Now this is how you do a vocations video

If more orders and indeed dioceses explained their role and goal with the combination of beauty and simplicity this video shows I cannot begin to imagine how many more vocations we would see. Yet again we see that those orders and dioceses who cling most closely to their original charism and the teachings of the Church are growing and thriving. H/T to Roman Catholic Vocations.

Go go Gashwin!

I blame the corny post title on Mike Aquilina. Yeah, that's it. But my foray into punditry is not why we're here.

That instead would be to wish Gashwin Gomes all the best and to offer my congratulations on his acceptance to the pre-theology track as a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. While we all in St. Blog's will be saddened if he does in fact have to suspend his blog while in seminary, it is a tremendous joy to see someone take those first steps towards the black and white. Let us all offer up a prayer both of thanksgiving for this and for continued strength and guidance as Gashwin walks further down this path.

Ordained to service

This past weekend our Diocese had the delight of her Bishop ordaining three men to the diaconate as they continue to work towards the priesthood. Chris Martel, Matthew Mason and Jonathan White were all ordained to the service of Christ and His Church this past Saturday, May 31, the Feast of the Visitation, by Bishop John McCormack. All three will be continuing their seminary formation next year after their summer assignments, Deacon Martel at Mundelein Seminary, Mundelein IL; Deacon Mason at St. John's Seminary, Brighton MA; Deacon Jonathan White at Bl. John XXIII Seminary, Weston MA. (Deacon Mason, incidentally, assisted at my parish during the Christmas break. I suppose it would be too much to hope that he be assigned here for his first assignment? One can always hope.)

We all look forward in hope to their ordination to the priesthood next year. This would mark the largest priestly ordination class in some time, and at a time the Church sorely needs Her priests. Please pray for them, and indeed all seminarians - theirs is a calling made to many but these days heard only by a few. Ad multos annos!

Put it in the bulletin

I'm apparently on a vocations kick lately. So be it. Servant and Steward has a reflection I want to see printed up and put in bulletins. Come to think of it, I want to see this type of writing periodically from priests all over, stuffed in bulletins, handed out or even just mailed randomly. It's been said time and again the single greatest reason men don't consider the priesthood is simply "nobody asked". It's time to remind them that they're asked by God, and asked again by each of us to at least consider it.

And hey, while we're at it, let's not stop with priests - we need consecrated religious talking openly and honestly about their vocation. If Thomas Merton could write that much from a religious enclosure, certainly an occasional couple of paragraphs wouldn't be a crazy idea. After all, if nobody asks, who can answer?

Continuing the theme

Today being the Solemnity of The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Church asks us all to pray in a particular way for all priests. The Weight of Glory has the goods. Read. Listen. Pray. Just in case you're not inclined to click over, I'll cut-n-paste the prayer for priests - now you don't have an excuse.

Prayer for Priests

Lord Jesus, present in the Most Blessed Sacrament,
and living perpetually among us through Your Priests,
grant that the words of Your Priests may be only Your words,
that their gestures be only Your gestures,
and that their lives be a true reflection of Your life.

Grant that they may be men who speak to God on behalf of His people,
and speak to His people of God.
Grant that they be courageous in service,
serving the Church as she asks to be served.

Grant that they may be men who witness to eternity in our time,
travelling on the paths of history in Your steps,
and doing good for all.

Grant that they may be faithful to their commitments,
zealous in their vocation and mission,
clear mirrors of their own identity,
and living the joy of the gift they have received.

We pray that Your Holy Mother, Mary,
present throughout Your life,
may be ever present in the life of Your Priests. Amen.

What is missing in the picture?

It's rare - very rare - when something happens at church that genuinely makes me sad. Annoyed? Sure. Disturbed, perturbed, distracted, confused? Yup. Shoot, there have even been times when the words frustrated and yes even probably angry have applied. This was the first time I was just plain sad.

I went to Eucharistic Adoration after work and, after a paving-related traffic snafu, managed to get there later than I'd planned. I glanced at my watch and decided I might as well stay a little later than normal and actually be there for Benediction. Aside from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Benediction properly done is probably my favorite liturgical act, so this was not exactly a sacrifice on my part.

