One thing I’m glad we do here every week at Mass is pray for vocations to the priesthood or religious life. We’ve been doing it for years, and I hope it continues for many years to come. It’s a laudable practice that can only bear good fruit over time, and may even encourage some in our parish to be the answers to those prayers. In fact, this Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter has been set aside as the World Day for Prayers for Vocations.
We have good reason to pray for more young men and women to hear the call to a religious vocation. The shortage of priests and religious in the United States has been a concern for many years, and is only getting worse. The average age of priests is only going up, and religious orders are dwindling. Our own diocese has always been mission territory, never producing enough vocations from within, but even the number of priests originally from our diocese continues to shrink. It’s not inconceivable that priests from outside the diocese will soon outnumber priests raised here, assuming that hasn’t already happened.
Some might wonder how to turn this situation around. How do we encourage young men and women to listen to Our Lord and hear how He is calling them to serve Him? The prayers we are doing is a good start, but it’s only the start. Looking at my own discernment of the vocation to the priesthood, one of the most powerful tools we have involves the simplest actions: ask and encourage them about considering religious vocations.
I can think of two important points in my religious vocation journey that involved someone approaching me about a vocation to the priesthood. First was during my junior year in high school. I was going through my confirmation preparation, and the catechist must have seen something. This led her to encourage me by telling me (she didn’t just ask, by the way!) 3 times that I would become a priest. My response was pretty much what you would expect from a typical teenager at the time, “No way, not interested,” but it did plant the seeds that later grew.
The second point was shortly after I completed my US Air Force enlistment. I was working a job that involved a commute to the other side of St. Louis, MO, and had joined a parish local to the small Illinois town I was living in. Those seeds of the confirmation catechist were starting to sprout, and I was starting to consider whether or not I was being called. Suddenly, I had a number of parishioners, some of whom I really didn’t know, ask me whether or not I’d considered becoming a priest. I even had two of them ask me within the course of a week!
Would I have considered a religious vocation if people around me didn’t encourage it? I don’t know, but probably not. What I do know is my story is not unique. I have spoken to a number of seminarians, priests and religious, and many of us have the same story. It was the interest and encouragement of parishioners and family that led us to begin the journey towards priesthood or religious life.
If we consider the need for religious vocations, have we done our part to encourage them locally? Praying for vocations is great, but have we encouraged children, grandchildren, young adults we see in the parish to consider religious life? Or do we talk about which college they’re going to and what careers they’re considering? I would venture that very few of us have ever asked a young adult in our parishes to think and pray about a religious vocation, and yet that is the best thing we can do for them. You might be surprised what seeds you can plant in their lives!
