2.3. The dynamics of the personal identity in the process of vocation growth

Every vocation, as a dynamic process of growth, is realized in the context of life and of the growth of each person. The stages of human growth (stages of life) coincide with vocational growth; often they reflect its tone or they retard its development rhythm. Therefore it is presumed that the development goals essential for becoming “adult” are reached and the development tasks proper to each age of life are accomplished.

Formation, then, consists in this growth and maturation process which is done while the person responds to God’s call: a process of personal unification and of construction of an “identity” (Cf PI 6; VC 65) which is realized through some fundamental passages:

a)      re-define one’s personal and cultural identity

In the journey of building one’s vocational, charismatic identity, first of all a process of consolidation of one’s personal and cultural  identity is necessary. The young persons who enter the  congregation  bring with them a suitcase of experiences and motivations which substantially refer to a personal and cultural identity already designed. Upon impact with new identities therefore there is a re-defining of one’s identity: we presume that the person already has a certain self-definition; that is, she has already responded to the fundamental question “Who am I?” and has reached a certain stability (she doesn’t question herself each time and doesn’t change identity in every environment, relationship or situation that she finds herself).

b)      verify and consolidate the vocation identity

The personal identity reaches maturation when the person becomes capable of mature relationships and is able to made a stable life choice  and a choice of significant values; so that the discovery of her vocation and progressive certainty of the call complete the formation of the identity. Responding to the questions: What meaning does my life have? In what direction must I orient my existence? For whom and for what engage my energies? leads the person to discover her/his vocation (What does God want of me?) and therefore to acquire a “new identity”: the vocation identity.

During the time of initial formation, the vocation identity solidifies progressively until the person reaches  interior certainty of being called by God, the awareness that it is precisely this choice that gives meaning to his/her life.

c)      gradually assume the traits of the charismatic identity into one’s own personality

God’s call reaches the person in historical concreteness, in his human dispositions and aptitudes. It if is true that the person becomes unified interiorly, becoming more and more himself (personal identity) according to what he is called to be (vocation identity), it is equally true that all of this is not realized in the abstract, but within a course of learning and assimilation of a specific vocation and “inside” a peculiar charism (charismatic identity).

The charismatic identity then becomes a developmental goal of growth that, however, needs a directed route, of stages and mediate goals articolated in a logic of progressivity. It is important, first of all to ask oneself what the charismatic identity is, in order then, to identify the routes of formation. It can be described as an identity that is built on the basis of values and ideals expressed by the charism of the institute. It does not exist as a self-standing reality, separate from the person who lives it. The charism, as gift of the Spirit, has its own objective substance, but is made  visible and concrete when embodied in persons, structures, works and concrete projects. The charismatic identity is such only if it refers to the charism and is structured around the vocational values of the charism. Each person, therefore, must integrate into their personal identity the values, choices and charismatic indications implicit in the vocation to which they feel called. This journey is not easy nor automatic: it implies the toil of a gradual assuming of them done on a personal level in daily experience; it demands a restructuring of attitudes and behaviors which is not always free of conflict and pain.

d)      progressive restructuring of identity in the course of life

Growing in identity must be a constant concern which calls for a continuous and ongoing formation. Often arrests of identity are observed, both in the second and in the third age, when one finds herself having to assume a new perspective of existence, often in relation to various changes (cultural and not). This implies an abandonment of preceding “identities”, if not absolutely a rupture, in order to integrate the new structures and relationships resulting from the changed situation. That provokes a real true crisis, because the person must pass through the painful experience of restructuring, with all the discomfort and anxiousness that this brings. Otherwise, if we don’t succeed in playing our own “new” personal reality with ourselves, with the young and with everyone else, we run the risk of becoming inflexible and impoverished on the personal level, to the point of reaching forms of maladjustment, depression and/or alienation.

Putting oneself in front of “the archipelago of our many identities distributed over the course of time” ²⁰ becomes an obligatory route, in so far as it solicits processes of  self-awareness and reconciliation that then flow into a unification of self.

If we do not measure ourselves with the various “identities” required by the different ages of life, the journey of growth in identity is impeded, but also the vocation in some way remains crumpled and slowed down. Evident signs of this are: infantilism, hyperactivity and consequent depression from stress, individualistic protagonism, etc., which give rise to a series of difficulties on a personal and especially on the community level. In this perspective many vocation crises in the second or third age must be interpreted as arrests of growth in identity.