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Email a FriendI love this post! of my 4, 3 are boys, 8, 5 and 2, but I know what you mean about incorporating priests into their regular lives. we moved last year, but in lure old town Nd parish, the priests were a fixture in the schools, they greeted many of the children by name on Sundays, and the you ger Parochial Vicar was famous for his wii boxing battles with the children when he visited parishioners for dinner. At our annual parish picnic, same priest led the charge is a huge water balloon/gun battle. We also were Blessed to have visiting Seminarians every Summer who shared their stories.
Sadly, this weekend in my new parish passed without a mention of vocations. I did love, however, last weekend when we celebrated DS’s First Holy Communion that our Pastor sat with each child on the Altar for a picture where he held up a priests collar attached to a Dickie with each child. My son tells me he was whispering that if he promised to take all the 8am Masses, he would speed up his ordination. Of course, Father did this with each girl as well, cute maybe, but it sat wrong with me, sigh…
Proposing Vocations
Posted by Lisa Hendey in Faith on Monday, May 16, 2011 12:21 PM
Yesterday, our parish welcomed a guest homilist for the the 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations. To celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday and to get us talking about the topic of vocations, my pastor welcomed our diocesan Director of Vocations to share remarks after the gospel.
This visiting priest hit the nail square on the head - he addressed the critical state of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Without priests, we will not have the ability to celebrate the Eucharist. His remarks were inspirational, but also challenging. He pointed to the fact that my parish—the largest in the diocese—really should be a tremendous pool for future priests. The reality, however, is that we’ve only had one young man enter the seminary in the last several years. He will make a great priest some day, but he needs company!
Ironically, there I sat in one of the front pews with my two teenage sons on either side of me. I was SO happy to hear the topic come up, and then later to have a family conversation about their need to discern and to pray about their future calling in life. Both pointed to several friends they thought would make good priests - I silently pondered in my mind how many of those young men—if asked—might say the same about my sons.
Obviously a mom cannot force her son to enter the seminary or her daughter to consider a vocation to the religious life. But we can, and we should, talk with them on a regular basis about the joy of a life of service. We can and should make sure that they have good, healthy relationships with role models who are priests and sisters. We can and should pray with them regularly for a heart that is open to hear God’s calling, whatever it may be.
I spoke after Mass with my pastor, thanking him for celebrating the Day of Vocations in this way. But I also told him that we need to hear regularly from all types of priests on Sundays—but also on weekdays—about the excitement they feel for their work, about the fact that becoming a priest doesn’t mean a life of loneliness, and about the fact that pursuing a vocation doesn’t mean giving up everything you love in life. My sons need priestly role models who enjoy hobbies and traveling, who love to cook, to play video games, and hanging out with their buddies.
I’m so fortunate to have developed relationships with some amazing men who have responded to their priestly call in a true and holy fashion without losing the essence of who they are as a person. The passions and joys they bring to their work make them unique and special in the way they serve. They need, and deserve, our daily prayers for the life they have chosen.
What, if anything, did you hear from your church about 48th World Day of Prayer for Vocations? What thoughts do you have on how we, as Catholic moms, can promote vocations to the priesthood within our families and parishes?
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Our priest incorporated the need to pray for vocations to the priesthood, diaconate & religious life in his sermon yesterday. Our eldest son will be attending a vocation’s retreat at St. Vincent’s Archabbey later this summer. Were we closer, I’d like for our eldest daughter to attend a similar retreat for girls/young women at the newly established Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. We are also blessed that our family has a close relationship with some priests who joyfully live their vocation—one, our youngest son’s godfather, & 2 others whom we know through homeschooling (one is chaplain for a Catholic homeschool group & the other offers retreats for our older homeschooled children). I wish that we knew some religious Sisters in the same way so that our daughters could be exposed to women who have been called to be brides of Christ.
Our parish has a school, and the school hosts an annual Vocation Day when a priest comes (usually from outside the parish) and speaks to the children about vocations. My children attend public school and I asked the DRE why this isn’t open to all 7th and 8th graders in the parish. She said that there is no interest. I was so angry. If most of the parishioners (children) go to public school, why are the CCD students treated like second class parishioners?
