Vocational Discernment 101

Just last night I was having a conversation about vocations discernment in which I recalled the words of Matt Maher during a concert at Franciscan University ten years ago. He said, "Sometimes people make finding their vocation their god." It becomes this all-encompassing thing to obsess over and spend every waking moment contemplating.

Exhibit A: "An attractive guy/girl sat in front me during Mass today. Maybe I'm called to marriage! Or, maybe it was an invitation from God to give up this good for the greater good of priesthood/religious life."

So, it was rather good timing that The Culture Project reposted an article from July entitled, "Your Vocation is Not About You." Benjamin Mann has some thought-provoking insights into how we view our vocation (whether in the future or the present).

Our expectations are wrong. Consciously or not, we sometimes expect a vocation to solve all of our problems, answer all of our questions, and satisfy all of our desires. But these are not the purposes of a vocation. Discernment, likewise, does not consist in finding the choice that will meet those expectations.

Your vocation will not live up to these unrealistic hopes. Nothing in this world will answer all your questions, solve all your problems, or satisfy all your desires. These are impossible, immature ambitions, and the spiritual life consists largely in realizing that they are impossible and immature.

The purpose of life is the unitive devotional service of God, which includes the love of our neighbor (in whom God dwells). This is the real purpose of any vocation. Some forms of life, such as monasticism, are ordered directly to this end; other states of life are oriented toward it indirectly. But these are only different versions of the one human vocation: to love and serve God, and become one with him in Christ.

A vocation – any vocation – is a school of charity and a means of crucifixion. Your vocation is the means by which your self-serving ego will die in order to be resurrected as the servant and lover of God. This is all that we can expect; but this is everything – the meaning of life, all there really is.

My vocation is where I will learn to let go of my questions, carry the cross of my problems, and be mysteriously fulfilled even when I am not happy. We have some choice as to how we will undergo that process; we do not – so long as we abide in the grace of God – get to choose whether we will undergo it.

Read it all here.

Congratulations to Cincinnati's two newest priests!

Grateful to be a priest ...

When did you know you were called to be a priest?

The Gift of the Priesthood

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati's new vocations video is well worth the watch!

Day of Prayer for Priests

It's the Feast of the Sacred Heart, which is a beautiful event for all Catholics. But in a particular way we are asked to pray for our priests today. Here is a prayer written by St. Therese:


Prayer for Priests

O Jesus, Eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of your sacred heart, where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch your sacred body.

Keep unsullied their lips, daily purpled with your precious blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of your priesthood.

Let your holy love surround them, and shield them from the world’s contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit,

and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here on earth,

and in heaven, their everlasting crown.

Mary, Mother of Priests, pray for priests and vocations to the priesthood.

– St. Therese of Lisieux


(Thanks to Deacon Greg for sharing this prayer in the past.)

The ordination class of 2013

I look forward every year to the USCCB's focus on the year's ordination class in the United States.  They always provide the names of the of those to be ordained, photographs of each man (if provided) and a list of random facts about each soon-to-be priest.

For this year, you can see the photographs here, the "People might be surprised to know" section here, and the study from CARA about the men here.

Let's pray for all of these men who in the coming weeks will become our newest priests.

The "yes" of celibacy

Chris Stefanick has an excellent article about the "yes" to family that priests say in their vow of celibacy.  Here's a piece:

The sacrifice of celibacy that our priests make requires being alone in many ways. But the most intimate experiences of life and death, usually only shared with close family members, are also shared with them. They are there at our deathbeds, straddling time and eternity with us. Even if someone hasn’t practiced the faith in years, a priest is often their final escort. They are there at our weddings, standing as close to the bride and groom as they are to one another, a sign of Christ in the sacrament of marriage. They are holding our babies with us at baptism when they become children of God. At our lowest moments, they are waiting to lift us up in the confessional. Before a surgery, when only your spouse might be there holding your hand, your priest is also there, anointing you. And in tragic moments at 2 a.m., they are on call. These men have sacrificed family to be part of everyone’s family.

Read it all here.  At the very least, the story at the beginning is worth clicking!

