Who God calls us to be

Yesterday during Father Andy's homily he refered to T.S. Elliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, the work on which the Broadway musical Cats is based. At first I thought that maybe Fr. Andy had gone off his rocker. He then spoke about The Naming of Cats in which Elliot informs us that cats have three names. Fr. went on to explain that like T.S. Elliot's cats, we in fact have three names. We have our proper name as given to us by our parents, our common name in everyday usage. For example though my proper name is Christopher I commonly am called Chris. Then, we have our third name. The one given to us by God. This is our call in life. It is who God has called us to be. It is the name that we spend our entire lives trying to discover.

So a homily that started with my wondering about my priest's state of mind left me asking two questions.

1. Who am I?
2. Who does God want me to be?

These are questions that we should ask ourselves everyday. Actually, I think they are best asked like this. Who has God called me to be and how does who I am today relate to that call?

I am at a stage where I'm not sure what the next step is. I don't know what the future holds and I'm unsure about who God is calling me to be. In reflection, I can see that I was in much the same situation not long ago when I was tossing around the idea of converting to the Catholic Faith. When asked by people how I came to accept the Catholic Church I've often recounted "reading myself into it". But that's not really it at all. Through grace, God led me to become more of who He has called me to be. We have to open our hearts to listen to God and to be willing to follow where He leads. We will spend our lives searching in vain for who God wants us to be unless we listen for His voice. He has called us to Himself, the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. We must listen and follow what we hear to find our true self, our true name as called by God.