This week we celebrate the 44th annual
National Vocations Awareness Week. Our bishops ask us to dedicate the week to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life through prayer and education.
Intentional Discipleship plays out in many different vocations, all important in the life of the church.
Married people enter the Sacrament of Matrimony, one of the two Sacraments at the service of the Church and the world. Their witness of faith and love, and their openness to children and to raising them in the faith, ensures the continued growth of Christian life and culture.
Single people contribute in the prayer and charity of the church in a very significant way, and they live their vocation in the midst of the world with flexibility to do all kinds of work in order to proclaim the Gospel in word and action.
This week, it is important to pray for and talk about vocations to the
priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life. These represent the Sacrament of Holy Orders (priests and deacons) and consecrated religious life (sisters, brothers, nuns, & monks.)
Without priests, we do not have access to most Sacraments, particularly Eucharist, Reconciliation, and Anointing of the Sick. I believe God is calling more young men to the priesthood, but we need to nurture and help call it forth. Those of us who are parents & grandparents of boys can present & encourage it as an option if it’s God’s will for their life, while supporting them in whatever God calls them to be.
We can ALL pray for vocations to the priesthood, and we can ALL encourage young men that we think may have a vocation. I have heard many a young priest say something like, “I had thought about it a bit, but it really took root when someone at my church asked me if I had considered it.”
Other men may not have a call to the priesthood, but may have a call to ordained service in the church as a deacon, configured to Christ the Servant, and serving at altar, preaching the Word, and serving among the community. Some have called the deacon “the seam” between the clergy (of which he is a member) and the laity (of which he is also a member, usually with a secular career and often married and raising a family of his own). Fellow married (and single) men of the parish, I challenge you to pray and ask God if maybe you have a call to the diaconate.
Women & men who enter religious life are a profound gift to the church – one of its most beautiful gifts. These include religious sisters & brothers (among us), ministering & sharing certain charisms of their community, or nuns or monks (usually cloistered and praying for us without ceasing.) After years of decline, it was wonderful to see recent statistics indicating an uptick in the numbers of religious sisters again over the last couple of years.
In my own experience with my calls to vocation (both marriage and the diaconate), I initially expected a “lightning bolt” from God showing me with confidence, “This is my plan for you!” I’ve come to learn that God doesn’t call like that. God calls us through our openness to little whispers and signs as we journey toward Him, showing us that we’re on the path that he desires for us. It takes little steps and little signs.
Let’s pray for vocations this week and beyond: God our Father, we thank you for calling men and women to serve in your Son’s Kingdom as priests, deacons, and consecrated persons. Send your Holy Spirit to help others to respond generously and courageously to your call. May our community of faith support vocations of sacrificial love in our youth and young adults. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.