An excerpt from the novel Cosmas or the Love of God by Pierre de Callan.
“A vocation is not open to empirical investigation. The Lord
is relentless when he wants to enlist someone in his service; but he is also
incredibly self-effacing. One cannot possibly understand the signs of a
vocation unless one remembers that god, because He is Love, woos souls with all
the delicacy and shyness of a lover. Even those who can say that they never had
the slightest doubt about their vocation still feel overwhelmed and at a loss
to explain exactly what this means. For here contradictory truths inaccessible to
ordinary human logic, come together: there is a sense of being led by someone
stronger than oneself, and yet remaining free; the feeling that it will pursue
us in season and out of season, and yet that it is within our power at any
given moment not to heed it; the understanding that god has need of our
so-operation to lead us wherever He desires. Mary was free to say no to the
Angel.
Moreover, God’s call comes to us in a human context which
may be ambivalent and need sorting out: family circumstances; the influence of
a priest or of relations or friends; an example one feels impelled to follow; a
book we have read, or a felling; psychological or emotional events. All these
can be exploited by the Lord to incline us to follow His path”
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