National Vocation Awareness Week begins today, as dioceses across the nation embrace this time to encourage young people to think of considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.
It is no accident that the week begins today, as the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. This feast marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.
National Vocation Awareness Week focuses on vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life in particular. During these days, families and the parish community are urged to nurture the faith of their children to prepare them to respond to whatever God’s call is for them. Catholics are encouraged during this week to take time to pray for vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life; to reflect on our own vocation and strengthen their personal relationship with Christ; and to educate young people about the importance of silent prayer and taking the time to truly listen to God’s voice in our hearts.
That’s the slogan the Archdiocese of Portland’s new vocations director uses to help Catholics discern their calling, whether it’s marriage or a single lifestyle, or religious life, the diaconate or priesthood.
Father John Henderson has been leading baptized people to find their calling in his new role in the vocations office since he was assigned to the position last summer. He oversees the 52 diocesan seminarians stationed at Mount Angel Seminary, a handful of other schools, and in local churches. He also promotes vocations in the parishes, recruiting men to the priesthood.
On his “To Do” list lately has been the preparation of the Archbishop’s Retreat, “On the Priestly Vocation,” slated for Jan. 27-29, at the Our Lady of Peace Retreat House. Father Henderson assists Archbishop John Vlazny in leading this weekend retreat for men who would like a chance to reflect on the possibility of priesthood.
For the rest of this story by Clarice Keating, staff writer for the Catholic Sentinel, click here.
The Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been awarded a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation that largely underwrites a comparative cultural survey of Catholic youth in the United States.
The survey aims to identify common and distinctive cultural traits that affect the openness and ability of Catholic youth to respond to a call to a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. The Secretariat has commissioned the Center for Applied Research (CARA) at Georgetown University to conduct a national survey of never-married Catholics, ages 14 and older, to study their views about vocations and their own consideration of a vocation.
Statistical data found in two reports commissioned by the Secretariat, “The Class of 2011: Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood” and “The Profession Class of 2010: Survey of Women Religious Professing Perpetual Vows,” indicate fewer than expected religious vocations among the Hispanic and Latino Catholic population in the U.S.
Father Shawn McKnight, executive director of the Secretariat, said that Hispanics/Latinos constituted 15 percent of the ordination class and 10 percent of the religious profession class, while constituting 34 percent of the total adult Catholic population.
“There is not enough objective data to explain the reasons for their underrepresentation,”Father McKnight said.
The Secretariat seeks to identify specific reasons for their underrepresentation, to guide the efforts by dioceses and religious communities to promote vocations.
In the same reports, other cultures show a stronger representation. For example, Asians constitute four percent of the adult Catholic population in the U.S., yet 10 percent of the past year’s ordination class were Asian.This is a consistent trend over the past 15 years. In the 2010 class of women who made their religious profession of perpetual vows, 19 percent of the entire class was Asian.Further study is needed to explore why there is such a difference in representation.
The identification of cultural elements that support and challenge a culture of vocations among Asian, Latino and the general youth population would be helpful information for collaborating organizations, such as the National Religious Vocations Conference and the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors.The results of this study would also benefit those involved with the evangelization of youth, as they would indicate how the influences of culture impact the ability to reach out to all Catholic youth.
“This study will aid in the New Evangelization by serving as a helpful resource in determining emerging needs within the Church as well as assisting in the development of timely and effective responses,” said Peter Murphy, PhD, executive director of the USCCB Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis.
“The success of ministry among a growing number of Hispanics/Latinos requires leadership from the Hispanic/Latino community itself, especially in the priesthood and religious life,” added Father Allan Deck, former head of the USCCB Secretariat for Cultural Diversity in the Church. “This proposal is the single most important effort to find the best ways to provide the priestly leadership necessary for Hispanics/Latinos to flourish in the Church.”
Courtesy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Today the universal Church celebrates the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), who was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1975.
Mother Seton is a saint of many “firsts.” She opened the first tuition-free Catholic school in the United States. She formed the Sisters of Charity, the first community of consecrated religious women founded in the United States.
And she also has the privilege of being the first American-born canonized saint.
