Path to completion: Through choices in life

		Living the Scriptures  with St. Paul University  Catholic Center  Sr. Tiziana Mazzei  of the Apostles of the Interior Life

Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, because in each year of the liturgical cycle on this fourth Sunday, the Gospel is always taken from the 10th chapter of John where Jesus speaks of himself as the "good shepherd."

Fourth Sunday of Easter (May 7, 2006) Acts 4:8-12 Ps 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29 1 Jn 3:1-2 Jn 10:11-18

Not only is it Good Shepherd Sunday, but it is also "Vocations Sunday." The church invites us to pray for more leaders; moreover, you and I are invited to give more thoughts to our own vocations.

Many times we limit the concept of vocation to the special call reserved to priests and religious. However, vocation has a much broader sense. Each one of us has a vocation.

We are all called in different ways and paths to spend our lives for others, to reach the fullness of love, and to become holy. This is the only purpose in life for you and me.

There is no greater love than to lay down our life for another. Today's Gospel is exactly about that. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the perfect example of this love.

Jesus is not forced by circumstances to give His life. He wants to offer His life for us. As imitators of Him and empowered by His Grace, you and I, too, can give our life for others.

"No one takes my life for me, but I lay it down of my own" (John 10: 17). How can we say the same thing?

We all know that one day we will die. We do not choose to die. Furthermore, we choose neither the way nor the time of our death. Death will come in a moment when we least expect it.

However, we can honestly say that we lay down our life on our own, if everyday we try to fulfill what we think God is asking us to do. Death has a twofold meaning; on one hand it is something unavoidable that will happen to us without our control.

On the other hand, death can be our own active decision to bring us to fulfillment. In this second sense we can say that we are in charge of our death if and when we decide freely the way we want to spend our lives. No one takes our life from us; we actively decide to give it

	Reflection questions • Do you ever think about your death; do you see death only as something ineludible? • Do you realize that you are called to make your life a gift; how do you want this to happen?

Miguel de Unamuno (Spanish philosopher) said, "the awareness of death makes people start to mature." Death is not only the last event of your life, but it is also the gradual and constant bringing of yourself to completion through the choices of everyday life.

Come on now. Let's be aware that in each moment we too can lay down our life for others.

Sr. Tiziana Mazzei is one of three Italian Sisters working at St. Paul University Catholic Center this year. She is a member of the Apostles of the Interior Life, a religious order. She has been working on campus to evangelize through spiritual direction and helped organize the "Good Sex" talks, a lecture series based on John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

St. Paul's Web site is www.stpaulscc.org

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