Section 3: Sins Against Vocation

There are various ways in which a man may sin against his vocation.

1. He injures himself and society if he neglects to seize the opportunity of securing a living, or to acquire the necessary facilities by developing his bodily and mental talents, or to prepare himself for what he perceives to be his vocation by the conscientious employment of his time and all available means of training.

The first and greatest sin one can commit against one's vocation, therefore, is to refuse to choose a vocation. This sounds paradoxical, but is literally true nevertheless. Failure to choose a vocation, when inexcusable, is a sign of sloth, and sloth, as we all know, is the source of innumerable sins. Tramping and vagabondage not only entail grave social dangers, but their victims as a rule deteriorate morally.

Any man who, without a reasonable excuse, fails to labor in some legitimate occupation, whether intellectual or physical, is useless to society, and forfeits the right to the benefits it confers upon its members. "If any man will not work, neither let him eat," says the Apostle,¹ and "in the Lord Jesus Christ" he charges and exhorts those who "do no work but interfere with others," to "earn the food they eat," lest they be excluded from intercourse with their brethren.²

¹ 2 Thess. III, 10 sqq.; cfr. 1 Thess. IV, 11.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 187, art. 5, ad 2: "Non otiose vivit, qui qualitercunque vtiliter vivit."

² 2 Thess. III, 3, 10-12.

2. A man also sins against his vocation if he undertakes too many things or fails to make himself useful, physically or intellectually, to himself or to the community in which he lives, either because he is dissatisfied with what society offers him in return for his labor, or because a wrong disposition moves him to seek nothing but pleasure.

3. Another grievous sin against vocation is the pursuit of purely temporal rewards without regard to the supernatural. To lead a life devoted entirely to mundane ambitions and material gain degrades man to the level of the brute. "A voluptuous life," says the Angelic Doctor, "seeks its end in bodily pleasure, a tendency which is common to us and the beasts, and hence, in the words of the Philosopher [Aristotle ], such a life is bestial." ³ Unprofitable like the beast's is the life of him who has no supernatural faith, for faith is the foundation of vocation, and without it no one can pursue his course with joy and spiritual profit.

³ Summa Theol., 2a 2ae, qu. 179, art. 2, ad 1: "Vita voluptuosa... est vita bestialis."

Work performed in the spirit of faith and prayer is like the gold standard, says Bishop Keppler; it has a fixed, nay an eternal value. "Thus earthly deeds assume heavenly worth; they become treasures which moths and rust cannot consume, nor thieves dig up and steal; they produce everlasting merits which give title to a crown. Performed for the honor of God and with the help of the divine power of grace, they become copies and images of God's omnipotent activity."⁴

⁴ P. W. von Keppler, More Joy, tr. by Jos. McSorley, C.S.P., St. Louis 1914, pp. 229 sqq.—Cfr. Ps. CXXVI, 1; 1 Cor. III, 7.

READINGS.—F. H. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, Freiburg 1878, pp. 683 sq.—Fr. Probst, Kath. Moraltheologie, Vol. II, 2nd ed., pp. 389 sqq., Tübingen 1853.—H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 77 sqq.—J. Kearney, C. S. Sp., "Vocation: Its Essential Elements," in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, No. 650 (Feb., 1922), pp. 165 sqq.