Lord God, you blessed Elizabeth Seton with gifts of grace as wife and mother, educator and foundress, so that she might spend her life in service to your people. Through her example and prayers may we learn to express our love for you in love for others. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
As we begin the New Year, let’s once again unite our prayers this month with those of Pope Benedict XVI. Here are the Holy Father’s intentions for January 2012, as published by the Apostleship of Prayer:
Victims of Natural Disasters. That the victims of natural disasters may receive the spiritual and material comfort they need to rebuild their lives.
Dedication to Peace. That the dedication of Christians to peace may bear witness to the name of Christ before all men and women of good will.
January is also a month especially devoted to the Holy Name of Jesus, which was popularized by St. Bernardine of Siena in the 15th century. For more on devotion to the Holy Name, click here.
Recently at Patheos there was an article by Elizabeth Duffy on Mount de Sales Academy in Maryland, run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, more commonly known as the Nashville Dominicans, in which the faith is beautifully integrated into every aspect of the educational experience. Duffy writes:
“The Nashville Dominican Sisters have gained a national reputation for helping to facilitate this Catholic Identity wherever the sisters go. Many parents and administrators are wondering, how can we get the Nashville Dominicans to come into our schools and transform them? The Sisters shine a light on the potentialities of Catholic education, but they also point a way for the laity. Christ is the one who transforms us. If he is integral to our lives, he will be integral to our schools. Holiness, not hot air.”
Mount de Sales is living proof that rigorous academics and a vibrant Catholic identity need not be an either/or proposition for our Catholic schools.
Young men and women from St. Mary’s parish in the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa were inducted into groups focused on chastity during a Mass celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe earlier this month.
About 10 to 15 young women were received into the women’s chastity group, with St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Maria Goretti named as their patron saints. Upon entering the society, they received a rose and promised to pray the Rosary before Mass for the chastity and fidelity of young men. They promised to be chaste and devoted to Christ until they married or found a religious vocation.
“They promised to demand they be respected as women and that guys and boyfriends treat them with respect, not trying to get anything more than a quick kiss, hug or hold their hand,” said Father Jeremy Wind, parochial vicar at St. Mary’s. “They promised to pray for their future husbands, future religious communities or their current boyfriends.”
Fr. Wind also launched a young men’s group at the Mass, called the Warriors of the Lord. He had the young men who were under 18 promise to pray one hour in adoration every week for girls who are being taken advantage of. They promised to remain chaste for the sake of their future bride.
Older men promised to be active, faithful Catholics. They promised to pray for the women in their lives, and to treat them with love and respect.
“They promised not to let pornography, contraception, sterilization, vasectomies, etc. into their homes,” said Father Wind.
“They knelt down before the altar. I had a Knights of Columbus sword. I pointed it to the cross and I asked them if they were willing to follow Jesus Christ, even if it meant, if necessary, they had to shed their blood,” added Father Wind. “They said, ‘I do.’ Then I gave them a nice swift crack with the sword across their back.”
There’s more: At the Mass, Father Wind informed the congregation that he asked the Spanish speaking stores to allow their workers to go to church on Sundays. The stores are open on Sundays and have their employees work. Four of the five stores agreed.
Kudos to Father Wind for making a difference, and for doing his part to foster a culture of vocations in Sioux City. The foregoing is taken from a story by reporter Katie Lefebvre, which recently appeared in The Catholic Globe, published by the Diocese of Sioux City.
Religion & Liberty, a publication of the Acton Institute, recently published an interesting study by historian Mark Summers on the Catholic Church’s complex role in the United States Civil War (1861-65), a topic we’ve covered in previous posts.
Here’s what Summers had to say about the participation of Catholic priests and religious during the Civil War:
“Along with the thousands of soldiers that fought in the ranks were hundreds of priests who ministered to the troops and Catholic Sisters who assisted as nurses and sanitary workers. Catholic soldiers were at a religious disadvantage compared to the Protestant comrades, as the church lacked enough priests to both serve in the army and minister to the congregations at home. Nevertheless, Catholic priests heard confession, comforted the men, and celebrated Mass prior to battle. More than eight different orders of nuns served the soldiers during the war. Before the organization of the American Red Cross, nuns were among the most organized and experienced nurses available to serve the army. Catholic sisters were praised for their assistance to all soldiers, North and South, Catholic or Protestant. When observing this ministry, a Protestant doctor remarked to a Catholic bishop that ‘there must be some wonderful unity in Catholicity which nothing can destroy, not even the passions of war.'”
