By a discernment according to the Spirit, Christians have to distinguish between the growth of the Reign of God and the progress of the culture and society in which they are involved. This distinction is not a separation. Man's Vocation to eternal life does not suppress, but actually reinforces, his duty to put into action in this world the energies and means received from the Creator to serve justice and peace. 93

All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the Faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the inVocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel. 6 The revelation of the Vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man's vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation "in the Image and likeness of God":

It is in the Church, in communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his Vocation. From the Church he receives the Word of God containing the teachings of "the law of Christ." 72 From the Church he receives the grace of the sacraments that sustains him on the "way." From the Church he learns the example of holiness and recognizes its model and source in the all-holy Virgin Mary; he discerns it in the authentic witness of those who live it; he discovers it in the spiritual tradition and long history of the saints who have gone before him and whom the liturgy celebrates in the rhythms of the sanctoral cycle.

This Vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature. 47

The evangelical counsels manifest the living fullness of charity, which is never satisfied with not giving more. They attest its vitality and call forth our spiritual readiness. the perfection of the New Law consists essentially in the precepts of Love of God and neighbor. the counsels point out the more direct ways, the readier means, and are to be practiced in keeping with the Vocation of each:

The Old Law is the first stage of revealed Law. Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments. the precepts of the Decalogue lay the foundations for the Vocation of man fashioned in the Image of God; they prohibit what is contrary to the Love of God and neighbor and prescribe what is essential to it. the Decalogue is a light offered to the conscience of every man to make God's call and ways known to him and to protect him against evil:

Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their Vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.

First, the common good presupposes respect for the person as such. In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person. Society should permit each of its members to fulfill his Vocation. In particular, the common good resides in the conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation, such as "the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion." 27

Society is essential to the fulfillment of the human Vocation. To attain this aim, respect must be accorded to the just hierarchy of values, which "subordinates physical and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones:" 8

The human person needs to live in society. Society is not for him an extraneous addition but a requirement of his nature. Through the exchange with others, mutual service and dialogue with his brethren, man develops his potential; he thus responds to his Vocation. 2

The Vocation of humanity is to show forth the Image of God and to be transformed into the image of the Father's only Son. This vocation takes a personal form since each of us is called to enter into the divine beatitude; it also concerns the human community as a whole.

The Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts: God calls us to his own beatitude. This Vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the Church as a whole, the new people made up of those who have accepted the promise and live from it in faith.

The Beatitudes depict the countenance of Jesus Christ and portray his charity. They express the Vocation of the Faithful associated with the glory of his Passion and Resurrection; they shed light on the actions and attitudes characteristic of the Christian life; they are the paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations; they proclaim the blessings and rewards already secured, however dimly, for Christ's disciples; they have begun in the lives of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.

"Christ, . . . in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his Love, makes man fully manifest to himself and brings to light his exalted Vocation." 2 It is in Christ, "the Image of the invisible God," 3 that man has been created "in the image and likeness" of the Creator. It is in Christ, Redeemer and Savior, that the divine image, disfigured in man by the first sin, has been restored to its original beauty and ennobled by the grace of God. 4

The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the Image and likeness of God (article 1); it is fulfilled in his Vocation to divine beatitude (article 2). It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment (article 3). By his deliberate actions (article 4), the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience (article 5). Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth (article 6). With the help of grace they grow in virtue (article 7), avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son 1 to the mercy of our Father in heaven (article 8). In this way they attain to the perfection of charity.

Following St. Paul, 83 The tradition of the Church has understood Jesus' words as not excluding oaths made for grave and right reasons (for example, in court). "An oath, that is the inVocation of the divine name as a witness to truth, cannot be taken unless in truth, in judgment, and in justice." 84

Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child's earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the Mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their Vocation as children of God. 35 The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families; it is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents.

