Family Vocation

What does it mean to be called as a husband, a wife, a parent, a child? How does the grace of the gospel impact how we carry out our particular calling? How does God's presence influence the struggles that families face? Gene Veith joins forces with his daughter Mary Moerbe to explore these kinds of questions as well as the roles of calling and vocation in family life. Though we have little control over who is in our family (other than choosing a spouse and deciding to have children), God has placed us with specific people for specific reasons. Veith and Moerbe show how our roles are distinct and important to God's plan for our lives—and that when we have a biblical understanding of those roles in our families, we can move away from common dysfunctions and toward forgiveness and healing. Writing with sensitivity and wisdom, Veith and Moerbe address the common problems facing contemporary families: the crosses, the weaknesses, and the uncertainties. They articulate a compelling, biblical paradigm for creating and sustaining loving and forgiving families who maintain hope in the face of cultural pressure. This book is an important resource for all Christians, including pastors, counselors, and those working in family ministry.

"Family Vocation: Embracing God's Call with Unity and Purpose" is a compelling exploration of the profound journey families undertake when responding to the call of God. This reading material delves into the intricate tapestry of family life, uncovering the ways in which families, as cohesive units, navigate the sacred path set by God. With a keen focus on unity and purpose, this reading offers guidance on nurturing strong family bonds while aligning with the greater spiritual mission to respond to the calling of God.

How shall we live? What is the good life? What is the value of a person? What is my place in this world? Is God active in this world? These are questions that have been asked in every culture and in every era. From the Hebrew concept of Shalom (wholeness/well-being) to the Greek concept of Eudaimonia (happiness) and even to the American notion that all people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, great thinkers have pondered what it means for humans to flourish. The doctrine of vocation uniquely answers these questions. A certain level of security, prosperity, and freedom are essential components of human flourishing. God provides these components by working through humans in their stations in life such as parents and police (security), farmers and bankers (prosperity), and soldiers and governments (freedom). And yet there is more for which we humans strive. We are the types of beings whose wonderment drives us to the pursuit of knowledge, justice, and achievement. In short, we desire to be justified. We want to be valued. We want to be right or just. We strive for epic-ness. But no mere human adulation will satisfy. Nor can we justify ourselves before God with our broken lives. God justifies Christians through Christ and then uses them. God adds another component to human flourishing: purpose. He uses Christians in his economy of love to take care of the world. He lifts us from the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary even as we carry ordinary tasks. For the Christian these stations become callings or vocations. This can only fully be appreciated if the Christian knows that he or she is free from pleasing God through works. Once the Christian is freed from this burden the whole of the Christian life is reoriented to the free exercise of love towards neighbor. It is the highest calling, the truly good, flourishing, and happy life.

Many grandparents experience a surge of joy with the birth or adoption of a grandchild. For years afterward, time together is eagerly coveted, pictures are treasured and displayed, and multiple gifts along with various kinds of support are gladly provided. Richard Olson, a retired minister, professor of theology, and grandparent many times over, presents the unconditional love of a grandparent as indicative of a vocation, a calling from God. He explores the vocation of grandparent in all of its multiple dimensions of being and doing. Informed by a biblical perspective, the book explores the author’s personal journey of grandparenting and includes conversations with a diverse set of other grandparents. Olson examines biblical examples of grandparenting and suggests that the grandparent vocation has possibilities that often go unnoticed. These include care, enjoyment, and response to issues throughout a grandchild’s growth. He also addresses concerns for our grandchildren’s future world, and how grandparents can engage in mutual conversation about faith, morals, and values in a changing world. In addition, Olson discusses increasingly common relationship types such as grandparents serving as primary caregivers, adults becoming step-grandparents through marriage, interreligious family systems, and grandparents handling children with special needs. The book includes questions for personal or group reflection.

