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This article is the first in a two-part series.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the distinct privilege of addressing an audience of senators, representatives, and Capitol Hill staffers in a beautiful room at the Library of Congress.
This event was made possible by two Congressmen, Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, a Democrat, and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, a Republican. Both had seen videos of the speeches I had given at Facebook and Google Headquarters and wanted something similar for those who work in government.
Gently escort the elephant out of the room
At the outset of my talk, I specified that I would not be addressing the hot button issues that so often dominate discussions of religion and politics. I was quick to point out that this is not because I think those questions are unimportant or that they shouldn’t eventually be addressed.
But I insisted that the rush to those matters around which there is radical polarization effectively precludes the possibility of finding deep points of contact between the spiritual and political worlds. And it was that common ground that I endeavored to explore in my presentation.
I commenced with the idea of vocation. We’re accustomed to using this term in an explicitly religious context, but I suggested that, with its full spiritual resonance, it applies just as well to other areas of life.
Deep water moments
I asked my audience to recall the moment when they first felt the summons to pursue a career in public service. I invited them to bracket the anxieties, disappointments, and opportunities of the present moment and to recover that moment, undoubtedly marked by enthusiasm and idealism, when they decided to enter into politics and to work for justice.
The passion to pursue righteousness in particular cases, I told them, is a function of something more basic and more mystical — namely, the call from justice itself, the summons to be a servant of this great transcendental value.
Intrinsic values
In a similar way, an artist is someone who has heard the call — as James Joyce did, for example — to be a knight for beauty, and a philosopher or journalist or professor is someone who has heard the summons to serve truth itself.
But in Catholic theology, truth itself, beauty itself, justice itself are simply names for God. Therefore, provided they search out the deepest ground for their commitment, all of these participants in the culture can and should understand themselves as having received a vocation with religious implications.
Samuel enters the fray
And once that connection has been made, I told my Washington audience, the great biblical texts dealing with vocation from God open up in a fresh way. I drew their attention to the marvelous story of the call of the prophet Samuel.
When just a boy, Samuel heard the voice of God, but did not at first recognize it for what it was. It was only after several repetitions — “Samuel, Samuel” — and after the helpful intervention of the high priest Eli, that the young man was ready to listen to God.
So, I said, God (under his title justice itself) called you each by name, most likely called you repeatedly until you listened, and probably employed some elder to interpret the meaning of his voice.
Next, I referenced the strange and illuminating account in the sixth chapter of Isaiah regarding the call of the prophet. Isaiah says that he saw the Lord in the temple surrounded by angels crying “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
The Hebrew term here is kadosh, which carries the sense of “other.”
Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Learn more at www.WordOnFire.org