Still looking to make an end-of-the-year donation to support the Church and especially vocations? You might want to consider the Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations.
The Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations assists men and women to follow God’s call to service in the Church through a life of consecration. They operate the St. Joseph Student Debt Relief Grant Program for religious life and the St. John Vianney Student Debt Relief Grant Program for the parish priesthood.
These grants eliminate the delay many young people encounter as they struggle to pay off their student debts before they can enter religious life. A grant pays candidates’ student loan payments while they are in formation for either religious life or the priesthood.
We have profiled this organization on a previous occasion, but we wanted to make a special appeal to our readers based on this message that appears on their website:
We have received 43 applications for our 2012 grant awards. The student loans held by these applicants totals $1.6 million. The annual cost of issuing grants to all applicants would be $216,000. It would be a small miracle if we could meet just one fifth of this demand. A miracle made possible by the generosity of you and our other donors. Please pray to the Lord of the Harvest for a big miracle and consider continuing or increasing your generosity towards the work of enabling vocations.
For more information as to how you may financially assist young men and women who are considering religious vocations, visit Mater Ecclesiae’s site today!
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen. Not only was he one of the first deacons in the Church (cf. Acts 6:1-6), but he’s also the first recorded post-Resurrection martyr for Christ.
Sometimes martyrdom may some far removed from our own comfortable existence. To counter such a mindset, we offer the following reflection from Servant of God John A. Hardon, the founder of the Institute on Religious Life, who tells us why the present age is truly the “age of the martyrs.” This is taken from a conference he gave on the Precious Blood of Christ.
We believe that by His death on the cross, Christ merited all the graces we need to reach heaven. He won all the graces necessary for our salvation. He gained all the graces that the human race needs to reach its eternal destiny.
But we also believe that what Christ did by dying for us on the cross requires that we die on our cross by cooperating with the graces that Jesus won for our redemption. He could not have been more clear. He told us, “If you wish to be my disciples, take up your cross and follow me.” We must cooperate with Christ’s grace if we wish to join Him in eternity. He was crucified by shedding His blood. We must be crucified by shedding our blood in witness to our love.
All of this is elementary Christian teaching. The Precious Blood of Christ does indeed provide us with the light and strength we need to reach heaven. But we have to do our part, otherwise Christ’s passion and death on Calvary would have been in vain.
The focus of our conference is on the Precious Blood of Christ in the age of martyrs. What are we saying? We are saying that the present century is the age of martyrs par excellence. Ours is THE (all three letters capitalized) age of martyrs.
No words of mine can do justice to this statement: We are inclined to think that martyrs are those ancient men and women in the first centuries of the Church whom we commemorate by name in the first Eucharistic Prayer, when we say, “We honor the apostles and martyrs,” and then name after the apostles, “Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Carnelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian.”
Unless we take stock of ourselves, martyrs are not commonly associated with the later history of the Church, and certainly not with our own times. What a miscalculation!
A conservative estimate places the total number of martyrs who died for Christ up to the liberation edict of Constantine in 313 A.D. at around 100,000. We call that period of massive persecution the age of martyrs. Yet, the number of Christians who have died for their faith since 1900 is several million. In the Sudan alone, during the 1950s, over two million Catholics were starved to death by the Muslims because they refused to deny that Mary is the Mother of God since her Son is the Ibn Allah, the Son of God. There have been more Christian martyrs since the turn of the present century than in all of the preceding centuries from Calvary to 1900 put together.
It is no wonder that the Second Vatican Council in its Constitution on the Church went out of its way to identify martyrdom as one of the marks of holiness in our day. The passage deserves to be quoted in full: Continue reading The Age of Martyrs→
National Vocation Awareness Week begins today, as dioceses across the nation embrace this time to encourage young people to think of considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.
