Article 3
VOCATIONS TO PRIESTHOOD AND RELIGIOUS LIFE:
THEY ARE ALL AROUND US IN THIS ARCHDIOCESE
From Your Shepherd and Teacher
Elden Francis Curtiss
October 27, 1995
I was asked recently by a reporter for a national journal if I thought vocations were gradually drying up in this country as the statistics regarding the number of seminarians and novices indicate. I told him that I thought God was calling candidates to priesthood and religious life in the same numbers proportionately that He has always called them. I am constantly amazed at the number of young people who admit, when they are asked, that they have seriously considered priesthood and religious life. They need to be invited to pursue this call, and they need to be supported by many people in their efforts to respond to the Lord.
The ministry and charism of Pope John Paul, especially manifest at the World Youth Day in Denver, has lit a flame in many young hearts. There is a growing sense that the Church offers them the best chance they have for a meaningful life, to be able to live with hope in a supportive, loving community. The Pope holds up for them a vision of what their lives can be as the disciples of Jesus, in an increasingly violent and dangerous world. He inspires them to climb out of their exaggerated individualism and their selfish ruts so that they may find personal freedom in Jesus and his Church. He leads them to recognize that they will come to self-fulfillment and happiness only in loving service to other people.
The call to service for others
This process of discovery is the beginning of vocation awareness for an increasing number of young people here in Nebraska and beyond. But they need to be invited to ponder and sort out the possibilities of service which the Church offers them. We have to help them focus this discernment process. Parents and family members, priests and religious, vocation committee members and Serrans, parishioners and parish staffs -- all who touch the lives of these young people have to help them with the task of discerning the call of the Lord to minister in significant ways to his people.
The attitude of parents and family members is crucial in the vocation process. When young people sense they have the positive support of their families in discerning their vocations, especially when they are moving towards priesthood and religious life, then they are encouraged to continue the inquiry. But when the response is negative in any way, they tend to back away from vocation discernment, at least temporarily.
Young people have to be invited personally to consider a vocation to priesthood and religious life. The role of priests and religious, families and friends, in extending this personal invitation is essential to the process. In this day and age, we cannot presume that young people receive the invitation to consider a vocation from their teachers and catechists or their peers or from a general invitation issued to the multitudes. They must be personally invited to think about a call to priesthood and religious life. If they are not personally invited, too often they will miss the call or dismiss it as a vague impulse based on a dream rather than on reality. There are too many other strong voices speaking to them about career possibilities and life choices.
Offering the invitation
Vocations do not come out of a vacuum. They develop and come to fruition because of a network of people who invite and nourish and sustain vocations to priesthood and religious life.
This is the reason that we have a vocation office in this archdiocese and that we ask all our priests and religious to be vocation directors with Father Mark Filips, our archdiocesan vocation director. This is the reason we have two strong Serra clubs in Omaha and that we want vocation committees in all our parishes. This is the reason that we ask all our people to pray for vocations, especially before the Blessed Sacrament which is available to us because of the ministry of ordained priests. This is the reason that we ask our parents to be the first promoters of vocations in their homes.
It is my conviction, based on personal observation and experience, that God is calling candidates to priesthood and religious life in adequate numbers these days. The strong leadership of our Pope is challenging many young people to consider a ministerial role in the Church as priests and religious and lay leaders. When a significant number of parents positively support this discernment process in their children, many young people will eventually respond. When these young people are personally invited to consider priesthood and religious life, many will be willing to enter a discernment process. When parishioners and friends support them with their prayers and positive encouragement, an amazing number of candidates will enter our seminaries and novitiates to begin the final process of discerning their call to priesthood and vowed religious life.
God offers the call to many
It is not that God is refusing to call adequate numbers of candidates to priesthood and religious life, but rather that in some places in the Church, parents and clergy and religious and parishioners are not fully supportive of discernment and formation processes which are needed to bring these vocations to fruition.
In this archdiocese there are vocations to priesthood and religious life all around us. We have only to identify them and nurture them and support them in order to have the priests and religious we need to lead us into the new millennium. God is doing His part in calling adequate numbers of candidates to priesthood and religious life -- we have to do our part in supporting this call.
