Marathon call

Today being the London Marathon, our streets, and our TV screens are full of grit and determination, passion and pain. There are the elite athletes, their lives an unending round of extremely focused training and sacrifice, enabling them to somehow, incredibly, run or wheel 26 miles in only a couple of hours - and still be able to produce a final burst of speed if necessary. There are the club runners, and other highly motivated and dedicated amateurs... And then there are the so-called 'fun runners', although there is nothing resembling fun about what they are doing, or the months of intense training they've put themselves through. 

They are the ones who will raise millions of pounds for charities and causes - often ones with which they have a personal, at times heartbreaking connection. Each one has a story to tell, explaining just why they are putting their bodies through this gruelling ordeal. They are stories of heartache and loss, of survival and personal triumphs; of passion, too, and belief, gratitude and growth and life-changing experiences. And underlying each story, though rarely named, is a single motivator - love: valiant, generous, whole-hearted and totally crazy love, whether for a dead relative or a sick friend, a cause, a project, or for suffering strangers on another continent. Love is the only reason why an ordinary person would put themselves through the agony of a marathon - sometimes, even, laden by a heavy costume. 

Love is the only reason why anyone would lay down their lives for others, like the Good Shepherd in today's Gospel. 

Today, Good Shepherd Sunday, also known as Vocations Sunday, is the day when the worldwide Church prays for vocations to religious life and the priesthood. It's also a day when we often share our vocation stories. Like the women and men in the Marathon, each one of us religious has a story to tell, as unique as ourselves. What brought us here? And why do we stay? And in each story there may well be heartache and loss, survival and personal triumphs, passion, gratitude and belief. And there will be confusion and clarity, alongside discovery and joy. 

And love, of course, first and foremost! The overwhelming, unconditional love of God, and our own dawning call to become that love, for others, and for our world. And at the heart of each story, an encounter with the One who is Love: our model and inspiration, who becomes the source of all our joy, and the reason for the radical change in our life's direction, and our new call and mission. 

I started typing these words just as the wheelchair race got underway. By the time you read them, the Marathon might be in full swing, the air full of stories, grit and inspiration; of camaraderie, encouagement, agony and euphoria. Or you might read them later in the week, when the London Marathon is yesterday's news - except in proud hearts, and exhausted, still-aching legs. But unlike a single race, the vocations we celebrate and pray for today will continue... as will God's call. Let us pray that, in the midst of heartache and survival, in encounter, confusion and clarity, people will continue to listen, and to respond, with their own life-changing YES. It's a great, unending race to be part of! 

And if you'd like to read my story, you can find a link to it here - and here, alongside the stories of some of my sisters.