Last week we heard in our Sunday scriptures of God calling both the prophet Samuel, and John the Baptist sending forth two disciples who Jesus called to follow him. God calls us in our daily lives to follow him. I offered three thoughts on God’s call to us. First, one may feel that “I am not ready or perfect.” But God invites us to come as we are, and by his grace we grow in faith and desire to do his will. Second, through our lives we receive the “baton” of faith passed down through family and by others in our life. This sacred gift received is a gift to be shared by us in family and those we encounter in life. This passing on of faith is at the heart of being a disciple of Christ. I shared that one of the blessings in our parish is the Vocation Chalice and Statue of Mary that is received each week as we pray for vocations and our families. Vocations both to the priesthood, religious life, and the lay ministries in our parish, and also responding to our unique vocational call and plan of God in our lives and families. A third reality of one’s call, is that God walks at our side in our journey of life. God never leaves us alone. This encounter of God flows from the Eucharist that we receive at each Mass and strengthens us each day. As one looks at God’s call to us in life, I offer this prayer of Saint John Henry Newman on our being called by God. “God has created me for some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have a mission. I may never know exactly what that mission is in this life. I shall be told it in the next. I have a part in a great work. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good. I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, even if I do not realize what I am doing. But, if I keep His commandments, I will serve Him in my calling.” How are each of us called to serve God? The mystery enfolds every time we respond to God’s call. We pray that when God calls us, we may respond as Samuel who replied when the Lord called him, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”