As the time approached I began to ruminate on just how long it had been since I had heard and sung Tantum ergo, my second-favorite right behind Panis angelicus. Incense, chant and a blessing with Christ Himself in the Eucharist, it is a veritable panoply of liturgical design writ small. As I was contemplating all these wonders of reverence for His Presence, one of the people in the pews got up, closed the sign-in book and brought it in to the sacristy. Then I noticed - no censer, no boat; okay, lack of incense is far from the biggest deal. My eyes started to flit around as I noticed everyone seeming to be packing up. Before I could even formulate the thought in my mind, the same woman returned from the sacristy, removed the luna from the monstrance, placed it in its holder and returned it to the Tabernacle.

This all seemed like a very strange, very disturbing dream. Should pink elephants have flown in on teeny butterfly wings and begun to speak to me in Gaelic-accented Urdu I wouldn't have been more surprised. As the rest of the people filed out I quietly recited a Tantum ergo, at least to myself. Where was Father? No Benediction? No incense? No chanted Tantum ergo? Something indeed was not right.

Then it struck me. This rectory used to have three priests in it, now it has one. And his responsibilities now take him even further away from the parish than ever used to be the norm. Yes, something is wrong - something is very wrong. With so few priests now available around these parts they very often have tremendous problems being available for leading the very prayers that are the only chance of ever overcoming this situation.

Perhaps next time I will do the little I now can, and my Tantum ergo will not be silent. Holy Mary, Mother of the Eucharist and Mother of Priests, ora pro nobis!

Bombing them into submission...

...Catholic style. Diane makes a very interesting analogy, and I can't say at all that I disagree with it.

As long as man has had the ability to launch something, battles have often started out with a "softening of the target". In the battle of Gettysburg during the US civil war, artillery pounded the position of enemy soldiers for some time before troops marched across the field. To put soldiers on the field before the target was softened, would put them at far greater risk, and reduce their overall effectiveness. In medievil times, anything that could go into a trebuchet would be hurled against a castle before men would try to scale the walls. Even tallships would come up along side each other and let their canons blast away at each other from a very close range before men would go across in hand-to-hand battle on the deck. In modern times, targets have been softened by air and by sea.
...
My strongest belief is that the attraction of so many young people into contemplative, monastic, cloistered communities, is that they are being called up to participate in "softening the target" with the artillery of their prayers and sacrifices. The modern world could not possibly comprehend this because it is not only counter-cultural, but requires faith to grasp. It cannot be measured, nor can it be purchased. Hence, to the world, things such as prayer and sacrifice have no value.

I've said before, if I weren't married with kids I'd probably be in a Trappist monastery somewhere (or Cistercian, Dominican ... who knows). Regardless, I would love to see more artillery here in New Hampshire, and as well more attention given to what we do have already. The people need to know they're there, that it's still a lifestyle that is available, and indeed, desirable - and they need it in more than a couple column-inches in the bulletin. How? I don't know, but it needs to be done.

Attention parents!

For all those of us who lament the seeming dearth of vocations (or, more accurately, the seeming dearth of accepted vocations) to the priesthood, Pope Benedict has something to say. If you are a parent and have one or more sons still single, no matter how young, it is your duty and privilege to open their eyes to the possibility, the grace, the wonder that is the priesthood. After Vespers at Rome's Major Pontifical Seminary on the occasion of the feast of its patron, Our Lady of Trust, the Holy Father talked to the seminarians and then turned also to their parents:

The Pope then addressed the parents of the future priests, saying "you are probably the most surprised of all about what has happened and is happening to your children. You had perhaps imagined for them a mission different from the one for which they are now preparing. ... Let us look to Mary. The Gospel helps us to understand that she too asked herself many question about her Son Jesus, and reflected on Him for a long time.

