The pressure to “figure out my vocation” can be exhausting. 

It can be burdened by loneliness. By restlessness. 

By the fear that all happiness will evade you until you’ve secured your vocation. 

It’s painful. Wanting to find your person. Wanting to have the surety that comes with knowing where you belong. When these desires are unmet, to whatever degree, it’s unpleasant to say the least. 

Somewhere along the lines, many of us single Catholics started to believe that our principal calling is to hurry up and get married or become a religious person. Nothing is more important than “figuring out our vocation.” 

As a single person who has wrestled with the pressure to secure my vocation, the practices of daily prayer and regular spiritual direction have led me to change my reasoning in regards to the pursuit of vocation. I’ve learned some truths which have soothed existential discomfort and reordered disordered beliefs. 

First of all, we often speak about vocation as if there is only one vocation for each of us. If this is true, it then follows that our principal concern should be to secure that vocation as soon as possible. 

However, we actually have two vocations. 

St. Therese of Lisieux famously said in her autobiography The Story of A Soul, “Jesus, my love, at last I have found my vocation! My vocation is love.”

Jesus did not say – anywhere – that in order to follow him we need to be married or that we need to be a priest or a nun, etc.  But Jesus did say that in order to be his follower we must “Love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your heart and with all your mind and love your neighbour as yourself.”

To love Jesus and to love those around us: that is our primary vocation.  

It is true that as Catholics we believe that God has called most – if not all – of us to a permanent vocation of either marriage, religious life or consecrated singleness. Father Brett Brannon refers to this permanent vocation as our “particular or secondary vocation.”

We are all called to follow Jesus by living a life of love and holiness. This is our primary vocation. The state of life in through which we live that primary vocation is our secondary vocation. 

But sometimes we make the mistake of placing our two vocations out of order. We place our secondary vocation ahead of the vocation that God has called us to first. We slide into the error of thinking that in order to follow Jesus, we must first secure our secondary vocation. However, it is quite the contrary.

Do you feel pressure or anxiety to get your secondary vocation figured out? 

It might be as simple as reordering.

Our particular or secondary vocation of marriage, religious or consecrated life will be a natural fruit of focusing on our primary love of God.

How much better of a spouse will you be if your primary focus is on the Lord? 

How much better of a friend are you when your primary focus is on the Lord? 

How much better of a shepherd will you be if your primary focus is on God? 

From Christ alone comes the call, ability, and sustaining power to be who we are called to be.

There are many saints within the Catholic Church who offer us examples of how our primary vocation of love comes before our secondary vocation.

There is Blessed Chiara Badano, the Italian teenager who died at eighteen years old from bone cancer and who is on her way to being canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church. She died without professing a particular vocation.

There is St. Dominic Savio, a student of St. John Bosco, who died at 14 years old. He died without professing a particular vocation.

There is St. Sebastian, a first century martyr who was a general in the Roman army and who was killed for professing belief in Christ. He died without professing a particular vocation.

The fact that these individuals are revered as saints, despite the fact that they did not profess a particular vocation, points to the universal truth that our primary vocation is “to love.” Our particular or secondary vocation is critical, but we can draw close to Christ even when we are not there.

Marriage, religious life or consecrated life will play an essential role in the path that most of us take as followers of Christ, and yet it is the love with which we live that secondary vocation which will determine our holiness.

God alone will satisfy all of our desires. Donning a veil, receiving a cleric’s collar or exchanging rings with another person, as beautiful as it is, cannot give us the fulfillment of all desire. God alone suffices.

You will never be done or complete in your marriage, community, or singleness. Fullness comes from a relationship with God.

When we recognize that God is enough, we become freed to see our particular vocation as much more of a gift.

When we know in both heart and mind that our primary vocation is love, we become free of the desire to grasp and cling to a particular vocation or to view our particular vocation as “the thing” that is going to make us happy. 

For anyone who is in a position of waiting a long time for their particular vocation, it may seem trite to simply say “stay focused on your primary vocation of love!” After all, it can be a special sort of sorrow when your particular vocation has been unclear for a long time. 

There are many reasons that a vocation may not be realized yet, but as followers of Christ we can rest assured that God’s timing is perfect. 

God is pleased with your faithful heart. He sees you, and he has not forgotten you. The Lord rejoices, even at the sight of you. 

Even if you feel like you’ve messed up, even if you’ve had health problems that have inhibited you, even if you became a Christian later in life, even if you don’t know your particular vocation yet, God has not for a moment forgotten you. 

We can stand confident in the truth that regardless of our state in life, our vocation is love and nothing – nothing at all – can stop us from living a life of love.

It can be a road marked by suffering – but how relieving it is to know that God’s calling on our lives need not be a source of anxiety. Rather, with our eyes on love alone, all will be made clear in God’s time.