Discerning a vocation is a daunting yet necessary component of being human. And yet, the rhetoric which governs many conversations pertaining to vocational discernment betrays a certain fear of choice and anxiety about the results. Perhaps you’ve participated in conversations containing such standards as these:

“I think I’m called to marriage, but I’m not sure.”
“Maybe I’m supposed to be a priest, but I don’t know whether to go diocesan or religious.”
“If religious, then which order?”
“But how do I know if I’m called to that?”

Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We’ll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers’ Commonwealth.

So goes the old International Workers of the World ballad. It was written by Joe Hill, a socialist songwriter in the early 20th century. Today is May 1st, and about 80 countries are officially celebrating May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day. Robber barons, the Haymarket Massacre, the Pinkerton Agency, and the grinding gears of industrialization litter the background of this holiday. Yet the massive social unrest and the supposedly inevitable uprising prophesied in the lyrics never came to fruition in the United States.

Long ago, in the days before direct deposit, Mom had to hope that on payday Dad would bring his whole paycheck home and not cash it at the bar on the way back from work. He and Mom would then sit down at the table and budget for the rest of the month. The kids needed new shoes, Catholic school tuition had to be paid, and so forth. It was important that Dad brought all the money home.

Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within

So sings Alfred, King of Wessex, to Guthrum of the Northern Sea on the eve of the Battle of Ethandune in G.K. Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse. This is Chesterton’s famous retelling of the struggle between Anglo-Saxon Christians and Viking pagans early in English history. In the background of the Ballad, the Vikings have defeated Alfred’s army, taken large swaths of English territory, and are now feasting and enjoying themselves before continuing their conquest. Having entered the Viking camp as an anonymous harpist, King Alfred now sings his defiant song to the Viking warrior.

Catholics that follow political, social, and cultural trends have seen many defeats in the last few years: the approval of same sex “marriage” in several states, the loss of Catholic adoption agencies, the HHS Mandate, the not so subtle threat of taking away the Church’s tax-exempt status, and so on. Compounding these defeats, there seems to be a trend among the younger generation away from mainstream Christianity and towards religious apathy. So, given the tangible political challenge and the apparent lack of concern for the Church’s position on religious freedom, many Catholics are taking Francis Cardinal George’s remarks from 2010 seriously:

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.

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Though Albert taught him philosophy and theology in Paris and Cologne for the first seven years of his Dominican life, we recognize Thomas as more perceptive, more comprehensive, and more influential than his master in the Church’s intellectual heritage. St. Thomas Aquinas surpassed St. Albert the Great, and this is Albert’s great virtue.

The Tough Mudder is twelve miles of physically challenging and psychologically intimidating obstacles with names like Mud Mile, Electroshock Therapy, Firewalker, Walk the Plank, and so on. There are about twenty-five obstacles in the whole event, and usually included are a few “mystery” obstacles. Participants are almost guaranteed to get scratched up, completely filthy, and slightly singed.