"It is inevitable that the vocation of children in some way also becomes the vocation of the parents", he added. "You have found yourselves participating in your sons' marvellous adventure. Indeed, although it may appear that a priest's life does not attract the interest of the majority of people, in reality it is the most interesting of adventures and the most necessary for the world: the adventure of demonstrating and realising the fullness of life to which everyone aspires. It is a very demanding adventure and could not be otherwise because a priest is called to imitate Jesus". (Full story via VIS.)

You can absolutely feel his joy at being a priest, and indeed his joy at being with the seminarians. It is joy this world lacks the most, and the one true source of joy is Him who saved us - this, above all else, seems to be an overriding theme of this Pontificate. What joy it is to come to know the Lord, and what joy it is to see your own son a vehicle to bring Him to us in the form of bread and wine, His Body and Blood given to save us all. "[A] priest is called to imitate Jesus." What better way to live?

What hath Brooks Brothers to do with cassocks?

Kansas City Catholic has the answer. There aren't words to describe how right he is, so I'll say this: go, read. Easy enough?

Families and vocations

Fr. Tim Finigan has a very cogent post regarding the interdependencies between properly working families and the priesthood. Just as any good behavior begins at home, so too is proper formation at home critical to the ability for a child to discern a vocation to the priesthood or religious life and the willingness to be open to that call. And dads, he has a special note in there for you - this is a time when it's very important for the dad to be the dad and not just leave the "churchy" things to the mother. Please, do read it. After you've read it, maybe even give a call to the rectory and invite your priest over for dinner some night. Somehow I think he will be more concerned with how the inside of our souls are kept than the inside of our house, so don't be shy.

Lord, send us holy priests! Strengthen our families that we may help our children!

Tags: Catholic, Vocations, Priesthood

The remedy is here, not there

Fr. Erik Richtsteig in obliquely discussing the situation with Fr. Francis Mary Stone of EWTN made a point that I think deserves far more attention aside any discussion of that situation:

When I hear a priest opine that marriage is the solution to problems, it always occurs to me that he is not hearing enough confessions.

The point being that a priest is a priest is a priest. The quote from Psalm 110, "The Lord has sworn an oath and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek'" comes to mind. The solution to trials in the priesthood is resolution to become a better priest, not to leave. (Remember, I'm talking in generic terms here and am not making any judgment on Fr. Stone.) There are remedies to problems in our lives and we find them in the context of our lives, not by wishing we were something we are not.

Fr. Francis Mary Stone, of course, remains in my prayers as does the woman in this situation. This is an incredible trial and difficulty for the many people involved and we only pray it is resolved as the Lord desires. Oremus!

Tags: Catholic, Vocations, Priesthood

My conversion/RCIA/(almost)Vocation story

People always talk about how they love conversion and vocation stories. Back in 2006 a member of the Catholic-Pages forum (who, incidentally, is in the seminary right now) asked for conversion stories from people who in their discernment did not enter the seminary. Being naturally long-winded, I gave him far more than he asked for, and probably even more than he wanted. I've tweaked the post a little to update it, but only a little.

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My discernment was and has been ongoing, when I stop to think about it, for as long as I can remember. For much of it, my paternal grandmother always provided a certain grounding in God, being the good Irish Catholic that she is, even though my parents raised me without any religious experience at all. Because of her I always considered myself a closet Catholic even though I had no idea what that meant. I have often called her my own St. Monica since I'm quite sure she was praying for my conversion from the time of my birth. Now when I say "without any religious experience" I do truly mean it - religion was just never a topic of conversation, neither encouraged or discouraged, it just never came up. It seems impossible to me now, but so it was.

My first experience with the Church was through a girlfriend who was going through a mix of RCIC/RCIA (too old for one, too young for the other); she brought me to my first Mass. Then I knew I was on to something. This was neither the first nor last time, however, that I would have the cover lifted from my eyes only to shut them from the brightness.

