The Call QUESTION from Alia May 15, 2000 This is reposted from the Catholic-Atheist Message Board. I hope I'm sending this to the right person/place. If not, please disregard this question.
I've searched hi and lo to find a message board online where I could post my question to the great beyond out there. Thank goodness for a Canadian Catholic forum.
To make a long story short, what do the words the call mean?
Let me explain: I've been an atheist for over a decade, after a near-baptismal brush (a long story: I was refused baptismal for some reason I still can't figure out) and 11 years of education in Roman Catholic institutions (another long story), namely Sainte Catherine de Sienne and Villa Maria in Montreal. When Lent began this spring, I started questioning my long held disbeliefs and biases about the Catholic church. I can say biases now, because I see them for what they were, but anyhow, I digress. Perhaps all this has something to do with my close contact with the fantastic people at the Newman Center in Montreal, or with my being involved with a Catholic, but whatever the case, the questioning became increasingly intense until I could honestly call it a daily torment. I am a student of religions and a soon to be moral education teacher, so I went in academic search for an answer to my rather emotional dilemma, but to no avail. It didn't stop for weeks. Before I knew it, I was sitting in a church (me! in a church!) every other day, feeling quite pityful and lost (read crying like a 5 year old for no reason questioning my long held disbeliefs). Sounds melodramatic, I know, but I can't word it any other way. So, I went to talk to a priest in RDP and he was convinced that this...occurrance was a call. A call to what? He didn't know. A call for what? I still don't get it. Why me? Why now?
I've searched everywhere but can't for the life of me figure out what the call is, what is does and why it's happening to me...
Could you perhaps elucidate what Father Mike meant when he said I was being called to God.
Thanks in advance.
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, O.L.S.M. on June 12, 2000 Dear Miss Alia:
Alia, I can answer your question.
You are being called to return to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ -- and specifically being called home to the Catholic Church.
What is a call? It is God asking you to accept his will for your life.
If I call you to supper, I am telling you that supper is ready and you need to come to the table.
Dear, God is calling you to the supper table of the Eucharist. He is calling you to come in from the storm of life into His loving arms.
He is calling you to Himself.
God loves you and He wants you to be with Him forever. But that will not happen unless you accept God's call (invitation).
God is inviting you Alia. What will you do? Accept that invitation and the hope of eternal life that comes with it, or reject that invitation to come to God's table and risk spending eternity without Him?
The call is yours.
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