What dream did God give you?

Is this not the best t-shirt for vocations? January 9th-15th is National Vocation Awareness Week. These days, it is always national something day, week or month. So, how can this week be different? Can we encourage each baptized person--each child of God--to stop and ask the question that comes from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"? What is God's dream for me that was planted deep within me? Maybe it was planted just before my first cell split into 2. God's dream for me is inseparable from my own "finding myself", from my finding joy here on earth.

So often when we talk about vocation it is just about being a priest or being a sister or brother. But there are other lifestyle vocations in the Church! What about the vocation of marriage? Do we encourage young people to take their marriage decisions to prayer and to discern that choice? What about the vocation to the single life? I don't mean being single because a person can't find a date. I mean that conviction that one is meant to remain single to fully live out one's dream.

In society these days dreams are often lost except the dream of being rich and popular. Those are not dreams God plants within us. They may be by-products or means of God's dream, but not the core.

So, during this week, may we be dream-seekers. May we each seek the dream which God has given us and which is woven into our being through our gifts, skills, personality and faith.

My becoming a Daughter of Charity was not about choosing a job or roommates. I was following a dream that God was revealing to me in so many ways---a dream to grow in holiness through ministry, supported through faith-filled women and lifted daily in prayer. It is a dream for which I have no regrets for following--only joyful gratitude!