s Gospel, we hear that this savior is the beloved Son in whom God is well pleased. Every vocation is a loving response to the generous love of God – a generous love that gives us a savior and that calls us into an intimate loving relationship with God. As friars, we want to respond to the generous love of God in the ways that we love one another and love all of God’s children and creation. In his Prayer Inspired by the Our Father, Francis of Assisi says:
“Your will be done on earth as in heaven: That we may love You with our whole heart by always thinking of You, with our whole soul by always desiring You, with our whole mind by always directing all our intentions to You and by seeking your glory in everything, with all our whole strength by exerting all our energies and affections of body and soul in the service of Your love and of nothing else; and may we love our neighbors as ourselves by drawing them all to Your love with our whole strength, by rejoicing in the good of others as in our own, by suffering with others at their misfortunes, and by giving offense to no one.” (Francis of Assisi Early Documents: The Saint, pages 158-159).
God’s compassionate love has been made real in the beloved Son who became one like us in all things but sin. Each vocation is a real way to respond to this generous love by exerting our energies in service. With the solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord, the Church in the United States begins Vocation Awareness Week. During this week, we want to discern more fully how each one of us is called to exert all of our energies and affections in the service of God’s compassionate love. Each one of us can exert all of our energies and affections in loving our neighbors as ourselves. Together we can exert all of our energies and affections to draw others into the compassionate love of God by the compassion and love we show them. A vocation requires faithfulness and discipline, but is always about love. A vocation requires joy and patience, but is always about love. A vocation requires careful and thorough discernment, but is always about love. In this Vocation Awareness Week in the United States, how is God calling you to share God’s love with all of God’s children? Peace and all good!