W. H. Auden–another major poet who converted to Christianity–has written perceptively about vocation. This is from his poem entitled “Sext,” part of his Horae Canonicae, poems on the canonical hours on Good Friday. (It gets a little obscure towards the end, but he is referring to the medieval guilds, praying to the patrons of their particular crafts, each of which was thought of as a “mystery.” The last stanza ties to the hour (“noon,” which is when “Sext” was prayed) and to the death of Christ.
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeonmaking a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,wear the same rapt expression,