Most people are called to marriage. A good marriage takes preparation long before the wedding day: learning to communicate, to forgive, to handle money, to pray together and to put another person's good ahead of your own. Look for a spouse who shares your faith and values, whom you respect, and who makes you a better person.
Marriage is a vocation to holiness: spouses help each other get to heaven and raise their children to know God. Couples who build their marriage on faith often find their love growing deeper over the decades. Natural family planning, which the Church approves, respects God's design and helps couples grow in communication and self-giving.
Some men are called to the priesthood. A priest is a spiritual father: he celebrates the sacraments, preaches, guides and serves his people. Seminary formation usually lasts six to eight years and includes prayer, study, community life and pastoral work. Surveys regularly find that most priests are very happy in their vocation.
Consecrated life is a radical gift of oneself to God through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It takes many forms: monks and nuns who pray in hidden, contemplative lives; active religious sisters and brothers who teach, nurse and serve the poor; and consecrated virgins and members of secular institutes who live in the world. They witness that God alone can fill the human heart.
Some people serve God as single laypeople, by choice or by circumstance, for a time or for life. A single life given generously to God and others, in service, friendship and prayer, is not a lesser life. Many saints lived it, such as Saint Giuseppe Moscati, a doctor in Naples who treated the poor for free.
Whatever your vocation, it begins now. Practice faithfulness in small things: keep your promises, pray every day, help at home, choose friends who lift you up and be generous with your time. Whatever God calls you to, He will give you the grace to live it. Ask yourself today: Am I open to whatever He asks?