2.1. Relationship as truth
I am more and more surprised by the extreme simplicity of life, of its meaning and, at the same time, of the mysterious play of relationships which surrounds it from start to finish. And I am ever more convinced that true vocational promotion (vp) is fully steeped in that sense of mystery and relationship with mystery. vp is carried out to the extent that this attitude is adopted, to the extent to which we show young people this life as Moses’ burning bush that flames with a mysterious fire which does not consume it. Yes, because only the relational attitude - like that taken by Moses, who adored from the right distance and did not claim to understand everything straight away - allows us gradually to enter into the reasons for life, into its truth which is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3, 3). And to discover the supreme logic of the existential mystery and of the choice of the vc.

2.1.1. Relationship, the meaning of life
The whole mysterious and true reason for existence lies in relationship. Not in general or abstract terms, but in a precise internal relationship between life and death, or in the following relational concept of the human-being: we live and we die for the same reason, because the good received (= life) naturally becomes a good given (= death), because the meaning of life is indivisibly linked to the meaning of death, and it is precisely in vocation, in the idea of Christian vocation and then in the choice of religious vocation that this connection becomes explicit, is carried to its extreme consequences and ratified by the subject as the key to his own existence. Hence, relationship at once appears as the truth of life; it is at the origin and at the end of existence, keeping it true and fresh every step of the way, as regards content (life and death both seen as a gift) and dynamics (the passage from life to death).

This already suggests an approach to teaching vp: an intelligent vocational proposition, which will have a hope of reaching intelligent young people, should in fact emphasize that every individual is, naturally, free to make the vocational choice he thinks fit, but he is not free to consider himself beyond this reasoning. If he really wants to fulfill himself he cannot end his story in a way different from the one indicated by this logical connection, by this truth of living. It is this fundamental truth itself, this elementary grammar of human life that must be the basis for every vocational pastoral. The European Congress document states it explicitly: "If, at the start of man’s existence, there is a gift that creates him, then life’s pathway is signposted: if there is a gift then man will only be fully himself if he fulfils himself by giving himself; he will be happy as long as he respects this, his nature. He can make whatever choice he likes, as long as it is within the logic of giving, otherwise he will become a creature at odds with himself, a "monster"; he will be free to decide his specific direction, but he will not be free to consider himself beyond the logic of giving".

Yet if this same truth, the truth of life, is at the basis of every vocational choice, then it is even more at the basis of a radical choice like the choice of religious consecration, with its decision to give oneself totally to God. This supposes a certain relational capacity in the individual which allows him to understand the greatness of the gift received and go on to open himself to the choice of giving himself. Consecrating oneself to God is like becoming aware of first having received everything from Him. No one who had not first confirmed the greatness of the love received in his own life could be properly consecrated. No one who does not first know how to contemplate the beauty of divine benevolence automatically chooses the religious life. No credibility can be accorded to anyone who just thinks to himself, "I’ll follow the Lord", like the man in the Gospels whom Jesus himself discouraged because his so-called vocation did not originate in a relationship. Religious vocation lies essentially in a dialogue of love (and we should remember that every vocation is a response to the love of the One who calls us); the hero who shows off his choice as if it were something extraordinary is not to be trusted; trust instead the person who is able to adore the mystery and who, faced with the inextinguishable burning bush of love, is moved and responds with surprise and gratitude.

Amongst other things, as was said earlier, this is also a way of inspiring vocations. In fact, it is the intelligent and right way to call young people because this way we are referring to the truth of life (universal truth, valid for all); there is almost no escape route, no one can pull out or say that it does not concern him: "The whole vocational pastoral is constructed on this elementary catechism of the meaning of life. If this anthropological truth is accepted, then any kind of vocational proposal can be made. Then the vocation to the ordained ministry or religious or secular consecration, with its full load of mystery and mortification, becomes the full realization of the human-being and of the gift which every man has and is in the depths of himself".

The vocational promoter (that is to say, every consecrated person) must aim decisively at this type of promotion and try to slowly mature in the young person the internal attitudes necessary to adopt this relational sense of life (and death); the young person must be helped to let himself be moved by this truth, to promote this culture (culture of life and true vocational culture) in a period like our own, in which the culture of death or non-relationships (the same thing) maintains that every existence "is born for no reason, continues because of its weakness, and dies by chance".

Then we will be able to recognize ourselves as being, in some ways, or in some effective internal and relational, or even external attitudes, a good and important sign of the call to religious consecration.