New York Times takes notice

Fr. Roger Landry, a priest in New Bedford, MA, who was also the keynote speaker for Ruah Woods' banquet last year, was profiled in the New York Times for his vocal defense of the Church's teaching concerning contraception.

Father Landry also gives sermons on contraception, something very few priests do. He says he relies on Pope John Paul II’s argument against contraception, which he summarizes. “That God has made us fundamentally for love,” Father Landry said, “and that marriage is supposed to help us to love for real. In order for that to happen, we need to totally give ourselves over to someone else in love, and receive the other’s total self in love.

“What happens in the use of contraception, rather than embracing us totally as God made the other, with the masculine capacity to become a dad, or the feminine capacity to become a mom, we reject that paternal and maternal leaning.”

Father Landry argues that contraception can be the gateway to exploitation: “When that petition is made for contraception, it’s going to make pleasure the point of the act, and any time pleasure becomes the point rather than the fruit of the act, the other person becomes the means to that end. And we’re actually going to hurt the people we love.”

Read the entire article for a glimpse into the passion, dedication and dynamism of Fr. Landry.

Vocations stories

Speaking of vocations (of the priestly and religious variety), check out Cincinnati Vocations for some wonderful stories from those who are living or are discerning these particular ways of growing in holiness.

Vocations Awareness Week, part 4

In the final reflection during this week dedicated to vocations awareness, I wanted to say a word of thanks. How in the world is anyone supposed to embrace a life given wholly and irrevocably to the Lord without witnesses of joyful, peaceful, grateful fiats to the particular vocation which God entrusted to them? Vocations awareness is provided most profoundly by the silent eloquence of others who are living their vocation.

- Of the priest who spends every morning in the wooden confessional, praying for his penitents and offering them God's mercy through the sacrament.

- Of the wife and mother who struggles patiently with her two-year-old at daily Mass, wanting to receive love so she can give it.

- Of the religious sister who comforts another, giving advice, quietly listening and promising prayers.

- Of the husband and father who teaches his children how to pray, blesses them every night and wraps his family in prayer, even when he'd rather put up his feet and doze behind the opened newspaper.

Thank you to all those who have embraced their vocation, who time and again recommit to living more fully what the Lord has asked. Thank you to all who, whether they have yet found a concrete state of life from which to do this, respond to the universal call to holiness and witness to God's love in the simplest ways, often without realizing they are doing so.

Thank you especially to the priests who bring us the Eucharist, mercy in confession, a witness of fatherhood and of the love of Christ who gave everything to and for His Church. A priest's vocation is at the service of all of us. But we stand in gratitude and humility for their gift.

Vocations Awareness Week, part 3

In our continued conversation this week about the nature of vocations, it seems appropriate to consider the question of vocations promotion. A major problem today seems to be that of continuity. We often consider that we can live our lives any way we choose and then miraculously be struck by a heretofore everlasting spirit of selflessness and generosity, which will result in our embracing a vocation and properly living our vocation for the rest of our lives.

It's not quite the case.

In "Familiaris Consortio," John Paul II said that we need to have remote, proximate and immediate marriage preparation. Proper marriage preparation cannot be squeezed into six brief months. Rather, it begins at birth. The same would be true of a vocation to priesthood and the religious life. If this is the case, then rather than approach the topic of preparation for one vocation or another on two different planes, perhaps we should approach them like a "Y." The same formation continues through childhood and adolescence and eventually branches into one particular preparation or another.

If our specific vocation springs from our universal vocation to love -- which we receive upon our first moment of existence -- then our specific vocation preparation should begin from Day 1 as well. This preparation is always a training in love. It is further specified as we discern, realize and receive the way in which God calls us to love.

How can we begin from Day 1?

• Awareness of being a child of God

• Desires as a prayer (hungry, tired, etc.)

• Receiving, not grasping

• Love = willing the good of the other

• Modesty = body is good, so we treat it as a treasure

• Priests/religious as a sign of heaven

• Marriage as a sign of God’s love

• Praying for priests/consecrated/married people

• Sexuality as a precious gift

• Language of the body

• Beauty = reflection of God’s love

• Prayer as communication with God in which God shares His life with us and leads us on a path to Him in heaven.

