By Father Norman Carroll
Nov. 3-9 is National Vocation Awareness Week. Each year the USCCB dedicates the first week in November for a focus of the church’s need for vocations and the responsibility that we have to encourage the stirrings of another generation of passionate leaders ready to announce the Gospel in word and action.
It is through participation in the Eucharist, the ministry of the church and its invitation to prayer that young people receive the seeds of a vocation. While all young people discern what they want to do with their lives, the church offers the vocations of priesthood, consecrated religious life and the diaconate to serve the vocations of marriage and life as a single person. Church vocations offer a profound opportunity to participate in something much bigger than oneself and ultimately bring the individual fulfillment and happiness.
Often vocations are talked about as a sacrifice and burden. All serious vocations bring sacrifices and burdens. When you choose for something, you choose against other things. The word decide comes from a Latin word that means to cut off. A clear direction in any vocations demands that we cut off other paths.
In this light, there has been a lot of dialogue and writing in the last decade about the fatherhood of the priesthood. A priest, especially as a pastor, is the shepherd and father of his people. Priests take the title “father” seriously and value that sacred responsibility and trust humbly. Much like biological fatherhood, you embrace it when the child is in your hands. Priests have many opportunities to be healthy and authentic father figures. It should be our expectation that priests would make good fathers. They should be dedicated protectors of their children and lovers of their mother.
As priests, men are called to give evidence of their love for the Church and to know the support of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and of priests. While priesthood is a decision not to marry and to have a family, it offers opportunities to enter into people’s lives in ways that most fathers long for and often never receive from their own children. Having experiences when a person has trusted in you, confided in you, and opened up is a sacred, profound and rewarding role.
Equally, consecrated religious and deacons, enter into the work and ministry of their communities to serve them through prayer and work. They offer an invitation into a vital experience of Catholic communities celebrating and working to bring and embrace the Gospel and its mandates of service. They grow in holiness and give witness to a life dedicated to the church of Jesus Christ made manifest through them.
It is that experience of life and humanity that brings priests, religious, deacons and people to the altar with great reverence. The celebration of the Eucharist (Mass) is an intimate encounter with Christ who has chosen to give his presence, himself, to you and to us. Priests stand in the person of Christ to hand on the mystery and the gift.
Do you have thoughts about priesthood, consecrated religious life or diaconate? Are you afraid? If so, know that is a good sign. Scripture tells us many stories of future leaders that came before God “on holy ground” in “fear” trembling because they felt something moving in themselves. God was responding to their approach.
If you need to talk about such stirrings or holy fears, contact the Vocation Office at (302) 573-3113 or vocations@cdow/org.
Father Norm Carroll is vocations director for the Diocese of Wilmington and pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Bear.
