Vocation bursts onto the scene of history

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house” (Genesis 12:1). If it is true that there is an original vocation addressed to man in general and of which Scripture tells us at the beginning of the Book of Genesis (cf. Genesis 1:28; 2:5, 16-17), it is only with Abram that what we mean by vocation bursts onto the scene of history. In the figure of the patriarch and on his journey, the fundamental elements of this event appear clearly: the renunciation of that which circumscribes and defines one’s identity (Genesis 12:1); the promise of a new identity (Genesis 12:1d; cf. the name change in Genesis 17:5) and of a new nation (Genesis 12:2-3). To be called, therefore, requires the will to stake one’s life on the word one has received — a word that only little by little reveals its meaning (“to the land that I will show you”: ...