"Vocations are Still a “Super-Priority”"

From The Catholic Key
By Bishop Robert W. Finn
Kansas City-St. Joseph

In my first months as bishop of the diocese I said Vocations were a “Super Priority.” While we have had a meaningful increase in vocations to priesthood, the diaconate, and some new vocations to consecrated life, I still offer this intention for more vocations to priesthood and Consecrated Life with fervor in my daily prayer. I hope you do also.

We are reaching the midpoint of the Year for Priests, inaugurated by Pope Benedict XVI last June. How proud I am of our priests who do so much for you, God’s people. Still, they need more help, particularly as the pastoral needs seem always to increase. This year, please God, we will ordain four new priests; and it remains possible that in 2012 we could celebrate the ordination of eight or nine new priests at once. I haven’t figured out how we will get everyone in the Cathedral; a pleasing dilemma!

Am I greedy to suggest that we need more priests? I believe that God is calling more men to this wonderful vocation, and we have to listen carefully and prepare well so that your sons can hear and answer that call.

What kind of life awaits the priest? To be sure, there are many joys, and also challenges. The priest is helped by God to give himself to many people. He shares in the greatest joys of people’s lives and is with them in times of hardship and sorrow. He is a pastor, a shepherd, a teacher, and spiritual father. He stands in the place of Jesus Christ, particularly in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

How does a man discern a possible vocation to priesthood? The healthy man (healthy in body, mind and soul), as he matures, wants to give himself in an honest and generous way. It is important and normal that he sees the beauty of marriage, and its central meaning and purpose in society. At the same time, he realizes he has a spiritual dimension to his life and he wants to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and follow God’s call wherever it may take him. He works hard at every task before him, and finds joy in generously reaching out to others. He studies with zeal. He prays. He establishes caring friendships, and determines to live a moral life, growing in the frequent reception of the sacraments, particularly of Confession and Holy Eucharist.

As a man experiences this spiritual depth to his life, he does not seek a vocation that makes him materially rich or famous. Instead, having realized something of the cost and demands of authentic human love, he is ready to trust God and give himself to others out of love for God. He realizes that the Father in heaven has loved him a lot, and the awareness of this love and mercy makes him want to follow God’s plan in his life. Our seminarians are responding to this vocation to the priesthood. Our priests are living this out with dedication. Keep praying for them to persevere.

The role and support of parents is very important to those who are discerning God’s call. Your sons (and daughters) look up to you for approval. They should. Your love for them is unconditional and unselfish. I do not suggest that you should urge your sons to go to seminary, but pray for them, that they do whatever God wants for them. Support them in their search. I pledge once again to our parents that if we receive their sons as our seminarians we will do all in our power to see they get good formation.

Over the course of my priesthood, I have also had occasion to meet many outstanding men and women Religious. I was taught by and have worked closely with several Orders of Religious Women. There is a real renewal taking place in these vocations today. I have established an office for Consecrated Life, and we stand ready to direct young women and men who may be drawn to Religious life as priests, sisters or brothers.

"Called to Love: Common Vocation, Uncommon Joy"

Getting Beyond a Hope-Killing Culture

By Carl Anderson

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, SEPT. 14, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A couple of years ago, when Benedict XVI visited with some students, two of them asked him a question that could have come from anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic alike.

They asked: "Is there someone or something by means of which we can become important? How is it possible to hope when reality negates every dream of happiness, every project of life?”

I think many people share these questions. The poor, the elderly, the sick, the immigrant, the stay-at-home parent or the 9-to-5 worker -- nobody wants to be dispensable or to feel worthless or trapped. Unfortunately, many people feel that way in different areas of their life. And I think it’s a dangerous symptom that we can’t overlook. It’s a symptom that something about our culture is so unhealthy that its people lose hope.

But although the two students asked what seemed to be a secular question, the only good cure is returning to one’s original vocation: the call to love.

Often, when speaking about youth and the future of the Church, people bring up the “vocation crisis.” However, in order to respond to the crisis it is vital that we respond in a way that underscores the underlying sameness of the vocations.

However different each vocation is -- priesthood, marriage, consecrated life -- they each have the same goal. All are different manifestations of the vocation we all have in common: the vocation to love.

