FOLLOWING JESUS
Discipleship as Vocation

I have always been intrigued by one paragraph of the French poet Bernanos. It goes something like this: "Lord, if I fall down, I will get up. If I fall a second time, I will rise up again. If a third time - or more - I fall, I will stand up all the same again and again. If one day it happens that I cannot get up anymore then, crawling along the ground, with bloody elbows and knees, I will drag myself. But I have to go until I reach you, 0 my God, and see your face."

Saint Teresa of Jesus, the great woman mystic, radical and free, both persecuted and admired, made a synthesis of all her faith in this cry: "I want to see God!"

Saint Augustine, another disquieting man, tells us the amazing conclusion of his journey: "Late have I loved you, 0 Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside.... You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."

The Bible reveals this same longing from the beginning to the
end: "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I go and see the face of God?" (Psalm 42:3). This is the desire that sustained Israel through centuries and it is also the prayer of the church today.
It is true that we can find God in our brothers and sisters, particularly in those who are suffering (Matthew 25:31-46). We sense his presence in nature, through the inscrutable mystery of the universe and in the beauty of each creature. God is present in all the events of history. In a very special way he is present in the church, in the Holy Scriptures, in the sacraments. Actually, God is there in each breath we take. And yet, it is not enough!

We have been created to fly higher. We are of divine fire. We are nomads of eternity. Only the infinite fills us.We want to see God face to face. Christian daring is precisely this: faith is a real encounter with God; love is a personal relationship with him; hope is the joyful sureness of his very life in our lives.

JESUS IS THE FACE OF GOD
We can see God in Jesus. He is the way to the Father. It is only through Jesus that we can know God, his words, his deeds, his ideals, his demands. It is in Jesus that the true God reveals himself: all-powerful but at the same time poor and suffering out of love; absolute, but also someone with a human history; someone close to every person. Jesus is Emmanuel, which means "God with us," visible and familiar.

God is revealed to us in the experience of following Jesus. This knowledge comes from an encounter in faith. It comes from knowing the Lord whom we follow contemplatively with all our being; "what we have heard with our ears and seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and-touched with our hands concerning the Word of life...." (1 John 1:1).
God calls us in Jesus. Vocation consists in following Jesus here and now. To be a disciple of Jesus is to follow him, and that is what Christian life is. Jesus of Nazareth, like us in all except sin, in whom lived the fullness of God, is the only model for our vocation. Jesus is our Vocation Master and the root of the values of our decisions.
Christian vocation, therefore, is not a passive but a dynamic commitment! It is not enough to praise Jesus as our Lord, we have to have the will to live as he did. Christian life is a matter of living like Jesus, of looking at him and imitating him. This vocation is called "discipleship."

According to the Bible, a disciple is one who always has his ears open (Isaiah 50:4), willing to learn from the wisdom of the Master, not only knowledge but life. Becoming a disciple of Jesus means a complete adherence to his person. We want to be his close friend, to discover his secrets, to share his struggles and to taste his intimacy. But we can only know Jesus if we follow him every day, everywhere; only if he becomes the treasure for which I am willing to sell everything I have (Matthew 13:44).

DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DISCIPLESHIP
In the gospels, when Jesus called people to be his disciples, he expected them to be with him before sending them out to preach with the authority to drive out demons (Mark 3:14). To put it more exactly, it is not only to be "with" him, but to be "in" him. Vocation is oneness with the person of Jesus.
We experience becoming one with Jesus especially through prayer. Actually, it is in the fullness of his Spirit that our prayer becomes true. Prayer is, as it was for Jesus, the way to know the will of God.
Prayer brings us to acceptance of the conditions of following Jesus. One who wants to become a disciple of Jesus has to choose Jesus' mentality, attitudes, options, mission and destiny.

I. Mentality: that of the Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-23; Matthew 5:3-12), the new values of the disciple. The mentality of the world is money, power and pleasure. The logic of the gospel is that in order to gain happiness we must "lose" ourselves (Mark 8:35). Jesus taught us to "swim against the current." His call is to service, obedience and generosity.

II. Attitudes: those of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-21) and the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus is the image of the mercy of God. The disciple, in internalizing Christ, becomes compassionate. The authentic sign of discipleship is the ability to forgive; a love given freely and without reservation. In this sense, the disciple renounces being judgmental of himself and of others (Matthew 7:1).

III. Options: for the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-10; Matthew 10:6). Those most in need of mercy had a privileged place in the heart of Jesus. The sinners, the rejected, the sick, the "little ones"... are also the favorite of the disciple of Jesus. His options of service are guided by this preference.

IV. Mission: The will of the Father is the salvation of all people. "The win of him who sent me is that I lose nothing of what he has given me, but instead that I raise it up on the last day" (John 639).
The disciple takes part in this mission of salvation (Matthew 10:7). The proclamation of the good news becomes his only purpose in life. The disciple reveals in his words and actions the saving love of Jesus.

V. Destiny: death and resurrection. Following Jesus until the final consequences: "Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit" (John 12:24).
Persecution and martyrdom are part of our vocation. Jesus is very clear: "If you will be a follower of mine, deny yourself and take your cross each day, and follow me" (Luke 9:23).
However, the end is not death but resurrection. The reward of God the Father for our fidelity is eternal life. Darkness and night are only the prelude to a light without end. Love always has the last word. The disciple follows Jesus in his promise of total liberation. The disciple is not afraid, despite his fragility. Laboring for "'the new. heaven and the new earth" (Revelation 21:1), he becomes a witness of hope.

FOLLOWING JESUS IS CONVERSION
To follow Jesus implies a conversion of heart. His call is to new life (John 3:3). To meet Jesus is to find God's love, and love makes us vulnerable. Love changes our route and opens for us horizons of which we have never before dreamt.

This conversion demands that we abandon sin, both personal and social. Christian vocation is a call to holiness, to the values of the gospel. It is a conversion in process, always growing, never perfectly finished. Jesus does not allow us to become complacent.

Following Jesus is a conversion to gladness, to that deep Christian joy that does not languish in the face of insult or attack. We know that the future is not on the side of evil, pride, or greed, but it is with the humble, the persecuted, the crucified.

Joy makes following Jesus a worthy adventure for us. It is the only vocation that can embrace our thirst for God.

SEND US FOOLS, LORD