by Father Larry Rice, CSP
January 5, 2015

In December 2013, an article in the New York Times summarized decades of research that social scientists have conducted to help determine what makes us happy. A significant body of research indicates that about half of happiness is determined by our genetics. Up to an additional 40 percent of our happiness is derived from recent events – a new car, a successful treatment of an illness, graduating from college to a new job – but these are all short-lived, lasting only a few months.

The remaining 12 percent seems to be derived from things that are largely under our immediate control: basic values like faith, family, community, and work.

Work? Yes, work. Despite a cultural tendency to see work as a curse or drudgery, the research seems to confirm the Church’s long-held belief that work has dignity, meaning and value that is beyond pure economics. Interestingly, higher-paid work doesn’t seem to make people happier than less compensated jobs do.

All of this makes perfect sense to me. One of my projects over the last several months has been to compile a series of short videos of my Paulist brothers, talking about their life and ministry. My final question to them is almost always, “Are you happy?” And overwhelmingly, we are. Our life isn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but Paulist priesthood seems to have plenty of those things that make us happy: faith, family, community and work.

As the Paulist Fathers’ Director of Vocations, a big part of my job is to help men in their discernment processes to find their happiness. A true vocation is the intersection of who God has created us to be, and that place in the world where we can respond generously to God’s grace through service of people. For a priest that service is personal, communal, sacramental and charitable. It’s also often fun, deeply moving, occasionally exhausting, creative, challenging and fulfilling. If that’s who God has created you to be, we should talk.

A religious vocation doesn’t have our personal happiness as its purpose. Yet, in God’s amazing providence, it makes us happy. As we welcome this New Year, may each of us find our true happiness in a deeper sense of vocation.