The term "to hallow" is to be understood here not primarily in its causative sense (only God hallows, makes holy), but above all in an evaluative sense: to recognize as holy, to treat in a holy way. and so, in adoration, this inVocation is sometimes understood as praise and thanksgiving. 66 But this petition is here taught to us by Jesus as an optative: a petition, a desire, and an expectation in which God and man are involved. Beginning with this first petition to our Father, we are immersed in the innermost mystery of his Godhead and the drama of the salvation of our humanity. Asking the Father that his name be made holy draws us into his plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, "according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ," that we might "be holy and blameless before him in Love." 67

The Church, the house of God, is the proper place for the liturgical prayer of the parish community. It is also the privileged place for adoration of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. the choice of a favorable place is not a matter of indifference for true prayer. - For personal prayer, this can be a "prayer corner" with the Sacred Scriptures and icons, in order to be there, in secret, before our Father. 48 In a Christian family, this kind of little oratory fosters prayer in common. - In regions where monasteries exist, the Vocation of these communities is to further the participation of the Faithful in the Liturgy of the Hours and to provide necessary solitude for more intense personal prayer. 49 - PilgrImages evoke our earthly journey toward heaven and are traditionally very special occasions for renewal in prayer. For pilgrims seeking living water, shrines are special places for living the forms of Christian prayer "in Church."

The inVocation of the holy name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always. When the holy name is repeated often by a humbly attentive heart, the prayer is not lost by heaping up empty phrases, 19 but holds fast to the word and "brings forth fruit with patience." 20 This prayer is possible "at all times" because it is not one occupation among others but the only occupation: that of loving God, which animates and transfigures every action in Christ Jesus.

This simple inVocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. the most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners." It combines the Christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light. 18 By it the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior's mercy.

The prayer of the Church, nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though her prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ. Certain psalms, given their use in the Prayer of the Church, and the New Testament place on our lips and engrave in our hearts prayer to Christ in the form of inVocations: Son of God, Word of God, Lord, Savior, Lamb of God, King, BeLoved Son, Son of the Virgin, Good Shepherd, our Life, our Light, our Hope, our Resurrection, Friend of mankind....

Prayer is lived in the first place beginning with the realities of creation. the first nine chapters of Genesis describe this relationship with God as an offering of the first-born of Abel's flock, as the inVocation of the divine name at the time of Enosh, and as "walking with God. 5 Noah's offering is pleasing to God, who blesses him and through him all creation, because his heart was upright and undivided; Noah, like Enoch before him, "walks with God." 6 This kind of prayer is lived by many righteous people in all religions. In his indefectible covenant with every living creature, 7 God has always called people to prayer. But it is above all beginning with our Father Abraham that prayer is revealed in the Old Testament.

Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular Vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and Love visible in Christ, who "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." 296 This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.

The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the Vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant.

It is not the role of the Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political structuring and organization of social life. This task is part of the Vocation of the lay Faithful, acting on their own initiative with their fellow citizens. Social action can assume various concrete forms. It should always have the common good in view and be in conformity with the message of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church. It is the role of the laity "to animate temporal realities with Christian commitment, by which they show that they are witnesses and agents of peace and justice." 230

"Christian revelation . . . promotes deeper understanding of the laws of social living." 198 The Church receives from the Gospel the full revelation of the truth about man. When she fulfills her Mission of proclaiming the Gospel, she bears witness to man, in the name of Christ, to his dignity and his Vocation to the communion of persons. She teaches him the demands of justice and peace in conformity with divine wisdom.

"By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual Love and its orientation toward man's exalted Vocation to parenthood." 156

"God is Love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own Image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the Vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion." 114

Family ties are important but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity and human and spiritual autonomy, so his unique Vocation which comes from God asserts itself more clearly and forcefully. Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus: "He who Loves Father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." 39

Life in the Holy Spirit fulfills the Vocation of man (chapter one). This life is made up of divine charity and human solidarity (chapter two). It is graciously offered as salvation (chapter three).

In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith. For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestica. 166 It is in the bosom of the family that parents are "by word and example . . . the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the Vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation." 167

Certain things are required in order to respond adequately to this call: - a permanent renewal of the Church in greater fidelity to her Vocation; such renewal is the driving-force of the movement toward unity; 280 - conversion of heart as the Faithful "try to live holier lives according to the Gospel"; 281 for it is the unfaithfulness of the members to Christ's gift which causes divisions; - prayer in common, because "change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement, and merits the name 'spiritual ecumenism;"' 282 -fraternal knowledge of each other; 283 - ecumenical formation of the faithful and especially of priests; 284 - dialogue among theologians and meetings among Christians of the different churches and communities; 285 - collaboration among Christians in various areas of service to mankind. 286 "Human service" is the idiomatic phrase.

Finally, the People of God shares in the royal office of Christ. He exercises his kingship by drawing all men to himself through his death and Resurrection. 211 Christ, King and Lord of the universe, made himself the servant of all, for he came "not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 212 For the Christian, "to reign is to serve him," particularly when serving "the poor and the suffering, in whom the Church recognizes the Image of her poor and suffering founder." 213 The People of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its Vocation to serve with Christ.