2.1.2. Relationship, a criterion for vocation
Let us look at a few of these relational measures or vocational criteria.

2.1.2.1. Gratitude
"Vocation is born from ‘recognition’. It grows from the fertile ground of gratitude, because in vocation the individual supplies the response, he does not take the first step: it is being chosen, not choosing.

Interpretation of the whole of the [person’s] past life should lead to exactly this internal attitude of gratitude. (...) The vocational pastoral is directed towards the formation of this recognition-gratitude logic, much more wholesome and convincing, on the human plane, and better founded theologically than the so-called ‘hero logic’ of those who have not sufficiently developed the awareness of having received and feel themselves to be the authors of the gift and of the choice", as if they were better than others. Such logic, doubting and suspicious, risks being contradictory and selective, or so weak as to have little effect on the sensitivities of young people today, because it ignores or does not put enough emphasis on that fundamental and relational truth, the basis of construction for the vocational catechesis: life is a good received that naturally tends to become a good given.

We must be very careful, because today gratitude is certainly not a virtue "much quoted on the stock market"; it has almost become simply a question of politeness, of good and conventional manners. For many young people everything has had to be and must be perfect. We live in an age of ingratitude, because relationships are weak and have become less and less important! Gratitude is the first relational virtue and the first vocational attitude.

2.1.2.2. Generosity
According to Van Breemen, "generosity is the fundamental law for human growth" and the inevitable consequence of the relational dynamics that brought us to gratitude. That is to say: true relationship is stretched between the two poles of gratitude (the moment of receiving) and generosity (the moment of giving). Where gratitude is born, there too one finds also generosity or, at least, generosity is real and authentic only when it is imbued with gratitude, only if it is the natural fruit of the latter, a simple and reasonable attempt to repay what we have received: to life, to others, to God. "The discovery of having received, undeservedly and excessively, should psychologically ‘oblige’ the young person to conceive the offer of himself in the vocational choice as an inevitable consequence, as an act which is certainly free, because it is determined by love, but which in a certain sense is also obligatory, since, when faced with the love given by God, he feels he can do no other than give himself. It is good and completely logical that this should be so; in itself it is nothing extraordinary", on the contrary, it is the minimum he can do to be and live in truth.

Let us be wary, therefore, of those who do not have a clear enough idea of vocation in terms of unstinting generosity, of the free and unbiased gift of self, and those who claim that what they give out always returns to them, probably with interest. Let us also be wary of vocations whose presumed generosity does not grow from the ground of gratitude, because generosity does not last if it does not have proper roots. Let us be wary of heroes, because very often today’s heroes are tomorrow’s victims. Let us be wary of all who are not sufficiently reconciled to their past and grateful for their history, because sooner or later they will present their bill and want someone to pay it, and dearly at that; let us be wary of those who have not learned to say "thank you", because he who has no one to thank is a savage and a primitive human-being, has an unjust and false attitude towards life and would not even know how to say "I love you".

2.1.2.3. Simplicity and sense of humor
Those who are ready to respond to their vocation with gratitude and generosity neither take up poses nor camouflage themselves; they do not overrate themselves or their vocation, they do not take themselves too seriously (the "useful servant") and even know how to laugh at themselves, because only those with an awareness of mystery can allow themselves the luxury of smiling at themselves, at life and at things they love - and still go on loving them. They do not place too much importance on what they see and what happens, because their security is in God and in His constant gift and only "an identity founded on the rock of a relationship with God can easily watch, with both detachment and interest, the evolution of one’s own and others’ human figures moving across the stage of history". Those who have learned to live before the mystery of His face well know that there is something important that cannot be seen and try to catch the eye of the Father who sees into the secret... Those who are open to the mystery can understand that life can be ambivalent, that their faith can be weak, that their vocation can also hide ambiguous motives, that their egos are not all they proclaim or would like them to seem on the outside. The consecrated life succeeds in holding together two poles opposed in themselves: the seriousness of the essential gift and the joyous humor of choosing God (as confirmed, from this point of view, by its truly rich history, from Francis, who was "God’s jester". to Filipo Neri, the saint with the contagious sense of humor).

Beware, then, of those who are too serious and do not know how to see the funny side of things, because they poison the air which everyone must breathe. Beware of those who put on a show of unbreakable security, because inside they are very fragile. Beware of those who do not know what humility is, because probably they do not know what faith and self-abandonment are either. Beware of those who take themselves too seriously, because their egos will be so invasive that they will want all the space and attention for themselves.