Analysis Of Awakening Vocation: A Theology Of Christian Call

The document encourages a mature faith, particularly through six dimensions: Knowledge of the Faith, Liturgical Life, Moral Formation, Prayer, Communal Life, and a Missionary Spirit. While each of the six plays a pivotal role in adult faith formation, the dimension of Communal Life is particularly helpful for my thinking about the formation of retreat leaders. Theologically, it grounds the practice of accompaniment in a listening community; it reinforces the communal nature of faith that is valued in retreat leader formation. As the document states, “Small communities are powerful vehicles for adult faith formation, providing opportunities for learning, prayer, mutual support, and the shared experience of Christian living and service to Church

One’s vocation as a disciple encourages the practice of walking with others in their lives. Through walking with others and welcoming others to walk with us, we encounter God. With others and through story, Edward Hahnenberg uses narrative in speaking about accompaniment, identity, and vocation formation. In Awakening Vocation: A Theology of Christian Call, Hahnenberg speaks about how narrative can help individuals understand and conceptualize one’s faith. In the Christian tradition, he shows how Jesus used parables as a means to cultivate faith, convey desired virtues, and also break open “normative” or “closed” stories of what it meant to live a life that seeks

He leads people to reconceptualise traditionally held norms for a more inclusive understanding of God. Like parables, true accompaniment often calls us to a deeper conversion towards discipleship. This understanding shapes how we imagine the love that God has for us. In listening with an attitude of openness to God, people are guided to inwardly reflect on how they may need to seek conversion in their own lives. Hahnenberg elaborates on how “Jesus challenges all those who wish to follow him to abandon their closed narratives and enter into the praxis of the open narrative.” This turn to open narrative allows for new possibilities and ways of conceptualizing the way that Jesus meets us in our everyday life. In citing the instances of the prodigal son and the Samaritan woman, Hahnenberg illustrates how Jesus disregards the closed norms or laws of society. Jesus’s concern lies more with wanting individuals to be their full selves in community. In these stories, God becomes bigger and more encompassing than anything we ourselves could ever imagine. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus helps the disciples to comprehend a larger understanding of God by reminding them of what the Scriptures had foretold. Just as Jesus abandons the closed narratives of others, accompaniment requires opening narratives of those around us. Listening to one another’s stories in a community allows