• Crucifix as a reminder of real love

• Suffering – “offer it up” as fertilizer for seeds planted by God.

If we want to pray for vocations -- which is a very good thing to do! -- we musn't sit back and wait for the Fairy Vocations Godmother to wave a magic wand and turn random people into faith-loving, Gospel-sharing, God's love-reflecting priests, religious and married couples. Rather, the pray for vocations must accompany a commitment to assisting others in receiving their call from God from the first moment of life.

Vocations Awareness Week, part 2

Yesterday I said a few words about the confusion of the definition of "vocation" and that we rarely hear the word ascribed to those called to marriage. Today I'd like to continue the topic in light of this Vocations Awareness Week by looking at how we define vocation.

We were created in and through love for love. Our body is called to love and we return this gift by giving a total gift of self in love. There are two ways of irrevocably giving self – marriage and consecrated life.

John Paul II summarized in Familiaris Consortio #11:

God created man in His own image and likeness: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love. God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.[…] Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being "created in the image of God."

Our whole life should be a training to love – in heaven we will give/receive love eternally. Our vocation is the particular way in which God calls us to learn to love Him. A vocation, therefore, isn't something we grasp for or determine ourselves. It requires listening, patience, discerning in prayer so we can receive all that the Lord has for us.

If our whole life is a training to love, and we do that in a guided way through a vocation, then we should be preparing for our vocation from Day 1. We aren't waiting for life to begin the moment we make vows, whether as priests, consecrated or married. We begin learning to love and are eventually called to further specify the way in which we love through our total and forever gift to God.

I once heard Matt Maher give some excellent advice: Don't make finding your vocation your God. He said we are often so intent on finding our vocation that we lose sight of the Vocation-Giver. Many singles place so much emphasis, focus and stress on their future vocation that rather than preparing themselves to receive God’s love and to love Him in return, they are training themselves (ironically) to be self-focused, to grasp instead of to receive.

When we pray for vocations, we need to pray for openness in discernment, for the ability to hear God clearly, for the conviction to act upon the call He gives. Once again, this is a thought often reserved for those called to priesthood and religious life. Yet, those preparing for or discerning marriage also need to receive the call in patience, trust, openness, surrender and discernment. If this is the beginning for both vocations, both states of life can blossom more fully in the soil of God's love.

Ma'am, you should be a priest

This article originally appeared on Catholic Exchange in 2009.

Recently I was volunteering at a local pro-life event, when a former fellow parishioner approached me to say hello. She asked what I was doing these days. At my reply that I am studying for a master’s in theology, she grumbled, “It’s a shame you’re into that theology of the body, or else you could be priest.”

Shocked, I attempted to collect my composure being answering.

I have had a handful of Protestants ask if my goal was to be a minister upon graduation. Despite my insistence to the contrary, middle-aged Brenda, from whom I purchased my car a year ago, eagerly told her mother that I was going to be a minister. The mother ran out of the house, arms flailing in excitement at the revelation that I would be preaching the Good News in such a capacity. My protests were met with wagging fingers and amused expressions as they told me that “God surprises us sometimes.”

Yet I think my run-in at the pro-life event was my first encounter with a Catholic who thought that I should be a priest. She had no interest in my words that the priesthood isn’t about power, but about service. “Tell that to the priests,” she quipped.

My reminder that the Blessed Mother was not a priest but enjoyed an incredibly privileged role in the Church, was met with, “That’s true, but that was 2,000 years ago.”

She mentioned the necessity of equality, to which I replied that equality is not identical to sameness. She disagreed and added that the Church must offer “equal opportunity for Sacraments.”

It’s interesting how much we let our culture’s ideas color our views of the Church. Society espouses that there is no difference between male and female. They are the same.

The fact that only one can be a mother, and only one can be a father apparently makes no difference.

Ephesians 5, which is typically used to discuss the meaning of marriage, is just as valuable in the discussion of male priesthood. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Priests stand in the person of Christ, in relation to His Bride, the Church. How, then, could a woman be a priest? How could a woman, a potential mother, “marry” Mother Church?

