This past weekend, February 8-10, 2008, the Dominican House of Studies hosted its semiannual vocations weekend for men discerning a vocation to our province. The weekend was a resounding success, with 26 men attending.

On Friday night, there was a Holy Hour, with preaching by Rev. Br. Bruno Mary Shah. In his homily, he reflects on two classic Eucharistic texts by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Adoro Te and the O Sacrum Convivium . The homily can be read below:

“Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth.” (Jn 17:17-19)

We are here to “Come and See.” Divine faith testifies to God’s call, to which we respond: Here I am Lord, I come to do Your will. Having come here in faith, hearkening to the Master’s call, What, then, do we see?

Regarding the supernatural end of our faith, in whom we find the very beginning of our vocation, we must say that we see nothing. That is, we do not see the Godhead, who remains here hiding under the form of bread. Only faith gives us evidence of the Deity unseen. So, we come before the mystery of our Lord’s presence in Devout Adoration, submitting our whole hearts. Sight and touch and taste here failing, only hearing can be believed.

On the Order’s Mission

And what does our Eucharistic faith hear…here? The mission of the Son. Speaking into our darkness, the Father has sent His Word of light: And His Word is Truth. The Word through whom the world was created. The Word through whom the world is redeemed. This Word the world needs to hear, that it come to believe and have life, and have it fully. But in order that men might hear the Word and find the one Way that is everlasting Life, God calls men to preach His Truth: Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

On the Vow of Obedience
St. Augustine said that “Truth is that by which that which is, is shown.” Reason shows that, that which most perfectly is, is God Himself. And Faith shows that, in Jesus’ sacrifice of obedience, this God’s love for man has been ultimately shown. Thus the Preacher must be a contemplative of the Cross, whereupon divinity and humanity hang hidden. The Preacher must always study the God-man whose consecration to the Truth committed him to the Cross. And to show the Truth by which salvation is shown, our Lord’s Cross of Truth must be deeply known. For knowledge demands identification. And so, if we would bear Jesus Christ’s selfsame Word of divine Truth, we cannot but bear the sacrificial wood of His human obedience. The Preacher’s self-offering through the vow of obedience is thus his absolute allegiance to the mission of Truth. Such is the way to give God’s eternal and saving Word a living and true voice.

An Aspect of the Common Life
Sent to preach the Word, we are charged with a divine mission. And in the same way that God’s missions to the world are supported, as it were, by a community of persons, so too, the Preacher’s mission is supported by, situated in a community. For, the Father’s Word, breathing forth Truth, erupts unto a second and necessary mission: The Spirit’s establishing of love. Obedience to the truth must needs issue from and for the Spirit of love. Consequently, the Preacher’s community of Truth is a school of mercy. Mercy given, but more importantly, mercy received. It is the Preacher’s lifelong docility to this education in mercy that matures his thirst for souls. For without this mercy-full thirst for the salvation of men and women in mortal need of holy doctrine, the Preacher’s learning, however great, truly shows nothing. Faith gives us divine Truth. Faith establishes the foundation of salvation, whence we contemplate the Revealing God. But charity commands the mission in terms of mercy, by which our fruits of contemplated-Truth are handed on to other people.

Asking for the Holy Spirit’s Gift of Counsel
In order to render all this vocational speculation, this vocational looking into any kind of living execution, though, we must beg for an increase in the Holy Spirit’s personal Gift of Counsel. For, only such heavenly Counsel can inspire our action from within our experience and love of divine things. Therefore we pray, that, kneeling before the real presence of our Lord who was crucified, we be consumed with desire to receive the divine Word’s eternal benediction, to receive Jesus Christ’s Holy Communion. For it is from the crucible of divine communion that our vocation is born…and it is out of this same crucible that our vocation is chosen.

Final Charge

Only in the sacrificial mystery of our Eucharistic Lord can the Holy Communion that perfectly satisfies be found. So make no mistake: The sometimes excruciating but always beautiful question of your call is articulated by Jesus Christ Himself: Does my crucifixion, death, and resurrection strike you as reality’s noble challenge, to sacrifice your life in evangelical obedience, to devote yourself to sacred learning, and above all, to preach the Truth for the salvation of souls? Do you hear my Word and believe that I am working through your very desires and yet calling you perfectly beyond them, saying “Come, follow me”? Will you give yourself to be sent into the world, to Preach the Church’s Eucharistic faith, even as a pledge of your own future glory? Well now. Come, and See…

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