Jennifer, wow, that sounds like a problem brewing. Could you go directly to your pastor and book him to attend one of the CCD nights around this time of the year? I’ll bet he has no idea that this is being said.
Our pastor spoke on the need for all of us to listen to the voice of Christ in our lives. While he spoke, I caught a glimpse of two families sitting in the front pews, each with seven children, and I couldn’t help being reminded that priestly and religious vocations often come from good Catholic families. We definitely need to pray for those decerning priesthood and consecrated life, but marriage is also a vocation, and all the vocation support each other.
At the end of mass, our priest then took the opportunity to introduce our summer Seminarian! Great opportunities abound when our kids can take to a real live ‘future priest’, especially when they announce that their first line of business is to join the youth group for hockey in the parking lot after mass.
We had a visiting priest for the early Mass we attended and he did a homily about listening to Christ’s voice. We got an e-mail message urging us to send a card to our priests to thank them for saying yes to their vocation (we didn’t do this because we always do this on Holy Thursday). Once a month we have a rosary and benediction in front of the Blessed Sacrament for vocations. It is usually attended by “older” parishioners - I have taken one child with me each time and they are the only ones there. We do have a dynamic young priest who meets the car riders at pick-up at school, and is always seen on the sports field at our Catholic school. However, my pet peeve is that there has not been any effort to bring any religious sisters to our school. The first staff of the school when it was founded 40 years ago were sisters. In our 10 years here, there has not been one religious sister on staff, despite the fact that it is a large school (650 kids, k-8). There will not be vocations to the religious life if one never sees a sister! I had my confirmation small group watch part of the video highlighting the Dominican sisters that were on the Oprah show so that they could see this is a choice that young women are making. Our diocese has a “vocations” camp for on week where young boys, 7th through 9th grade, get to do fun, outdoor stuff and learn about the priesthood. Unfortunately, it is just now being marketed when many families have already made their summer plans (including us) but it is a step in the right direction.
I wasn’t at my parish for Mass yesterday because I went to a different parish. However, our parish prays a “Vocations Prayer” every Sunday after the prayers of the faithful and there is a vocations crucifix that travels from family to family each week. The family that has the crucifix spends time that week praying for vocations from our parish and diocese.
We had an amazing homily this past Sunday. We had 15 young people making their first communion. Our Pastor spoke on the awesome gift of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist and then explained that Jesus is the good shepherd and that the priest is standing in as the shepherd of each parish. He then asked for a show of hands as to who has considered being a priest or sister….He spoke on the importance of listening to God’s call. It was beautiful how he interwove the sacrament with good shepherd Sunday/vocations Sunday.
We are parishioners at a college campus that has 3 young men in the seminary now. We also have an order of nuns (in habit) that help with catechism and other things. It is a blessing for us to be at this parish with our 8 children since they know the priest, nuns and seminarians all by name. My 6 boys/young men love going early to altar serve for daily Mass and it is a joy see their eagerness to help. We try to have our boys (ages17-4) around good holy priests but ones that are real, fun to be around and athletic. Mine have played tennis with our pastor and our diocese has an annual priest verses seminarian basketball game at one of the local high schools, which is very appealing to my athletic boys. Our diocese (serra club) also has a holy hour for priests once a month. We do happen to live in an extremely Catholic culture in south Louisiana and so we seem to have a good number of seminarians and we are thankful. We as parents need to look at our children’s interests and try to get them around priests and seminarians who are similar. If our young men can see similar characteristics in these men with religious vocations, then they themselves can imagine being a priest. (athletic, intellectual, easy going, or just plain fun or any combo of these) It is what we as parents have intentionally gone about doing (along with praying for priests and nuns we know as well as having them to dinner). If our young people are surrounded by religious vocations, they can imagine doing it! The same argument holds for the married vocation…if they are around happy married- joy-filled couples, they can imagine this amazing vocation also!
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