The following Vocare spiritual practice is featured in Church Anew’s Lent in a Box for 2023 and was developed by Rev. Dr. Charlene Rachuy Cox as part of the Nourishing Vocation Project of The Lutheran Center at St. Olaf College. We will be offering one piece of the Vocare practice each week. 

Vocare is an ongoing spiritual practice designed to help you discern and embrace your various callings so that you can more intentionally live life on purpose for the common good. 

Through guided reflection on personal life experiences via the lenses of values, openness, call, attentiveness, regrets, and experiences of God’s presence, the Vocare practice nourishes discernment of three primary questions. Who am I called to be? What am I called to do? Why am I here?

Vocare Practice: Called to Openness

You are invited to focus on your own experiences of openness. Openness summons us to dwell in “holy indifference,” focusing our hearts and minds not on outcomes or results, but rather concentrating on being sustained in every present moment by God who works all things for good. Use the time between the following guided questions for your own reflection and meditation. Bring to mind an experience from your own life when you needed to be open to something. Is this an experience of openness that has reached a conclusion, or is it an experience of openness that is still unfolding? How has this particular experience of openness shaped your life and its horizons?

Reflect upon your openness

• How do I typically respond to invitations or expectations to be open?

• To what was I asked to be open today?

• To what did I say “yes?”

• To what did I say “no?”

•  What do I need for tomorrow?

Prayer

Open my heart, O God, to the mysteries of your saving love. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Check out our Instagram reel for a video version of this reflection.