The one thing all these priests had in common: Someone had made the idea of being a priest seem reasonable. Someone had said, “Have you ever considered being a priest?” or “Wow, you sure look like you want to be a priest!” or “Face it. You’re gonna be a priest.” Someone had asked the question.
Read the rest of my latest at The Catholic Weekly.
Image by U.S. Air Force photo/ Airman 1st Class Ashley Tank via Mountain Home Air Force Base
I strongly want to say this to my raised-Protestant, now raving-lunatic atheist brother. It’s funny: when we were Protestants, I could never picture him as a minister. But since becoming Catholic, I can so clearly see him as a priest. He’d be pretty obnoxious, but he’s going to be obnoxious whatever he is. 🙂
Almost every parish I’ve ever been to includes a “prayer for vocations” in the intercessions, or makes everybody read one off a little card near the end of Mass. And I’ve been to a lot of parishes, so I always figured it was common throughout the US.
These prayers often make it sounds like there’s a general call to the priesthood or religious life, so would God please send us “more young people generous enough to respond,” but that’s a different issue.
It’s not at all standard practice in parishes in Silicon Valley, sadly. We recently got our little reminder from the Serra Club to pray for priests, on Priesthood Sunday, but the rest of the year it’s pretty much radio silence. No vocational talk except at the one really orthodox parish’s catechism classes.
It’s worth mentioning that sometimes a call to enter seminary and discern the priesthood isn’t necessarily a call to become a priest. But it can be a step towards what you’re called to do. My husband is certain God called him into his time in seminary, and equally sure God called him out (before we met and he wasn’t interested in anyone– I’m not a chalice chipper 😛 ). And from what I understand, we never would have met and married if he hadn’t spent those years of his life checking out the priesthood, and if someone hadn’t suggested he should think about becoming a priest.
Now, on the other side of the coin, I was the ‘good’ teen in youth group who got told constantly I’d be a good nun. This partitally fed into an OCD scruple-fest after I got engaged because I wondered if I’d missed a memo and was missing a call to a different vocation. My experience wasn’t typical– I know most people don’t suffer from an anxiety disorder. Nevertheless, it’s colored how I want to talk about vocations with my kids. I want to encourage interest in the priesthood or religious life…but I also want to present the married life as a holy life too. Both involve choices of love and sacrifice– figuring out how you’re called to live out that sacrifice is the thing.
Sorry for the book…I’ve thought a lot about this one, it’s played such a role in the life of both me and my husband.