"Never confuse your vocation with your avocation!"

Here are two facts which are indisputable:

In the last 40 years, the divorce rate has skyrocketed.

In the last 40 years, the number of people leaving the priesthood and/or religious life has skyrocketed.

Now there are certainly many reasons for this (and I definitely don't want to over-simplify the matter), but I believe that part of the problem can be stated in this way: Over the last 40 years, too many people have confused their vocations with their avocations. And it's that confusion which has contributed (at least in part) to the increased divorce rate, as well as the massive exodus of people from the priesthood and/or religious life.

So what's the difference? What's the difference between a vocation and an avocation?

Well, as the term is commonly used in Catholic teaching, a vocation is (in the words of Fr. John Hardon) "a call from God to a distinctive state of life, in which the person can reach holiness." (Pocket Catholic Dictionary, s.v., "Vocation.") Our primary and common vocation, therefore, is to holiness. In one of the major documents of Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, it says "all in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for by it, are called to holiness, according to the apostle's saying: 'For this is the will of God, your sanctification.'" But no one achieves holiness in a vacuum. Everyone is called to holiness in a certain state of life: as a single person, as a priest or religious, or as a married person. And once God calls a man or woman out of the single life and into marriage, or into the priesthood or religious life, that call is irrevocable! If it's really God who does the calling (and this is something which always needs to be discerned--but if it really is the Lord who calls), then it's FOR LIFE (or until one of the spouses in the marriage dies). And this is what is distinctive about vocations: they involve a total, lifelong commitment and they are rooted in the call of a God who does not change his mind! Ever! In fact, God is incapable of changing his mind! Only imperfect, fallible, fickle human beings like you and me can change their minds.

Then what is an avocation? An avocation can be defined as "a hobby." But, in the sense in which I'm using it here, an avocation is a job. It's what a person does to put bread on the table and provide for his family's needs. Now, as most of us know, in generations past it was very common for someone to have the same job throughout his working life. It was not at all unusual for someone to do the very same work in the very same place for 30 or 40 or even 50 years. That is definitely not the case anymore! In fact, nowadays it's extremely unusual for a person to have one job in one place for his entire working life. It's much more common for someone to switch jobs at least a couple of times during his or her career.

Now there is certainly nothing wrong with changing avocations. In fact, sometimes it's a financial necessity. But I find it interesting that in the last 30 or 40 years this phenomenon of job-changing has increased along with the rate of divorce, and along with the number of men and women leaving the priesthood and religious life. I don't believe that's a coincidence. As I indicated at the beginning of my homily, I think part of the problem is that too many people have started to think of their vocations as if they were only avocations. Consequently, since they don't think twice about changing jobs, they don't think twice about changing spouses, or about leaving the priesthood and religious life. I know for a fact that this was the case for one particular priest. After he left active ministry, he said to a friend of mine, "I've had a career change." Obviously he didn't realize that the priesthood is not a career, just like marriage is not a career. Marriage is much more than that; the priesthood is much more than that! They're vocations, not avocations.

I think this also explains, in part, why pre-marital sex is much more common now than it used to be. Think about it: engaging in pre-marital sex is, in a certain sense, like having a trial marriage--"Let's see if we're compatible. If we decide we are, then we'll make a more permanent commitment to each other." Well, that's exactly what many employers say to their prospective employees, is it not? They say to them, "Let's see if we're compatible. I'll hire you on a trial basis for x number of weeks. If you decide that you like the job--and if we decide that we like you--then we'll make a more permanent commitment to each other."

I mention all this today because in this morning's Gospel text from Matthew 4 Jesus calls his first apostles. He calls them away from their avocation as fishermen to their true vocation as "fishers of men." And the Bible tells us that they all responded to Jesus immediately--without any delay! I think there's a message there: the message is that a person's vocation is much more important than his avocation. For example, a man's vocation as a husband and father is more important than anything else he does; a woman's vocation as a wife and mother is more important than anything else she does. The apostles' vocation as fishers of men was much more important than their fishing business. Consequently, it shouldn't surprise us that they were willing to leave it without any hesitation. And this new vocation that Jesus gave them was to be "for life." Like all true vocations, it was not to involve a time-limited commitment! Did the apostles initially understand that? Perhaps not. They only knew that Jesus was calling them to something very important. But eventually it all became clear to them. In this regard, there's a marvelous scene in Franco Zefferelli's movie Jesus of Nazareth. It's early on in our Lord's ministry and Peter and Matthew are talking to one another. Peter is telling Matthew about his future plans for himself and his family. Matthew looks at him and says, "Peter, don't kid yourself. You'll never go back. None of us will ever go back to our old way of life. We will never be the same."