The male-only priesthood isn’t an exclusive club of cigar-smoking men in black who chuckle at their ability to fool women into believing they can’t join. Rather, it’s an invitation to service – an opportunity for men to “wash the feet” and sacrifice their lives for their beloved Bride, the Church.

This doesn’t make women sighing, whimpering, fragile creatures whose sole role in life is to be catered to by men. Rather, only women can be mothers. Only they can nurture life in such a way that two or more heartbeats can palpitate in their bodies at the same time. Only a mother can give birth to a priest. One can say that without women there would be no priests.

It’s all a matter of seeing the beauty of God’s plan – the unity that can occur because of the diversity in creation. Each of us exists as a man or as a woman. Neither is deficient or lesser than the other. But the fact that each is created in God’s image and likeness does not mean that they exist as the same. Rather in the difference they reflect something of God. It is because they are different, yet equal, that they are able to love in a way that can include a total and unique gift of self, resulting in the possibility of new life. And this union points us to the love of God that exists in the Trinity.

There is a particularly poignant scene in the film Pope John Paul II: The Movie, in which the Holy Father is driving through a group of angry, protesting women, holding signs advocating women priests and abortion on demand. Jon Voight, playing John Paul II says, “How can I tell them how much God loves women? His intention from the beginning, equality, balance, perfection.”

I don’t think these words were taken as a direct quote from the late Holy Father, but I think they certainly capture the essence of his love for women, and therefore his frustration that so many failed to receive his tender words.

Anyone who disbelieves the dignity with which the Church treats women should pick up John Paul’s “Letter to Women” or “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women.” There they will find his careful treatment of the “genius of women” and their unique call to love.

John Paul II’s enthusiasm is apparent, for example, in the conclusion of “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”: “During the Marian Year the Church desires to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the ‘mystery of woman’ and for every woman – for that which constitutes the eternal measure of her feminine dignity, for the ‘great works of God,’ which throughout human history have been accomplished in and through her. After all, was it not in and through her that the greatest event in human history – the incarnation of God himself – was accomplished?” (31).

When viewed through this lens, as opposed to the culture’s, we can see that the Church’s understanding of priesthood is a loving way of preserving the unique dignity of both men and women. And in the end, this guarantees that we will be truly happy.

I’ll take that over being called “Father” any day.

"Hidden Sacrifice of the Priesthood"

Fr. Kyle Schnippel has some great thoughts on the sacrifices of families of priests and religious.

However, there is a sometimes hidden cost of responding to a priestly or religious vocation that becomes quite evident this time of year, but not necessarily for the priest or religious, but for his or her family. Because of our responsibilities and assignments, we often miss family gatherings during the holidays, or when we get there, we are so tired and worn down, all we want to do is sleep; yet nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, parents are all excited to see you and want to hear about what we have been doing.

But especially for members of religious communities, even this is not an option. Often stationed in houses around the globe, families have to make due with a two week ‘home visit’ at different points during the year. In between, hand written letters are often the only means of communication that goes between family and the professed. While the evident joy can temper some of the feelings of loss in the rest of the family, there is still something missing when that son or daughter’s chair remains empty during Christmas Dinner.

Read it all at his blog.

Congratulations, Fr. O'Cinnsealaigh!

Fr. Benedict O'Cinnsealaigh was formally installed as rector of Mt. St. Mary's Seminary ("of the west") and the Athenaeum on Sunday. I have to admit to enjoying the timing of the event -- the anniversary of John Paul II's election as the Holy Father. Certainly, being a seminary rector does not include quite the same level of responsibility as the Vicar of Christ, but there was something about the humility and servant-leadership of Fr. O'Cinnsealaigh that was a sort of reflection of the love and service given by thousands of priests, bishops and popes over the years.

In any event, I highly recommend reading the new rector's inauguration address from Sunday. I want to highlight just a piece:

Priesthood is an invitation to fall in love, to fall in love with everything that God has created and through the “everything”, to fall in love with God. Fear of a shallow empty life is without foundation in the great love story of God and His people. This love story envelopes the whole Church and, in a very special way, invites the laity into a deeper sense of the opportunities they have to reach beyond the daily and the ordinary and embrace the needs of their fellow travelers in a communal and ongoing search for meaning and purpose.

