Kyle Sladek, Staff Writer

This article is the third installment in a series that will interview various individuals and couples about vocation, discernment, and the celebration of diverse forms of holiness. Here, Theology Professor Dr. Tim O’Malley and his wife Kara speak about these topics. This is the full transcript of their interview.

Sladek: How would you describe vocation in a general sense?

Tim:   Vocation, for the Christian, is shaped by our encounter with Jesus Christ, the God-man.   In Christ, we come to see the fullness of what our humanity can be, how we are made to give ourselves away in love; and this self-gift is divine life.   Thus, at the most general level, Christian vocation is the conforming of our life to the logic of self-giving love revealed in Christ Jesus.  It is the call to self-gift.

Kara:  I would describe is as the quest to become most fully who we are.  At its deepest level, vocation is the call to love God and respond to his loving call in our lives.  The way that we do this is through cultivating a virtuous and loving life, being true to who we are, and finding ways to give of ourselves in service to others.

How would you describe your vocation?

Tim:  My vocation is to marriage.   But such a vocation is not ultimately about either my wife or myself alone.   Rather, it is about how our specific commitment to love one another might transfigure the world in very concrete ways.

Kara:  At this point, my primary vocation is to be a loving wife and mother.  However, I also am called to be a considerate daughter and sister, a generous friend, and a patient and compassionate pastoral minister.

What does your general vocation entail?  What does your specific vocation entail?

Tim:  For the most part, one cannot separate general from specific vocation.   Precisely, as we make commitments throughout our lives, then the form of our self-gift to the world takes shape.  Thus, my call to self-gift is to the married life; my work as a professor, as a father, as a friend is informed and made possible through my vocation to the married life.  Each of these aspects of my life enrich my vocation to marriage, at the same time that marriage capacitates me to engage in these vocations in a more committed manner.

Kara:  I guess my general vocation is the call to be who I am and to live in service and love for others.  I unpack that vocation through specific means: primarily in my marriage and the love that infuses this home that we make through our son, through my fulfillment in my ministerial work, through my relationships with friends and family.

How did you come to discover your vocation?  What were some intermediate steps in this process?

Tim:   I didn’t discover my vocation to marriage in one unique definitive moment in which I knew that I was to be married.  For that matter, the same is true about my life as a professor.  Marriage did not come to me as a concept; that is, I never felt called to marriage in general.   Instead, I felt called to marry Kara.   This calling came about as I began to realize (through our time of dating and engagement) that Kara increased my capacity to love.   I suppose then the intermediate steps in the process are: does this relationship (or in the case of discernment to the religious life, this religious order or diocesan priesthood) lead me to a deeper capacity to love?  Does it actually turn me into a more committed disciple?

Kara:  I have not had any extreme ‘a-ha’ moments when it comes to vocation; rather with each new turn or step it is a gradual growth of certainty that this is the right path.  I always imagined myself married someday, but my vocation to marriage became concrete in my relationship with Tim.  I couldn’t imagine myself married to someone else.  We grew into our vocation to marriage with one another, if that makes sense (kind of like how two trees that grow close together might end up entangled in one another).

Did you ever consider a vocation other than the one you now are living?

Tim:  I did think about a vocation to priesthood specifically.

Kara:  Not really.  I always wanted to be married and have children.  However, I could never have imagined the path to unfold the way it has.

What did you want to be when you were young?

Tim:  I never really imagined that I wanted to be a professor when I was younger.  But I did always have a desire to teach, to be in the classroom.   I’m more alive teaching than anywhere else.

Kara:  I never had a strong ambition toward any one profession when I was younger.  I kind of fell into the business school as an undergrad because of a lack of direction.  The only thing I was sure of was wanting to have a family.  However, once I began to pay attention to the ways in which God might be calling me, what made me happiest, etc., I began to think creatively about my life and my professional options after college.  In a roundabout way, that is how I ended up in ministry.

At what point in your life did you become aware of the concept of vocation?  How did this concept affect you?

Tim:  I had a general sense of vocation as calling rather early in my high school career; but it was primarily wrong.  I thought that God would forcibly interrupt my own actions, to show me the precise way that my life should unfold.   It was not until I read Augustine’s Confessions my freshman year of college that I saw vocation less as an external interruption of human freedom and more as a commitment to self-gift, to a radical love.   And that God was not forcibly entering into my life, ensuring that I would choose what God intended for me.

Kara:  I probably had never even really heard the word, except in passing, until I was in college.  I was abruptly forced into contemplating it when I signed up for this great summer job, ND Vision, in 2002 (the first year of the program).  That experience was a crash course in vocation, and through that first summer, the ways in which I imagined my life unfolding broadened and deepened.  After that experience, I began to look critically at what I was doing at Notre Dame, to take courses that challenged and interested me and to begin to contemplate if there was a profession out there that would bring me joy and fulfillment.

What is the most rewarding or fulfilling aspect of your vocation?

