20250221 VOCATION MUST BE DISTINGUISHED FROM AMBITION
21 February 2025, Friday, 6th Week in Ordinary Time
First reading | Genesis 11:1-9 |
The tower of Babel
Throughout the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire.’ (For stone they used bricks, and for mortar they used bitumen). ‘Come,’ they said ‘let us build ourselves a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered about the whole earth.’
Now the Lord came down to see the town and the tower that the sons of man had built. ‘So they are all a single people with a single language!’ said the Lord. ‘This is but the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard for them to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language on the spot so that they can no longer understand one another.’ The Lord scattered them thence over the whole face of the earth, and they stopped building the town. It was named Babel therefore, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. It was from there that the Lord scattered them over the whole face of the earth.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 32(33):10-15 |
Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
He frustrates the designs of the nations,
he defeats the plans of the peoples.
His own designs shall stand for ever,
the plans of his heart from age to age.
Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
They are happy, whose God is the Lord,
the people he has chosen as his own.
From the heavens the Lord looks forth,
he sees all the children of men.
Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
From the place where he dwells he gazes
on all the dwellers on the earth;
he who shapes the hearts of them all;
and considers all their deeds.
Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
Gospel Acclamation | 1Jn2:5 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
Whenever anyone obeys what Christ has said,
God’s love comes to perfection in him.
Alleluia!
Or: | Jn15:15 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
I call you friends, says the Lord,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Mark 8:34-9:1 |
Anyone who loses his life for my sake will save it
Jesus called the people and his disciples to him and said:
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin his life? And indeed what can a man offer in exchange for his life? For if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ And he said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.’
VOCATION MUST BE DISTINGUISHED FROM AMBITION
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [GN 11:1-9; MK 8:34-9:1]
When I was a young boy, one of the first compositions I had to write was “My Ambition.” It is generally accepted in the world that everyone must have an ambition in life. So from a young age, we are encouraged to think of our ambition. The question is whether having an ambition is really the way to life and therefore a good thing. Today, the liturgy tells us that ambition is a way to death rather than to life. Why is that so?
In the first reading from Genesis, we have the story of the Tower of Babel. We are told in this story that the people wanted to build a town and a tower so that they could make a name for themselves. They were ambitious. They wanted to be better than others. The truth is that ambition makes a person competitive, unscrupulous and hostile towards others. We can be very sure that the real cause of division among the people was not because God confused their language. Rather, it was because of their ambition that they no longer spoke the common language of love and unity. For anyone who wants to climb to the top must necessarily step on others. We can postulate that the use of slaves, forced labour and unfair means must have been employed in order for them to build a tower of that height and splendour.
When we are ambitious, we want to win, and quite often, at the expense of others. Competition makes people selfish and self-seeking. This explains why life in the corporate and political world can be harsh, because people try to outdo each other to get promoted, and it is not uncommon for people to employ all means to outdo their competitors, including unscrupulous means. Yes, when we are ambitious, we are more concerned with achieving our objectives than about the feelings and well-being of others. The desire to be the best can consume a person’s attention so much that he works only for himself and his glory, and not for the good of humanity. Thus, he becomes unfeeling towards others and lacking in compassion and genuine service. So, ambition is the cause of division and disunity among human beings, because ambition is basically inward-looking and self-seeking without regard for others.
Secondly, not only does ambition destroy love and unity, it also takes away life. Indeed, Jesus asks us, “What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin his life? And indeed, what can man offer in exchange for his life?” The question we need to examine honestly is whether ambition and the achievement of our intended goals can truly bring us real happiness and give us that fullness of life. Clearly, the answer is negative. Ambition can give happiness in so far as the goal is attained. To do so, a person may have to spend years of his life working towards that goal. Even then, it may only bring some momentary happiness and satisfaction, after which, he will have to seek for another goal.
So his life will be nothing but a series of endless goals and momentary fulfilment. He will spend his life in pursuit of happiness, but never quite arrive, because that happiness lies outside of himself. He will spend his whole life making a living, but never begin to live. He lives in hope that one day when he retires he can find happiness. But when the time arrives, it may be too late to enjoy, either because he is too sick or too old.
Being ambitious is to fall into activism. We are restless the moment something is accomplished. Hence, the need to keep looking for challenges. What is frustrating is that even when our goal is realized, the happiness does not last very long. The question is, “why can’t we be happy where we are now?” Those who are not happy where they are now will most unlikely be happy anytime. If one is always chasing one goal after another, he is living in delusion of a happiness that never exists. Even if such a person gains the whole world, he will never find life. What is worse is that many spend their whole life wanting to climb to the top, only to find that the top is such a lonely place to be in! Thus, the thought-provoking question posed by Jesus, “what can man offer in exchange for his life?”, is an invitation for us to search ourselves.
If ambition is not the key to happiness, then what can bring us real happiness and real life? The answer is vocation. The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word, “voce”, that is, a voice that comes from without and heard from within. Vocation therefore is the call to serve God and others and not ourselves. In other words, if we want to find life, and thus true happiness, we must look beyond serving ourselves and our own needs. In serving God and others, we find ourselves and happiness.
Indeed, this was the way of Jesus. Yesterday, we were told that Jesus was conscious that He had been called to serve His Father through the way of humility and death on the cross. He invites us to follow the same path, for He said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Only when we give ourselves in love and service to God and others, will we find meaning and therefore life, because the love and service of God and others has no limits and no end. We can never give enough of ourselves!
But the paradox is that when we choose to renounce ourselves and our ambitions for the love and service of others, we find ourselves. Indeed, those who choose to empty their lives for others, already find life. That is why Jesus said, “‘I tell you solemnly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.'” By choosing vocation instead of ambition, we need not wait for any objective to be fulfilled in order to find happiness. Since our goal is to bring humanity into one through love and service, this work or vocation is a life-long commitment. It is a goal that is always yet to be realized; but the attainment of this goal is not primary, for in the process of labouring in love, we already find our fulfilment and joy. In a vocation, the journey itself is the goal, for by living out one’s vocation, one finds fulfilment for one has transcended oneself for others. In this sense, we need not be too bothered whether we have fulfilled our objectives or goals. What is important is that we give ourselves in love and service to the best of our ability, even to the extent of emptying ourselves. That is why, Blessed Mother Teresa says, “We are called to be faithful not successful!” For by so doing, as we give up ourselves for the sake of Christ and the gospel, we find life to the fullest.
What is most disheartening today is that many of us do not have any ambition, that is direction in life, much less a sense of vocation. Without ambition, there is no sense of direction, focus or motivation. As a result, one goes through life perfunctorily. Of course, the other extreme is that one can get too ambitious. When that happens, we become self-centred and egoistic.
So is having an ambition in life a boon or a bane? If we speak of an ambition as a goal in life, we must be clear that it is only a means to help us to stay focused. Without a focus, we cannot motivate ourselves. However, real happiness is not dependent on whether we fulfil our goals, but whether we empty our lives in the service of God and others. If we speak of our ambition as our goal, it is only because this is the way we feel that God is calling us to express our love and service.
So what should give us focus is not ambition but a vocation. Only a vocation can give us zeal, enthusiasm and life. More than that, when we live out our vocation, we participate in the life of God, which is to build the people of God and contribute to the development of humanity. In this sense, we do not need to chase after objectives and goals, for then, our whole life is our goal!
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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