Each vocation requires a total gift of self. Each vocation endures for a lifetime. Each is a path on a journey by which we become more like God who is love. Each has a component that is loving toward each other, manifesting God’s love.

Of course, the reality of this isn’t always clear.

This is especially true looking at the state of Catholic marriage.

Hypothetically speaking, if 23% percent of priests left the priesthood, would we believe we had given them adequate formation for the priesthood? So when in the United States 23% of adult Catholics divorce, is this adequate formation for marriage?

When three out of five failed Catholic marriages are between two Catholics, what does Catholic marriage mean?

When 69% of Catholics between 18 and 25 years of age believe that “marriage is whatever two people want it to be,” what obstacles has their Catholic education faced? And when there is still a paucity of people entering priesthood and religious life, we need to ask ourselves, “What is the future of our vocations?”

Now, this may seem like a hopelessly dire situation. But there is good news. We were created for love, and nothing -- not even secular culture -- an eradicate the call to love from our sensibilities.
The fact is, we cannot dismiss the avoidance of vocational commitment as a result of rampant immaturity. It is also in part due to the fact that people are questioning the authenticity of the love they experience.

Inauthentic love has a name: hypocrisy.

It speaks the language of love, but not its meaning. It offers a unique, unrepeatable gift, but then is quick to take it back. It can be seen in a loveless or careless marriage, a self-centered or apathetic priest, a religious sister or brother without compassion.

The consequence of seeing only inauthentic love is this: Love is seen as something that doesn’t belong to the structures created for love. When families are separated from love, then love is seen as something to be separated from family. When the Church family becomes unloving, then loving becomes something to be found outside the Church.

But there is more good news: Living our own vocations well helps other people live their own vocation.

It helps those already in a vowed vocation to be true to it. It helps those who have not yet given themselves through a specific vocation to be open and to have the courage to say yes to their vocation. A vocation well lived restores trust in love.

The answer is, in Pope Benedict’s words, to have a “harmony between what we say with our lips and what we think with our hearts.”

Another facet of authentic love is perseverance. The witness each of us can give is to continue to love through one’s vocation even during times of spiritual aridity, like Mother Teresa experienced, and St. John of the Cross and many other saints. Such an experience shouldn’t simply be looked on as a step in the spiritual journey of life. It is an experience by which we can relate to all of those who feel disconnected from the love of God in some way.

In a way, this type of spiritual aridity, this failure to “feel” the power of love, is exactly what so many young people feel today. In other’s perseverance, they can find and see the strength of love, the strength of a heart that does not simply feel but a heart that sees and loves according to the truth.

And for many, a litmus test of this authenticity is joy -- and rightly so. And perhaps the greatest obstacle to the reputations of each vocation is not scandal but joylessness -- or what we might call the scandal of joylessness. For this reason, too, before becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger said the Church doesn’t have “such urgent need” for reformers, but rather what the Church really needs are “people who are inwardly seized by Christianity, who experience it as joy and hope, who have thus become lovers. And these we call saints.”

Each vocation offers a particular answer to the questioning of authentic love. And thus all vocations are necessary.

Additionally, Christ’s transformation of the vocations of marriage and religious life is only made possible -- and fulfilling -- through something else: the establishment of the Church. We are relatives not by our own blood but by Christ’s blood.

In Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, family -- in the eyes of God -- was broadened to everyone. God redeemed and involved himself with not just a Chosen People, a people defined by bloodline, but with all people, a people defined by a common origin, the Creator, the one who instilled in us all that common call: that vocation to love.

As Pope Benedict wrote in "Sacramentum Caritatis," “Communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters.” We can’t have communion with our fellow human beings unless we have a proper communion with Jesus Christ.

This is why Ratzinger described the whole of human history as a yes or no to Love. And we can only say yes to love with a complete gift of self, first to God, then to neighbor, but to both always in love.

"Pope Benedict XVI to Consecrated People: Imitate the Life of St. Paul"

From Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, 3 FEB 2009 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon in the Vatican Basilica Benedict XVI met with members of religious congregations, institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life, at the end of a Mass marking the thirteenth Day of Consecrated Life, an annual celebration established by John Paul II.

At the end of the Eucharistic celebration for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, presided by Cardinal Franc Rode C.M., prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Holy Father greeted those present.

