First Place
By Annemarie Doane
Almost every Christian desires to know their vocation. But we often wonder how we will know God’s plan for us. Of course, the best way to understand God’s will is to pray and listen but sometimes it feels hard to understand, especially when His plan is not what we had in mind. The truth is, one of the best ways to know your vocation is to receive the Eucharist often and truly understand, pray to, meditate on and receive Jesus in the Eucharist. This is because the Eucharist helps us to know God better, love Him more and to grow strong in the faith.
The Eucharist helps us to know God better because the Eucharist is God. If you have ever purchased a gift for a friend, you might comprehend why knowing God better helps to understand his will for you. When buying a present for a friend who you don’t know very well, one may find it difficult to predict what his or her friend would prefer to receive as a gift. On the other hand, buying a present for your best friend is simple because you are very close to them and know precisely what he or she desires. Although discerning your vocation is far more important than such a trivial matter as buying a Christmas gift for your friend, it is a similar concept. The more you know God, the easier it is to discern his will.
God is your friend. Usually, the closer one is to his or her friend, the more they love them. The better we know God the more we love Him. The more we love Him the more likely we are to accept his will.
The Eucharist helps us to grow in our faith and the more we grow in our faith the more likely we are to choose a religious vocation. A deacon at St. Martin of Tours Church stated that Eucharistic adoration is what inspired him to become a deacon. This is a perfect example of the Eucharist being an inspiration to people by helping them grow in their faith.
In conclusion, if you want to know your vocation, it would be intelligent to meditate on and pray to the Eucharist. We need to remember that the Eucharist is not just a flavorless piece of unleavened bread, but the Body, Blood, Soul and divinity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
So, in order to understand God’s plan for us, we should simply ask God, who is truly present in the Eucharist. The Eucharist assists us in discerning our vocation in an abundance of ways.
Annemarie Doane is an eighth grader at Holy Angels Academy.
2nd place
By Jackson Luttrell
How does the Eucharist help someone know their vocation? To know this, we must first understand what a vocation is. A vocation is God’s plan for every single person, that takes into account their skills and abilities. Vocations include priesthood, religious life, married life and single life. A similarity in all these vocations is that they all call on us to serve God and the community through evangelization.
Now that we understand this we can know that each person’s vocation is made personally for them by God. We can come to know our vocation by growing in a close relationship with God through things like prayer and meditating on Scripture. We also can gain a closer relationship with God through the Eucharist because, in essence, we are consuming the body and blood of Jesus, who is offering himself at the altar, and we are being united to Jesus Christ through his humanity.
My personal experience of the Eucharist leads me to understand that the Eucharist is one of the most powerful ways of truly getting to know God and understanding his plan for me. Although I have not yet been given my vocation, I can use my God-given talents, such as intelligence, to choose right from wrong. I can use my courage to stand up for God and my faith and eventually become the person God plans for me to be, which will in the end lead me to eternal life with him in heaven.
After receiving the Eucharist, I feel as if the bond between Christ and me is strengthened tenfold. All of these experiences lead me to recognize that the Eucharist is not only one of the greatest ways to strengthen our relationship with God, it also allows us to understand God’s plan for us so we may one day unite with him in heaven.
Jackson Luttrell is a seventh grader at St. James School in Elizabethtown, Ky.
Third Place
By Alexandra Lyon
Your vocation is an important part of your Catholic life. The Eucharist can help you find your vocation by helping you have a good relationship with God: by showing that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.
A vocation consists of consecrated single life, married life, religious life or holy orders. But a vocation is not just that. A vocation is a life of service to God and others. A vocation is a calling to be your best self. Most of all, a vocation is a fulfillment of God’s unique plan.
The best way to hear someone is to be silent. My theology teacher, a Dominican Sister,
often takes my class to chapel for eucharistic adoration. The more we spent time there, the more I enjoyed my quiet time in the presence of the monstrance.
In the chapel, there’s a certain comfortable and relaxing atmosphere that is only found in Jesus’ presence. I learned the best way to hear someone is to be silent, so the best way to hear Jesus is to find silence in your heart.
To have a vocation is also to have a good relationship with God, which we can achieve
through the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the most important sacrament, and we see the beauty of it when we fully believe and trust that it is Jesus’ body and blood.
The key is trust; once we trust, it will open new doors for us, and Jesus can guide us to develop a relationship with him. There can be no relationship without trust.
The Eucharist can help you grow closer to the person God is calling you to be by helping you have a relationship with God: showing that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is living proof that Jesus sacrificed himself out of his love for us.
Alexandra Lyon is a seventh grader at St. James in Elizabethtown, Ky.