Tim:   I’ll start with marriage specifically.   The most fulfilling aspect is simply being in the presence of another human being, whom you share such a deep history with.   My wife and I have known each other for over nine years now; we can be in the same room together for hours and never speak a word.   We relied upon one another when we moved to Boston and didn’t know anyone else.   We took care of each other as we tried to have a child but couldn’t.   And now, as we’re raising our adopted son, our history continues in a rather new and surprising way.   But what has remained constant is our commitment to be with one another.   This aspect of my vocation, the delight of being in the presence of another, has also shaped my career as a teacher.   I genuinely delight in being in the presence of my students—and this capacity to enjoy the presence of another was given to me by my wife.

Kara:  Right at this very moment, it is seeing my husband interact with our new son.  There is something intensely beautiful about just being in the presence of people that you love so much.  In particular, our marriage for me has been a source of consolation, of inspiration, of joy, of laughter, and of openness to unforeseen possibilities.  The ways in which Tim loves me helps me to be more loving to others in my life, and to do my work well.  I look forward each day to eating dinner with my husband (a little more challenging with a newborn) and being able to talk—to unpack our days, give and receive advice, work through issues, and just enjoy being together.

What is the most challenging aspect of your vocation?

Tim:   The most challenging aspect of marriage (this is speaking at a general rather than a specific level) is committing to another human being for the rest of your life, when you don’t know what the rest of your life will involve.   The commitment to marriage, even when it’s difficult, is actually what stretches our capacity toward deeper love.   It’s easy to love when you’re falling in love; when everything is “rainbows and bunnies” in a relationship.   It’s harder when you encounter disappointment, the stress of work, the exhaustion of raising a child.   Here is where the commitment to marriage challenges one in a good sense to open up toward further love.

Kara:  There is a kind of death when you commit yourself to another person in this way.  When I give myself over to love, I must become a new person, my old habits broken, my identity transformed, my control of my life lost.  I still make decisions for myself, but I make them through the lens of my husband and my son.  That is not difficult, per se; it becomes more natural over time as we grow together.  However, it is never easy to hand over a part of yourself to someone else, which is why we are lucky that the sacrament of marriage strengthens us through grace to be more loving and open people.

How do you serve the Lord and his Church through your vocation?

Tim:  Let me reverse the question for a second.   At the most basic level, the Church actually makes my vocation to marriage possible.   As St. Paul notes, the mystery of love shared between Christ and the Church is reflected in the very real mystery of love shared between husband and wife.   Thus, the Church (as she contemplates the mystery of Christ’s love for humanity manifested in the Church) bestows to me an image of what my marriage should be:  it should be as loving, as nuptial as the Christ’s own marriage to the Church.   Thus, my marriage serves the rest of the Church insofar as it reflects back an image of the love of Christ and his Church.   That is, as my wife and I enter more deeply into self-gift, saying yes to even the most difficult aspects of this love, then my marriage serves the Church.  As a professor, my work more obviously serves the Church.   That is, I hope to awaken the imagination of my students regarding the beauty and truth of Christian faith; the manner in which it shapes our vision of what constitutes reality; and thus changes who we are.

Kara: What he said.

What role does prayer play in your vocation?

Tim:  Prayer, especially the Eucharist, plays an essential role in my vocation.   Participating in the sacrifice of Christ at the Mass throughout our married lives, we have learned to offer our wills to the Father through the Son.   We have learned to enter more deeply into the depths of our own sorrows, as an act of faith.   The Eucharist capacitated us to adopt a child, to sign up for foster care.   The logic of love revealed in the Eucharist continues to shape our vocation; to pray deeply at the Eucharist is what keeps our marriage spiritually vital.

Kara:  Prayer has always been the essential element of discernment.  It is something that I turn to in times of joy, of searching, and of disappointment.  I have never found easy answers in prayer (it is kind of like trying to see in the dark) but have found that over time, the way is gradually revealed through attention to the signs of God in my life.

Do you have any advice for young people discerning their vocation?

Tim:  Two cautions.  First, vocation isn’t about discernment; it’s about commitment.  Don’t fall victim to an addiction to discernment that ends up hurting other people, of endless nights of angst.   When you’re dating someone, really date them, asking yourself how you might commit (even in this limited way) toward loving another person.   Second, don’t let vocation become spiritualized.   Christian marriage (and parenthood) is as much about paying bills, changing diapers, taking the trash out, and cleaning toilets as it is about reflecting the love of Christ and the Church.   In fact, only through these concrete actions (which are rather mundane and properly so) will one reflect the love of Christ and the Church.   It should be said that the same romanticization is as possible with the priesthood, with the life of a professor, etc.

Kara: Start with the concrete.  How can I be fully and totally open to this person, this ministry, this community, this job, etc., that is in front of me right now?  I think we too often present only three options for vocation (marriage, religious life, or single life), but in reality we each live out our vocation in remarkably distinct ways.  The ways in which Tim and I understand our vocation to marriage might be vastly different than those of our friends.  Finally, make the commitment.  Any vocation will come with dark nights; it is the commitment that gives you the strength to get through the hard times.

Kyle Sladek is a senior philosophy and theology major. He is an avid Gregorian chanter. For lessons, questions or comments contact him at ksladek@nd.edu.