5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
6 February 2022 – St. Lambert
Is
6:1-2a, 3-8
1
Cor 15:1-11
Lk
5:1-11
Praised be Jesus Christ!
What do we mean by a divine or
supernatural vocation?
That question deserves more thought than what it gets in our time. What
do we mean by a divine or supernatural vocation?
This
last week I saw some more statistics about the increasing average age of our
priests and religious in the Church, and most worrisome about the advanced age
of parish priests in different states here in the US. The article talked about
the overall decline in the number of practicing Catholics, as well as about the
decline in the number of men studying for the priesthood in our country. Some
dioceses are terribly short of young priests or priests in general, and others
not, but in every place, it would seem that Catholic people and their priests
and sisters are older. We are a ticking time bomb or rather a clock which may
soon run out.
Not
even South Dakota is without its worries. I remember years ago Bishop Carlson
praying that all the men we had in seminary would persevere and promising to
help not only with the military ordinariate, but also with our neighboring
dioceses in Minnesota which were already in bad shape back then. Meantime
sadly, we have similar issues here in our diocese, even if to be fair to all of
you, it should be noted not only the sisters and the two priests which families
of your parish have offered to the Church in the last couple of years, but the
other hopeful sign that in the last few weekends here at St. Lambert all of the
parish bulletins have been taken, and Tracie has had to print more bulletins.
It would seem at least here at St. Lambert that folks have their general COVID anxiety
behind them and are coming back to Mass on the weekends, and of course, that is
very good news.
At
the first of the year, I had a visit with Bishop DeGrood, and he told me he is
worried both that the rural parishes especially continue to shrink, and that
more and more of our priests are reaching retirement age. In terms of seminary
numbers, we are all aware that if, please God, all four men possible are
ordained to the priesthood this coming spring, then there will be no one ordained
in the diocese for maybe three or four years. Other dioceses in the area which
were famous for big numbers of seminarians, like Lincoln, Nebraska or Wichita,
Kansas, also have noted a sharp drop in the number of candidates.
I
ask myself, why? Where do vocations come from? How can we help men persevere in
the seminary and in the priesthood?
Not
so much that news article, but the readings for this 5th Sunday in
Ordinary Time provoked this line of thought in me. Both the Old Testament
Reading and the Gospel today recount very dramatic vocations stories. Neither
story is exactly typical for our day. Honestly, I can’t say as I have ever met
a priest whose vocational experience was comparable to that of Isaiah the
Prophet in the first reading.
“Then
one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs
from the altar. He touched my mouth with it, and said, ‘See, now that this has
touched you lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I
send? Who will go for us?’ ‘Here I am,’ I said, ‘send me!’” As I
say, nobody has ever told me of such an experience on their path to priesthood.
For several hundred years now, especially in Europe, the choice to study for
the priesthood does not seem to be connected to visions of the heavenly court
and angels coming down with burning coals to purify men and dispose them to say
yes to God’s call.
No
doubt this exceptional account from the Book of Isaiah has something to do with
the exalted calling which the prophet received. As such, it may not exactly fit
the profile of your average priest. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord
saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ ‘Here I am,’ I said, ‘send
me!’” But then again, maybe it should?
Even
the miraculous catch of fish in the Gospel today, which preceded Simon Peter’s
profession of faith in Jesus as God’s Holy One; “Depart from me, Lord, for I
am a sinful man.” Thereafter followed Christ’s call to Peter, James, and
John to come after Him as fishers of men. Here too, the scene is spectacular in
its own way and may not be something most of the priests I have known over the
years could relate to. Being so struck by the holiness and power of God in
Jesus Christ would be something we wished for all Catholics and especially for
our priests, but it does not seem to be all that typical of people in the
Church. My own vocation, for example,
was not accompanied by lightning and thunderbolts, or boatloads of fish but was
and is a gentle kind of thing which has developed, and which has grown with me
even up until today. And I guess generally, that is kind of what we expect from
young men who aspire to priesthood. They need to be open to the promptings of
the Holy Spirit, which means that generally they come to the seminary and
priesthood not exactly sure of their calling, but with good will and a
readiness to grow and be transformed by a very subtle grace. That is why many
men talk about how for a time they resisted their call from God, either not
recognizing it, because it was so subtle, or stubbornly refusing it as they
personally seemed to want something other than what they themselves for
whatever reason could not see as something which God wanted for them. They were
convinced they wanted marriage and family, with some sort of a career, but were
for the most part romanticizing about things far from real life or even farther
from what God had created them and chosen them to be from all eternity. There
are good reasons for resisting a call, as we see in the lives of saints like
St. Andrew Corsini who was already a religious and hid himself when he was elected
bishop of Fiesole. It goes without saying that such examples of humility are
rather few and far between. Men are less apt to flee honors than they are to flee
responsibility or duty.
[By
way of an aside, the article I read reported a drop in the number of Catholic
marriages as well. This is for me another symptom of the flight from
responsibility in life and ultimately from the only real joy or consolation in
this world, which is and by God’s will must be intimately bound up with
self-sacrifice and life-long dedication.]
The
question, I suppose, is where do we go from here? I think all of us are called to have a
response to my initial question. What do we mean by a divine or supernatural
vocation? We need to do so against the assurances we have from Sacred Scripture
that the Lord will not abandon us. He will not leave His flock untended. Or as
some people say it, when it comes to priesthood, the Lord does not fail to call
men to priesthood in sufficient numbers for the needs of His Church. If there
is a priest shortage then it has to do with the freedom equation, namely that
God forces no one to accept a calling and hence men can refuse and thereby
deprive themselves of the happiness willed for them by God.
In
the vocation equation we all have our part to play. The burden of
responsibility lies with the young: with children and young people who need to
open their eyes and ears, open their hearts to God’s call: “Then I heard the
voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ ‘Here I am,’
I said, ‘send me!’” Even so, those advanced in age and those already
settled in their life’s vocation, whether it be to marriage and family or to
priesthood or the religious life need to make clear to all whom they meet [this
goes especially for young parents with their children from little on up] their
hunger, their profound desire for good priests who stand at the altar for them
and for religious men and women, who dedicate themselves to Christ the Bridegroom
with singleness of heart.
If I
thought there was one particular reason for why young people resist or balk at
the idea of embracing a supernatural vocation, it would be for lack of an
example of self-sacrifice at home.
Lent will be here before you know it and it might be good as you choose your Lenten penance practices for this year to add to it a special intention, namely please God for priestly and religious vocations from our diocese, from our parish and, yes, from our homes. The Lord will not abandon His flock, but we need to help open ears and hearts to the call of the Good Shepherd.
Praised
be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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