Introduction
A short time ago my friend Mark Adler, a convert from Judaism to the Catholic Church and manager of the helpful Web site Christendom-awake.org, posted an essay “The Role of the Large Family” (http://www.christendom-awake.org). In his essay, originally written in 1987, revised in 1993 and again in June 2010, he noted that some fifty years ago relatively large families were not uncommon. I can bear witness to this myself; my older sister who was 21 years old when she married in 1947, had seven children, and after I married in 1957 my wife Patricia and I were blessed with seven children between 1958 and 1971. Today a family of 3 or 4 children is regarded as a pretty large family. There are many socioeconomic and cultural reasons for this, of which most of us are well aware. But the truth is that children are a blessing and not a burden; large families are needed for the good, socioeconomic and cultural, of our planet.  I will first debunk the falsehood spread by population controllers and then show the need for and blessings of a large family.

21st century Americans—and others, particularly in the “developed” nations—are deeply divided over issues central to the culture of life: contraception, the generation of human life, abortion, the care of seriously handicapped infants and of the dying, the meaning of sex, marriage, the family, and the kind of home best suited to help children grow into caring and responsible adults. There are many reasons supporting culture of life positions, but there is a need to show why these reasons are good and true and to help others see why. Moreover, sometimes advocates of the culture of life can and do disagree among themselves and/or find themselves perplexed about what is the right and good thing to do. Is there any way to resolve these disputes and overcome doubts?  

In an attempt to keep pace with the advocacy journalism of Time magazine, its rival liberal weekly Newsweek recently published an unflattering piece on the Catholic Church entitled “Banned by the Pope.”  It was written by, of all people, Rev. Charles E. Curran, now 80 years old, the controversial leader of the 1968 dissent against Humanae Vitae.

Introduction
My question is whether everyone has a unique, personal vocation. To prepare the way for answering this question I will first summarize what Christians believe about their personal vocation to follow Christ. It is likely that a majority of our readers are Christians, but I apologize to our non-Christian allies in the struggle to make ours a culture of life for some specifically Christian reflections at the beginning of this essay. I do so because as I hope then to show we can speak meaningfully of a unique personal vocation for everyone, including non-Christians.