What if Vocations were a Family Matter?

 The Vocation Office of the Archdiocese is undergoing some leadership changes and this got me to thinking: What if the Vocation Office was “located” in the Family Life Office, and what if all parents were “deputized” to be vocations associate directors? And what if we as a Church really took on the belief that each and every baptized person is “called” to live a life of vocation?

Here’s the reasoning behind such questioning: All of us are called by God to do God’s will rather than our own. This requires discernment. It requires that each of us enter into an on-going process of discovering the Will of God for us and for our life. Each of us would have to listen to the voice of God within us and within the faith community to discover this vocational calling. Of course there are hints along the way. The gift and talents we possess are usually pretty good signs that point us toward how we are to live out our life. The parish community can also play an important part in how we uncover this sense of call. But there is a key essential element that plays a vital role in this discovery process. And here’s the connecting point to why I see family as the locus for vocations – and by vocation I mean the call not only to priestly or religious life, but also to marriage and single life. We presently are not tapping into this gold mine of vocations. I believe that good priestly and religious vocations basically come from good Christian families.

The sisters, brothers and priests, as well as deacons, I talk to, often stress how important their family was in helping them shape and nurture their eventual vocation into the church ministries. It’s not that their parents necessarily talked to them about becoming priests or religious. It was that their parents gave them an over-arching understanding of God’s Call – that not matter what they did, it was essentially about responding to God's call. Yes these parents also encouraged the possibility to priestly life and religious life. But it was often in the context of the singular belief of vocation being the larger context. So, they may have easily said to them when they were children things like, “eat your vegetables, Johnny or (Mary), because some day you’re going to grow up and be a doctor… or a teacher… or a priest/religious. They made it clear that God indeed had a plan for them. They listened to their children and reflected back that what they saw as the child's “God-given” gifts and talents. They also let them know these gifts were not for themselves alone, but were meant to be given back to the world. They also made it clear that these gifts and talents were meant to be used in such a way that the world was a little bit better off than before they got here. In other words, these parents fostered vocations by instilling in their children that each of us is here to make a difference by discovering how we are to best reflect God’s love. We are to be a contribution. We are to change the World. To put this into church language, we are to become a christ in the world.

 With this kind of thinking there is NO shortage of vocations. There is a lack of awareness of them. I understand when we exclusively pray for priestly and religious vocations. I even support it. But I fear we may be doing our God and ourselves a disservice. It is like telling God what to do. We also feed into a dichotomy of thinking that suggests only priests and religious have a vocation. It then lets all the rest of us off the hook. This is not so. It is dangerous and irresponsible of us to think this. The priest shortage is all of our faults. I say it is a result of such limited thinking and from our attempt at trying to box God in. Yes we ought to pray for more priests and more vowed religious. But we need to be praying also that God will enlighten each and every one of us to discover what our true vocation – our Calling – is. The Call to priestly life is a compelling call. It is an opportunity to serve God’s people in an incredibly awesome way. This is indeed an exciting and rewarding Call. Many more young people need to be encouraged and inspired to this Call. But, so is the call to marriage and to raising children. And so is the call to single life. We need not tear down the call to Orders or to religious life. These are powerful and rewarding ways to live one’s life.  Rather we need to raise up the call to all vocations – including to married life and single life. I believe that if we were to do this, we would have plenty of clergy and lots of vowed religious. Who wouldn’t want to be a key leader in a faith community that recognized itself as a gathered people each with a direct call from the Creator?

 As Catholics we are all called to live a radical way of life. This way of life really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a secular perspective. Our society fosters the notion that parents are to raise their children to get a good education, to get into the better schools, to get the better jobs, to make the better money, in order to live the better life. But we offer something different. So if the Family Life Office were to become the Vocations Office we’d be advising parents that they are to raise their children from the very start by telling their children they have a vocation, and their task in life is to discover what this vocation is. It may be to marry and raise a family. It may be to become ordained or to enter religious community. Ultimately we are here to be a christ in the world. With prayer and with the grace of God our children will discover what that vocation is. No one is exempted. They might avoid it or get off-track, but being called is a given. Each and every vocation is sacred and holy because it is from God.  But, of course parents, too, would have to believe that they have a vocation. Then many more would be vocations directors and they would be saying things like, “So Mary (or Johnny) you had better eat your vegetables so you’ll grow up big and strong because someday you’re going to be a great ______.