In this year dedicated to St. Paul the Pope focused his remarks on the Apostle "who", he said, "has always been recognised as father and master of those who, called by the Lord, have chosen to dedicate themselves unconditionally to Him and His Gospel. ... Imitating him by following Jesus is the best way to respond fully to your vocation of special consecration in the Church", he said.

St. Paul's lifestyle "expresses the substance of a consecrated life inspired by the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. In the life of poverty he saw a guarantee that the Gospel would be announced gratuitously. At the same time, such a life is an expression of real solidarity towards brothers and sisters in need".

"Accepting God's call to chastity", noted the Holy Father, the Apostle of the Gentiles "gave his heart entirely to the Lord in order to be able to serve his brethren with greater freedom and dedication. Moreover, in a world in which the values of Christian chastity enjoyed little popularity, he offered secure guidelines of behaviour".

On the subject of obedience, Benedict XVI recalled how St. Paul was "under daily pressure because of his anxiety for all the churches'', and how this "inspired, shaped and consumed his life, making it a sacrifice agreeable to God".

"Another fundamental aspect of Paul's consecrated life was that of mission. He was entirely for Jesus in order to be, like Jesus, for everyone. ... In him, so closely bound to the person of Christ, we recognise a profound capacity to unite spiritual life and missionary activity. In him, these two dimensions support one another".

The Pope told the consecrated people of his hope that the Pauline Year may "give you further encouragment to welcome the witness of St. Paul, meditating daily upon the Word of God through the faithful practice of 'lectio divina', and singing 'psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts'. May the Apostle help you to accomplish your apostolic service in and with the Church, with an unreserved spirit of communion, making a gift of your charisms to others and bearing witness to the greatest charism of all, which is charity".

"Spanish bishop: Lack of radical dedication amongst religious explains vocations crisis"

From Catholic News Agency

Madrid, Feb 2, 2009 / 10:18 pm (CNA).- In a pastoral letter published to mark the World Day of Consecrated Life on February 2, Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Tarazona, Spain, said the lack of radical commitment in consecrated life is one of the main causes of the vocations crisis.

“Christians are already consecrated through baptism, but the consecrated life is a new title of consecration that brings baptism to its fullness,” the bishop said. “Consecrated life is a prophetic cry in today’s world (and always), which reminds us what the definitive values of the Kingdom are, those that Christ lived out in the beatitudes and those that He invites others to live out when He calls someone to follow Him more closely.”

“We live in times of crisis in the consecrated life as well,” Bishop Fernandez underscored. “Secularization, that is, living as if God did not exist, adapting oneself to the opinions and ways of the world, has also filtered into the consecrated lifestyle.”

“It seems like a contradiction, but unfortunately this is the way it is. A consecrated life in which one is not willing to live a radical commitment to Jesus Christ, with a fanatical love like that of St. Paul, is a life that is not very attractive or exciting to the young people of today. This is one of the reasons for the lack of vocations,” the bishop stressed.

Bishop Fernandez acknowledged that the “issue of the scarcity or lack of vocations among young people is very complex and cannot be reduced to a single cause, but the institutes of consecrated life that live coherently ‘having lost everything for Jesus Christ’ are getting vocations.”

“On the other hand,” he added, “the institutes that have adapted to this world do not have vocations and are slowly dying out.”

“The World Day of Consecrated Life is an occasion to pray to the Lord for those who have consecrated their lives totally to the Lord, that they may be faithful to the first love that led them to leave everything for Jesus Christ,” Bishop Fernandez stated.

"Vatican initiates study of Catholic sisters’ institutes in the United States"

The Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has begun an Apostolic Visitation or comprehensive study of institutes of women religious in the United States.

The action was initiated by the Congregation’s prefect, Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodé, C.M. The decree, issued December 22, 2008, indicated the Visitation is being undertaken ―in order to look into the quality of the life of the members of these religious institutes.

The Visitation will be conducted under the direction of Mother Mary Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., whom Cardinal Rodé appointed Apostolic Visitator. Mother Millea, a Connecticut native, is superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an international religious institute headquartered in Rome, with approximately 1250 professed sisters worldwide, including 135 in the United States. She entered religious life in 1965 and professed perpetual vows in 1973.