Vocation to Virtue seeks to answer a perennial difficulty in the Catholic theology of marriage: how do the practice and bond of marriage lead to Christian perfection in spouses and their children? If the Second Vatican Council is correct in saying that all in the church are called to Christian perfection, we need an account of how those consecrated in the sacrament of marriage can fulfill that vocation. If the perfection of charity consists in Christ himself, then couples must imitate Christ. But how? If Christ is the poor, chaste, and obedient bridegroom of the church, then spouses achieve holiness inasmuch as they participate in Christ's own virtues: poverty, chastity, and obedience. The thesis is that the language of the evangelical virtues (poverty, chastity, and obedience), a rule of life, and robust preparation (maybe a novitiate) belongs as properly to marriage as to consecrated religious life. Both states are specifications of a common baptismal consecration to Christ himself. Lasnoski seeks to establish this fact and constructively apply this language to conjugal life. The book begins by explaining our marriage crisis and theological paradigms for speaking about Christian marriage as "relationship" or as "practice," and considers modern scholarly attempts to relate conjugal life and consecrated religious life. The book then offers a theological groundwork in Christ and the Trinity for a deeper, noncompetitive relationship between the consecrated religious life and married life. It offers an Augustinian account of the relationship between marriage and consecrated life, and develops the ecclesial connection between the states with recourse to John's Gospel, which sees Christian life in terms of "householding." The church's tradition has a dialogical relationship between the consecrated and married - a mutual sharing of both "monastic" and "domestic" language. The final chapter develops practices of Christian householding for conjugal life using the language of poverty, chastity, and obedience, a rule of life, and a kind of novitiate preparation.

"Many of today's moral conflicts concerning family values and medical ethics have their basis in different conceptions of man and the nature and purpose of human life. Fr Bristow argues that contemporary utilitarianism and the various forms of permissive morality are insufficient for dealing with these matters and that only a natural law morality is adequate to the needs and dignity of the human person. He goes on to apply its principles to the issues that derive from advancing technology, such as genetic engineering, in vitrio fertilization, embryo research, drugs and painkillers and ecology."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Although the language of vocation was born in a religious context, the contributors in this volume demonstrate that it has now taken root within the broad framework of higher education and has become intertwined with a wide range of concerns. This volume makes a compelling case for vocational reflection and discernment in undergraduate education today, arguing that it will encourage faculty and students alike to venture out of their narrow disciplinary specializations and to reflect on larger questions of meaning and purpose. In conversation with a growing range of scholarly resources, these essays advance the cause of vocational reflection and discernment well beyond its occasional mention in general education courses and career placement offices. The book's thirteen contributors all work in higher education, but they do so as biologists and musicians, sociologists and engineers, doctors and lawyers, college presidents and deans, and scholars of history, literature, and business administration. Together, they demonstrate that vocation has an important role to play across the entire range of traditional academic disciplines and applied fields. Regardless of major, all undergraduates need to consider their current and future responsibilities, determine the stories they will live by, and discover resources for addressing the tensions that will inevitably arise among their multiple callings. Vocation across the Academy will help to reframe current debates about the purpose of higher education. It underscores the important role that colleges and universities can play in encouraging students to reflect more deeply on life's most persistent questions and to consider how they might best contribute to the common good.

During the last few decades there has been an increasing interest in the connection between our faith and our work, along with the growth of resources and organizations to bring the two into dialogue. Despite this, most Christians continue to feel that their daily work is less valuable than that of pastors, missionaries, or full-time workers in a religious organization. In a fresh and practical way, this book sets out the biblical, historical, and theological grounds for challenging this commonly felt view. It includes a range of engaging personal case studies that demonstrate the profound effect integrating one’s work up into one’s faith can have—relationally, institutionally, and societally as well as evangelistically, pastorally, and missionally. Attention is also given to the increasingly addictive, fragmented, and precarious nature of work today, and to how we can spiritually find our way to discerning and expressing our unique God-given vocation. The final section of the book considers whether any of our work has eternal value, and retells a compelling parable of what this might look like.