On entering the People of God through faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people's unique, priestly Vocation: "Christ the Lord, high priest taken from among men, has made this new people 'a kingdom of priests to God, his Father.' the baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood." 209

"When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that he might continually sanctify the Church." 174 Then "the Church was openly displayed to the crowds and the spread of the Gospel among the nations, through preaching, was begun." 175 As the "conVocation" of all men for salvation, the Church in her very nature is Missionary, sent by Christ to all the nations to make disciples of them. 176

Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was created for the sake of the Church." 153 God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the "conVocation" of men in Christ, and this "convocation" is the Church. the Church is the goal of all things, 154 and God permitted such painful upheavals as the angels' fall and man's sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the Love he wanted to give the world:

The word "Church" (Latin ecclesia, from the Greek ek-ka-lein, to "call out of") means a conVocation or an assembly. It designates the assemblies of the people, usually for a religious purpose. 139 Ekklesia is used frequently in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of the Chosen People before God, above all for their assembly on Mount Sinai where Israel received the Law and was established by God as his holy people. 140 By calling itself "Church," the first community of Christian believers recognized itself as heir to that assembly. In the Church, God is "calling together" his people from all the ends of the earth. the equivalent Greek term Kyriake, from which the English word Church and the German Kirche are derived, means "what belongs to the Lord."

Water. the symbolism of water signifies the Holy Spirit's action in Baptism, since after the inVocation of the Holy Spirit it becomes the efficacious sacramental sign of new birth: just as the gestation of our first birth took place in water, so the water of Baptism truly signifies that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit. As "by one Spirit we were all baptized," so we are also "made to drink of one Spirit." 27 Thus the Spirit is also personally the living water welling up from Christ crucified 28 as its source and welling up in us to eternal life. 29

Before Pilate, Christ proclaims that he "has come into the world, to bear witness to the truth." 265 The Christian is not to "be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord." 266 In situations that require witness to the faith, the Christian must profess it without equiVocation, after the example of St. Paul before his judges. We must keep "a clear conscience toward God and toward men." 267

The evangelists indicate the salvific meaning of this mysterious event: Jesus is the new Adam who remained Faithful just where the first Adam had given in to temptation. Jesus fulfils Israel's Vocation perfectly: in contrast to those who had once provoked God during forty years in the desert, Christ reveals himself as God's Servant, totally obedient to the divine will. In this, Jesus is the devil's conqueror: he "binds the strong man" to take back his plunder. 243 Jesus' victory over the tempter in the desert anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of obedience of his filial Love for the Father.

Christ's whole life is a mystery of recapitulation. All Jesus did, said and suffered had for its aim restoring fallen man to his original Vocation:

By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through faith. "How can this be?" 165 Participation in the divine life arises "not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God". 166 The acceptance of this life is virginal because it is entirely the Spirit's gift to man. the spousal character of the human Vocation in relation to God 167 is fulfilled perfectly in Mary's virginal motherhood.

To become the mother of the Saviour, Mary "was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role." 132 The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace". 133 In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her Vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace.

In God's plan man and woman have the Vocation of "subduing" the earth 248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the Image of the Creator "who Loves everything that exists", 249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.

Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. the inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the Vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation.

By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death, 274 Jesus performed messianic signs. Nevertheless he did not come to abolish all evils here below, 275 but to free men from the gravest slavery, sin, which thwarts them in their Vocation as God's sons and causes all forms of human bondage. 276

"Let us be very careful not to conceive of the universal Church as the simple sum, or . . . the more or less anomalous federation of essentially different particular churches. In the mind of the Lord the Church is universal by Vocation and Mission, but when she pub down her roots in a variety of cultural, social, and human terrains, she takes on different external expressions and appearances in each part of the world." 318 The rich variety of ecclesiastical disciplines, liturgical rites, and theological and spiritual heritages proper to the local churches "unified in a common effort, shows all the more resplendently the catholicity of the undivided Church." 319

The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin: and in that she is "sent out" into the whole world. All members of the Church share in this Mission, though in various ways. "The Christian Vocation is, of its nature, a vocation to the apostolate as well." Indeed, we call an apostolate "every activity of the Mystical Body" that aims "to spread the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth." 377

"The intimate community of life and Love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws.... God himself is the author of marriage." 87 The Vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, 88 some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life." 89

It is true that someone validly ordained can, for a just reason, be discharged from the obligations and functions linked to ordination, or can be forbidden to exercise them; but he cannot become a layman again in the strict sense, 75 because the character imprinted by ordination is for ever. the Vocation and Mission received on the day of his ordination mark him permanently.

Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a kingdom, priests for his God and Father." 20 The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. the Faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own Vocation, in Christ's Mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are "consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood." 21

Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist are sacraments of Christian initiation. They ground the common Vocation of all Christ's disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the Mission of evangelizing the world. They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland.

The Byzantine Liturgy recognizes several formulas of absolution, in the form of inVocation, which admirably express the mystery of forgiveness: "May the same God, who through the Prophet Nathan forgave David when he confessed his sins, who forgave Peter when he wept bitterly, the prostitute when she washed his feet with her tears, the Pharisee, and the prodigal son, through me, a sinner, forgive you both in this life and in the next and enable you to appear before his awe-inspiring tribunal without condemnation, he who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen."

According to faith the disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their relations, but from sin. As a break with God, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations; 96 their mutual attraction, the Creator's own gift, changed into a relationship of domination and lust; 97 and the beautiful Vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work. 98

At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the inVocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took bread...." "He took the cup filled with wine...." the signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine, 152 fruit of the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. the Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering. 153

In the Latin Church this triple infusion is accompanied by the minister's words: "N., I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." In the Eastern liturgies the catechumen turns toward the East and the priest says: "The servant of God, N., is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." At the inVocation of each person of the Most Holy Trinity, the priest immerses the candidate in the water and raises him up again.

The three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders confer, in addition to grace, a sacramental character or "seal" by which the Christian shares in Christ's priesthood and is made a member of the Church according to different states and functions. This configuration to Christ and to the Church, brought about by the Spirit, is indelible, 40 it remains for ever in the Christian as a positive disposition for grace, a promise and guarantee of divine protection, and as a Vocation to divine worship and to the service of the Church. Therefore these sacraments can never be repeated.

The Epiclesis ("inVocation upon") is the intercession in which the priest begs the Father to send the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, so that the offerings may become the body and blood of Christ and that the Faithful by receiving them, may themselves become a living offering to God. 23

Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy. A better knowledge of the Jewish people's faith and religious life as professed and lived even now can help our better understanding of certain aspects of Christian liturgy. For both Jews and Christians Sacred Scripture is an essential part of their respective liturgies: in the proclamation of the Word of God, the response to this word, prayer of praise and intercession for the living and the dead, inVocation of God's mercy. In its characteristic structure the Liturgy of the Word originates in Jewish prayer. the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical texts and formularies, as well as those of our most venerable prayers, including the Lord's Prayer, have parallels in Jewish prayer. the Eucharistic Prayers also draw their inspiration from the Jewish tradition. the relationship between Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy, but also their differences in content, are particularly evident in the great feasts of the liturgical year, such as Passover. Christians and Jews both celebrate the Passover. For Jews, it is the Passover of history, tending toward the future; for Christians, it is the Passover fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Christ, though always in expectation of its definitive consummation.

In the one family of God. "For if we continue to Love one another and to join in praising the Most Holy Trinity - all of us who are sons of God and form one family in Christ - we will be Faithful to the deepest Vocation of the Church." 499

"By reason of their special Vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will.... It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and maybe to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer." 431

"Christ, sent by the Father, is the source of the Church's whole apostolate"; thus the fruitfulness of apostolate for ordained ministers as well as for lay people clearly depends on their vital union with Christ. 378 In keeping with their Vocations, the demands of the times and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostolate assumes the most varied forms. But charity, drawn from the Eucharist above all, is always "as it were, the soul of the whole apostolate." 379

God who created man out of Love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate Vocation of every human being. For man is created in the Image and likeness of God who is himself love. 90 Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. and this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "and God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'" 91

God created everything for man, 222 but man in turn was created to serve and Love God and to offer all creation back to him: What is it that is about to be created, that enjoys such honour? It is man that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and the earth, the sea and all the rest of creation exist. God attached so much importance to his salvation that he did not spare his own Son for the sake of man. Nor does he ever cease to work, trying every possible means, until he has raised man up to himself and made him sit at his right hand. 223

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to Love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

"The Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect." 295 In her members perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired: "Strengthened by so many and such great means of salvation, all the Faithful, whatever their condition or state - though each in his own way - are called by the Lord to that perfection of sanctity by which the Father himself is perfect." 296