A while later, while in college I was confronted by a different girl I was dating on why I was so bound by the rules of a Church to which I didn't even belong. That really cut right to the heart of it - I was always defending the Church's position on things, to the best of my very limited abilities, but yet I hadn't ever bothered to make any attempt to enter the Church. What she said hit me hard, like someone lifting up a dark corner of your still-beating heart in front of your eyes. But still, it took me about three more years to call up and join RCIA. One morning while at work I said "fine", grabbed the phone book, and called the first Catholic church I found. An older gentleman, the pastor (silly me, I didn't know the office wasn't open yet!) answered the phone and talked with me for a bit and put me on the list for when the RCIA class started. There was a nervous part of me that hoped they wouldn't call back because then it wouldn't be my fault, or so I theorized. To my everlasting surprise and joy, however, that was not to be - God wasn't going to let me off that easily this time. A few months later the "real" discernment started. I should preface the rest of this story with the fact that I suffer terrible social anxiety when faced with either talking on the phone or face-to-face with a group of strangers. Not exactly the makings of a priest, eh?

So RCIA started, and some wonderful people were there, along with the new assistant pastor, who was a "second-career" priest. We got a handful of books and a reading list for each session - it felt just like the college classes I was still finishing, but my heart was pounding the whole time, which I just put to anxiety. So for the first couple of classes I kept quiet, and kept up with the requested reading - I was going to just coast along in the middle of the class and go as un-noticed as possible. But the reading had my attention, and before long I had read all of the books they had given us and was looking for more. Being a computer guy, I discovered the Vatican's website and started reading Papal encyclicals; my theory was if you're going to get info, get it from the top. Humane Vitae, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Evangelium Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, you name it, I read it. And curiously, as heavy as it was, it all just "made sense". Even more than that, much of it was directly contradictory to the positions I'd so lightly held as a know-it-all college kid, but it was those very contradictions that made the most sense to me. I began to see how thin a veneer my perception of life had been and how utterly deep the Church's understanding was.

As I continued to read, classes went on. And I think people started to notice that I just sat in class with a most peculiar serene smile on my face. It was like coming home, when you had never even known you were lost. Our facilitators and I became good friends, and the priest and I became friends as well to an extent. Then the dream that I had once came to me where I was told, "I have something better for you". I thought, for sure, that was leading me toward the priesthood. I was never afraid of the thought of celibacy, or of any of the daunting challenges of the priesthood for by then I knew God would stand beside me. I've never been one for half-measures and this seemed the logical conclusion to my travels.

Before long, I was attending the Morning Prayer, Rosary and Daily Mass. And not long after that they had me leading Morning Prayer since our fine Sister who usually led us had gone on retreat. Somewhere in all this I decided that if we had a feast day it would be proper to provide a little preface to Morning Prayer explaining the feast. Like I said, I don't do half-measures. The day Sister returned was a Marian feast, although I don't remember which. My preface, to this day, I do not remember a word of. But I do remember that Sister hugged me with tears in her eyes before we headed to Mass. I knew something was going on.

Before the Easter Vigil even came, I had made up my mind that my calling must have been to become a priest. The Vigil came and went, and I continued on knowing where I was headed. Then several months later, to the parish came a man who was in final discernment. He was a few years older than me, and was to head to the seminary the next fall. He lived in the rectory and performed odd jobs as well as offloading from me some of the jobs I had taken on which were more the property of a proper accolyte. He and I became good friends and could feel ourselves on the pedestal of the entire parish. Both of us were uncomfortable with it, but knew it was the price of putting your lamp on a stand. Then one day he just disappeared - he cleaned out his things from the rectory and moved away. The pressure to be as perfect as the priests with whom he lived and the fishbowl of parish life had been more than he could take. (A note to the reader: this is a good lesson for everyone - encourage those discerning their vocation to the priesthood, but don't suffocate them. It's a hard enough time for many as it is without having additional pressure to live up to expectations.)

So now it was just me, trying to be perfect for two of us. After some time of strong shock and not a little panic, I decided that now was the time to talk to the Vocations Director and make my internal decision formal and public. During this time, to make things even more interesting, I had been told that upon graduation that spring I was to find myself a new job for the College at which I worked would not hire its own graduates. Strange, but true. The meeting with the Director did not go as I had planned.

