My dear brothers and sisters, all of us must encourage religious vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
I want to dedicate these lines to a subject about which I am very passionate: vocation awareness.
We know that a vocation is a call from God to each of His children to follow Him on a specific mission. In fact, the word “vocation” comes from the Latin word “vocare,” which means called. People may be called to marriage and family life, the priesthood or religious life, or the single life in the service of God.
I want to meditate on the priestly vocation because a phenomenon is taking place in our diocese that is greatly encouraging. In recent years we have seen an increase in vocations and a very close accompaniment of seminarians by their mentors.
St. Joseph College Seminary is the latest example of the fruit of this growth of vocations in our diocese. This summer it moved to its permanent home near Charlotte, and this fall it will enroll nine more young men who are taking the next step in discerning the will of God in their lives.
Thank God we have a bishop who cares about promoting vocations without ceasing, and priests who talk frequently with young people about vocations and ask them whether they have felt God calling them to a life of service in the Church. Yes, we have vocations promoters and a vocations committee to focus on this work, but each priest in our diocese has a duty to watch and get to know any young person who, by natural tendency and by anointing of the Holy Spirit, seeks to serve God and His people. To those young people we must present the ideal – the ideal of serving Christ and souls in a heroic way.
However, growing vocations is not only the responsibility of the bishop and priests. We are all involved in the work of vocations.
The family is the seedbed of vocations. Parents should talk with their children about the priesthood and religious life, teaching them about what is involved and encouraging them to listen to the ways in which the Lord could call them.
Families should also consider adopting a seminarian, supporting him with their constant prayers and, above all, asking for him to persevere in his discernment whether it is God’s will that he become a priest.
Families can also help with a seminarian’s educational expenses, since many of those who are called do not have the financial resources to pay for their extensive studies. I think this is the best investment we can make as a diocesan family – as we pay for a “career” that will ultimately become the good of many souls.
Youth groups, too, should speak about vocations, because it is during these youthful ages when God calls many young people. Meetings with seminarians, attending the Quo Vadis Days summer discernment retreats, and going to other vocational awareness meetings should be widely promoted in our parishes so that young people can receive information about what it is like to be a priest.
Visiting a seminary is another great help for many young people. There they see that the formation of a seminarian is not only based on prayer or on studies, but is a comprehensive training program that covers the life of prayer, intellectual formation, the constant call to mission or pastoral life, the perfection of human and Christian virtues, and sports as part of human formation. In meeting other young men like them, they also realize the possibility that they too could enter the great army of the Lord to fight hand in hand with Him in the salvation of souls.
It has been a blessing for me to support and foster vocations through my own ministry. I have two friends who are also priests, and they always thanked me for having invited them to consider a priestly vocation. Also, by the grace of God, I was able to encourage a seminarian who was recently ordained a deacon. Another young man who has been following God’s path for years is considering college seminary, and I am grateful for two religious sisters, one contemplative and the other active, who will surely pray for me. I feel a profound spiritual joy knowing that I was the means for them to come to consider the call that God already planted in their hearts, and I hope many more of us commit to asking the Master of the harvest to send out laborers into His field.
We really need to be praying and asking God for many vocations for our entire Universal Church.
God bless you.
Father Julio Dominguez is the Diocese of Charlotte’s director of Hispanic Ministry.