National Vocations Awareness Week

Dear parishioners,

Next week, beginning on November 1st, is National Vocations Awareness Week. One week each year is dedicated to acknowledging the fact that each person has a particular calling—a vocation—to serve God in a specific capacity. Most people are called at some point in their

life to the married life in which a man and a woman commit themselves to a life-long exclusive relationship that is ordered toward raising children as the next generation of saints. Some people are called to the consecrated single life—to commit themselves in a singular way to the building up of God’s kingdom. Some are called to religious life (religious brothers or sisters) or to the priesthood. Every vocation is a call from the Lord to live for His glory and become holy through the circumstances of that particular calling.

Focusing on the priesthood for a moment, we’ve all experienced the difficulties and frustrations that come from the decreasing number of priests available to serve. In my almost six and a half years of priesthood, I’ve served 13 churches—three in my first assignment, six in my second assignment, and now four here in our Area Catholic Community. Needless to say, priests are spread thin and those who remember the days when each parish had its own priest feel the pain of the fact we can’t do things the way we always used to do them. Because of the difficulty of the situation, many have been quick to offer various “solutions” to the shortage of priests. Why don’t we bring in more missionary priests? Why not let priests get married? Why not expect more from our deacons? While it would be nice if there was a quick fix to the shortage of priests, these solutions ultimately fall short of the deeper question—why don’t we have as many priests as we used to?

Remember, Jesus himself said that there are those who are called to renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom. It’s not that God is not calling, rather, those who are called are either not hearing or are not responding.

During these hard times in our diocese, I have often reminded people that if each church in our diocese had one priest come from it every fifty years, we would have enough priests to have one priest per church. And if only two priests came from every church every fifty years, we would have more priests than we know what to do with. In other words, that fact that we’re experiencing a shortage of available priests to cover our churches is a symptom of a much deeper issue.

Something we need to remember is that priests come from families. There’s no priest factory that produces priests. Every priest was born to human parents and was raised in a human family. Not every family will necessarily have a priest come from it, but if we have strong, devout families who are striving to make their home a place where God is the center of the home, faith is talked about with affection and purpose, and children learn from their parents how to pray and live a sacramental life supported by a daily prayer life, vocations of every kind will flourish. During this upcoming National Vocations Awareness Week, it’s important for us to pray for vocations. And in the day and age we live in, it’s especially important for us to pray for those called to the vocation of marriage. If we focus our efforts on helping families live holy marriages, all vocations will benefit.

Here are a few practical tips to cultivating holy marriages that will bear fruit. First, intentionally live a sacramental life.

Going to Mass every Sunday is a non-negotiable—even when there are sports games on Sunday, and even when you’re on a hunting or fishing trip, and even when you’re tired and you would prefer to sleep in. Regularly receiving the sacrament of confession is essential to a holy life as well. It’s important to have a well formed conscience and learn the difference between mortal and venial sin. If you happen to fall into mortal sin, get back to confession as soon as possible—you never know what day will be your last. If you aren’t conscious of having committed any mortal sins, it’s still a helpful practice to go to confession frequently. Secondly, develop a daily prayer life.

Invest time in learning how to pray as the saints teach us to pray. Third, take some time to learn about your faith, whether that’s by reading some solid books (especially the catechism) or by listening to Catholic radio and podcasts. Fourth, talk about your faith at home. Around the dinner table is one of the best opportunities for this. If we have families striving for holiness, we will see the fruits of it in every vocation.

Fr. Patrick