In one word, he practically set the life of Jesus Christ before that of St.
John the Baptist.
UPON THE JUDGING OF VOCATIONS.
Although our Blessed Father has given you the fullest possible instructions on this subject, in his seventeenth Conference, entitled, On voting in a Community, I see that you are not quite satisfied in the matter.
I know very well that your dissatisfaction does not arise from any unworthy motive, but only from a conscientious desire to do your duty to God, and to the sisters whom you have in a way to judge. To relieve your minds of doubt, I am about to supplement the teaching of that Conference with a few thoughts suggested to me at various times by Blessed Francis himself, which I put before you in words of my own.
In the first place, we must be careful never to confuse the terms vocation and avocation, for their meaning is very different.
An avocation is the condition of life in which we serve God.
A vocation is His call to that condition of life. When we call a servant to command him to do something, the calling him is one thing, his obeying and employing himself as directed quite another; and this, even if he do the work precisely as he is told, and no more. Now, there are two sorts of vocation. The first is the call to faith or grace; the second, the call to a particular avocation in life.
To follow the first vocation, viz., to Faith, is necessary for salvation, since he who refuses to listen to this call and to obey its voice risks the loss of his immortal soul. A pagan or heretic called by God to embrace Christianity or to submit to the Catholic Church, and to the end neglecting this call, must needs be lost, for out of the true Church there is no salvation. Again, if a member of the true Church who is spiritually dead in mortal sin, refuse to listen to the call, or vocation, of preventing grace which bids him return to God by confession, or by contrition of heart, he is in a state of damnation.
Not so, however, with the second kind of call or vocation. As this is only to some particular condition of life in the world or the cloister, although we must not neglect it, but must listen with respect to what it may please God to say to our heart, yet essentially it is not of vital importance to the welfare of our soul that we should follow such a call, since, at the most, it is but an inward counsel, which may be acted upon or not according to our choice.
And now remember that the counsels given in Holy Scripture are not precepts.[1] Our Blessed Father has often said that it would be not only an error, but a heresy, to maintain that there is any kind of legitimate calling or avocation in which it is impossible to save one's soul. On the contrary, in each, grace is offered, by means of which we may safely walk before God in holiness and justice all the days of our life.