There are not two souls alike. The vocation of one is not the vocation of another. Within the limits of an identical life, within the same religious family, there can be and are among the individual souls divergencies which prove the variety of divine calls.
I must understand well that I am not obliged to sanctify myself with the grace of my neighbor. All that I have to do is use to the full the grace given to me; that is all. My neighbor must use to the utmost the grace she receives.
Consequently, I need not judge, appraise, or criticize. This sister seems less mortified, needs more dispensations. That is none of my business. I must understand that the whole world does not walk at the same tempo, nor in the same alignment. St. John the Baptist led a penitential life in the desert. When people came to him asking, "What ought we do?" he did not counsel them to adopt his manner of life, but rather to seek perfection in their own state.
Our Lord did not live as His precursor; His goal was different, His grace different. It appears that Providence does not like uniformity. Infinite diversity in His natural and supernatural creation is one of His riches. There are not two souls alike, nor two saints. What a difference between St. Francis de Sales and St. Francis of Assisi; Thomas the Apostle and Thomas Aquinas; Vincent de Paul and Vincent Ferrer; Ignatius of Antioch and Ignatius Loyola! Even among the closest friends of Christ, what differences! Between Joseph and John the Baptist; between Peter and John; between St. Paul and the Twelve; between Martha and Magdalen.
And what differences not only among individual souls, but also among religious families, Carmelites, Visitandines, Sisters of Charity, Religious of the Sacred Heart, Sisters of the Worker and Sisters of the Assumption.
I will thank God for this marvelous fecundity. I will thank Him for having placed me as He did; in this place He has given me, I will strive to fulfill to the utmost my personal vocation.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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