Read it all here.

"Deception in Discernment"

Br. Gabriel Torretta, OP, has some excellent insights into the nature of discernment in his recent piece in "Dominicana."

See what I mean?

Vocation is not a shell game in which I have to outwit God and find the perfect life He has hidden among all the options in the world. Vocation is a call of love to love. God moves our hearts to love Him, to answer the one, universal call to holiness. The Christian’s task is to respond to that love concretely with the complete gift of himself. To give himself utterly, he needs the honesty, generosity, wisdom, and prudence that come from God, for which he must pray. Then, when his heart burns with a specific desire to love God with this woman, or this religious order, or in this diocese, then he decides and commits himself irrevocably into God’s hands. This is the mystery of vocation. This is the mystery of love.

Read it all here.

Why bishops and priests need witnesses too

I was really struck when reading an account of an engaged couple in New York who recently met with Archbishop Dolan to discuss their upcoming marriage. In their reflection, the couple wrote:

He mentioned that our testimony (and the testimony of all other young people living and spreading the freedom of chastity) is what encourages him when he finds himself attacked from all sides, that only by the witness of faithful and fruitful marriage will the Church stand strong in our time.

Wow! Archbishop Dolan is a man I look up to greatly for his joy, enthusiasm and dedication to witnessing to the truth of the Gospel. What a responsibility and honor to know that he looks to

young people dedicated to living the beauty of chastity to encourage him.

It made me think: Why would the witness of young people encourage him? And then I realized what it might be. Archbishop Dolan, and others like him, see in these young people the joy and peace that reminds them that this is the experience they wish for all people. It makes it "worth"

defending then, because it is seen as good. Not just as "good" in the sense that one knows it is right, moral, correct. But "good" in the sense that it is truly the way that will lead to authentic joy. When confronted with living witnesses of this truth, how could it fail to inspire the leaders of the Church in relentlessly defending the truth of marriage, family, love and chastity?

In our own lives, do we consider that the way we live has an effect on others? Do we realize that Archbishop Dolan needs us and that we need him?

Pray for priests!

Happy feast day to all parish priests! St. John Vianney's day is today. It seems fitting to take a moment today to thank God for the many priests in our lives who bring us Christ every day, and whose sacrifices bring great fruit for the Church.

And after thanking, let's pray:

Dear Saint John Vianney,
your childhood dream was to be a Priest,
to win souls for God.
You endured years of toil and humiliation
to attain the Priesthood.
You became a priest truly after God's own heart,
outstanding in humulity and poverty;
prayer and mortification.
Totally devoted to the service of God's people.
The Church has exalted you as model
and patron saint of all Parish priests,
trusting that your example and prayers
will help them to live up
to the high dignity of their vocation
to be faithful servants of God's people,
to be perfect imitators of Christ the Saviour
Who came not to be served but to serve,
to give His Life in ransom for many.

Pray that God may give to His Church today
many more priests after His own Heart.
Pray for all the priests under your patronage,
that they may be worthy representatives
of Christ the Good Shepherd.
May they wholeheartedly devote themselves
to prayer and penance;
be examples of humility and poverty;
shining modelss of holiness;
tireless and powerful preachers of the Word of God;
zealous dispensers of God's Grace in the Sacraments.
May their loving devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist
and to Mary His Mother
be the Twin Fountains of fruitfulness for their ministry.

Amen.

Called to be More highlights -- #10

Highlight #10 – A garden of vocations
St. Therese once wrote about God’s children as a garden of wildflowers – the beauty and variety of each one pointing to the Creator. Along our journey we witnessed a garden of vocations. We encountered diocesan priests, Dominicans, Franciscans, Sisters of Charity, members of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. We met a Byzantine priest and a priest from the Fraternity of St. Peter, which celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass. We met a couple who had been married for 49 years. We met young couples carrying their newborns. We had the opportunity during the week to see the universality of the Church.