The Visitation, which will collect and assimilate data and observations about religious life, will be limited to apostolic institutes, those actively engaged in service to Church and society. Cloistered, contemplative sisters, who have distinctly different lifestyles, are excluded from the study. Mother Millea will submit a confidential report to Cardinal Rodé at the conclusion of the task. Though there is no deadline, she hopes to complete the task by 2011.

Catholic women religious have been involved in apostolates such as education, healthcare and a variety of pastoral and social services in the United States since before the nation was founded. According to the Washington-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) however, the number of U.S. women religious has been in decline during the past 40 years, while their median age continues to increase.

I am truly humbled, and a bit overwhelmed, Mother Millea said of her assignment. ―While I have visited each of the communities and missions in my own congregation, the thought of gathering facts and findings about nearly 400 institutes across the United States can be daunting in scope.

I am praying for all the sisters who will be a part of this Visitation, and hoping for their prayers – both for the good of the process as well as for me in this role, she continued. I ask the prayers of the American Catholic clergy and faithful too.

Despite her sense of awe at the size of the task, Mother Millea was encouraged by the project. I know that the object of this Visitation is to encourage and strengthen apostolic communities of women religious, for the simple reason that these communities are integral to the entire life of the Catholic Church, in the United States and beyond.

Mother Millea indicated that while she is not obliged to visit every community of women religious, she looks forward to learning and better understanding the multi-faceted dimensions of the sisters’ religious lives, as well as their abundant contributions to the Church and society.

A VERY WELL DESIGNED website, apostolicvisitation.org, has been launched to provide basic information about the project.

Pope Benedict: consecrated religious testify to God's primacy

From Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Apr 13, 2008 / 12:39 pm (CNA).- During his midday Regina Caeli prayers on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI emphasized the role played by those Catholics who are consecrated for life. Consecrated religious, the Holy Father said, proclaim Christ and radically live the Gospel with their vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.

“On this fourth Sunday of Easter, in which the liturgy presents Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we celebrate the World Day of Prayer for Vocations,” the Holy Father said.

“In every continent, the ecclesial communities ask the Lord for many and holy vocations to the priesthood, to the consecrated life, to the missionary life, and to Christian marriage. They meditate on the theme ‘The vocation to the service of the mission-Church.’”

The Holy Father said that the World Day of Prayer for Vocations “puts itself in the perspective of the Year of Paul, which will begin next June 28 to celebrate the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of the apostle Paul, the missionary par excellence.

“In the experience of the Apostle to the Gentiles, whom the Lord called to be a ‘minister of the Gospel,’ vocation and mission are inseparable.

“He therefore represents a model for all Christians, in particular for missionaries for life, that is, for those men and women who dedicate themselves totally to proclaiming Christ to the many people who do not now know Him: this is a vocation that preserves its whole validity.

“In the first place,” the Holy Father said, “the priests perform this missionary service, dispensing the Word of God and the Sacraments, and manifesting the restoring presence of Jesus Christ with their pastoral love to all, above all to the sick, the young, the poor. We give thanks to God for these our brothers who give themselves without reserve in pastoral ministry--at times combining fidelity to Christ with the sacrifice of their lives, as happened yesterday for the two religious killed in Guinea and Kenya.

“To them goes our grateful admiration together with our prayers of support. We pray also that the choice of those who decide to live radically the Gospel vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience will always be nourished.

“There are men and women who have a primary role of evangelization. Others dedicate themselves to contemplation and prayer, and others to the many forms of educational and charitable action.

“But all have in common the same purpose: that of testifying to God’s primacy over all things and spreading his Kingdom to all areas of society. Many among them, the Servant of God Paul VI writes, 'are enterprising and their apostolate is often marked by an originality, by a genius that demands admiration. They are generous: often they are found at the outposts of the mission, and they take the greatest of risks for their health and their very lives.'"

The Holy Father said it should not be forgotten that Christian marriage is also a missionary vocation: “the spouses, in fact, are called to live the Gospel in their families, in the workplace, and in the parish and civil communities. In some cases, moreover, they offer their precious collaboration in the mission to the nations.”

The Holy Father invoked the protection of Mary upon the “manifold vocations” existing in the Church, saying Mary “can make a powerful missionary impact.”

Pope Benedict also entrusted to Mary's protection his upcoming visit to the United States, inviting Catholics to accompany him in their prayers.