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 for Ash Wednesday

You are invited to focus on God’s call to renewal for you. Renewal comes in host of different forms and through a variety of times and experiences in our lives. Sometimes, renewal comes through unexpected, unplanned, or even undesired circumstances. At other times, renewal is a conscientious and intentional choice. Either way, seasons of renewal are “between no longer and not yet.” In these “in between times,” we are changed. 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 experienced renewal. Is this an experience of renewal that is in the past, or is it an experience of renewal that is ongoing? How has this experience of renewal shaped your life and its horizons?

Reflect upon how God is calling you to renewal in this season

• Who am I called to be – in this “not yet” time?

• What am I called to do – in this “not yet” time?

• Why am I here – in this “not yet” time?

• What do I need for this “not yet” time?

Prayer

Turn me toward you, O God, to Lenten practices that call me from death to life. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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