I attended morning Mass, then drove to the meeting. I waited patiently all the while wondering just how close I was sitting to our Bishop. I had been there before, but for some reason that day the proximity seemed more intense. Finally the Director came out, we walked back to his office and chit-chatted for a few minutes. Finally, brass tacks time. When I told him I'd like to enter the seminary he closed my little "personnel folder" and told me he thought I needed more time, that I had to mature as a Catholic (and how right he has proven to have been!) some before I could make such a decision. I accepted his answer, since he reports to the Bishop, the decendant of the Apostles, and left. The drive home was more agonizing than any I have ever had before or since.

All the while on the drive I pondered what God could be calling me to. I couldn't keep my job, but I also couldn't afford to be without one either. Something was totally incongruous to me. I also knew that I couldn't very well take a job knowing that I would leave it in a year or two, since no one would hire a new guy for just a couple of years, and I couldn't lie about it since that wouldn't exactly be very Christian. Somehow in that drive I decided that God was merely treating me like Abraham, to see if I was in fact willing to say "yes" to Him even if it meant giving up everything. And when I said "yes", He was then telling me "good, but I have something else for you". I believed it, I went on with it and such was life.

Some time after this I met the woman who is now my wife. I found that job that I needed, and God has provided for us quite well. For a while I drifted nearer the margins than the center of His Church, but for whatever reason this (catholic-pages) site, and this (2006) Lent renewed in the center of my being that fire to know God and that unceasing desire to serve something greater than myself. I know I cannot become a priest, and I do not question that for a second, and I am too young to enter the diaconate. But there is something there that just won't quit and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. So, I continue to discern.
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So that's me, up to now. The last part still remains true as well - there is this gnawing hunger to do ... something for the Lord and His Church, but for the life of me I haven't the foggiest idea what that ever-elusive something is. Some day, God willing, I'll figure it out - but until then I'll continue to struggle and pray, as it should be I imagine.

Tags: Catholic, Conversion Story, Vocations

About that meeting...

I should have posted about the Deanery cluster task force meeting on Tuesday by now. Unfortunately, as usual, life jumped in the way, including a tee-ball game and a bookshelf building project (yes, I'm building it from scratch, not from a box). So... the result of all this? In the end, not much really.

The facilitator, whose name I insanely forgot to write down, started by telling us the factors they used in their decision-making, including:

• geography and distance of travel for people in the affected region
• workload on priests
• size of each parish (# of parishioners) and capacities of each church building
• physical plant status as well as financial status for each current parish
• the need to work for greater vocational response
• plan for the future and not undo hard work in the past
• input from previous listening session
  

After all that, there were a few seconds of squirming in the pews as people waited for the proverbial hammer to drop. Instead, there was no hammer at all. The recommendation to go forward is to have no immediate change: St. Catherine will stay a stand-alone parish; St. John the Baptist and Holy Rosary will remain twinned. A review of the situation in 2010 will be called for to review: physical condition of the churches, their financial status and the strength of the housing market.

There was some consternation by some in the audience regarding the phrase "strength of the housing market" which, in fact, simply meant determining whether the population was growing at, above or below the projected rate. In effect, those who were very much convinced a decision to close at a minimum Holy Rosary had already been made were shown to have jumped far too far in thinking the worst of others. Interestingly, given that this decision was the best anyone could hope for (assuming the priests can, in fact, handle this heavy workload) there were still some who seemed to have wound themselves up for a fight which simply was not there to have. After a brief time of swatting at air, the discussion closed with a stern reminder, from a parishioner, that the only way to get out of this situation is the way Catholics have always survived trying times - prayer and living according to the Gospel. If we want more priests, we must "pray the Lord of the harvest" and encourage our children, our grandchildren, our friends' children to listen to the call.

There was one very interesting sub-discussion which does need to be addressed. One man suggested that if we do not have enough priests to say Mass that they should allow deacons to say Mass. He was reminded, by a deacon, that deacons cannot say Mass and that it is the sole purview of priests. Towards the end, he again suggested that his wife, originally not from the US, suggested in her home country deacons could say Mass. Another person suggested that maybe it was time they (yes, the proverbial "they") should allow deacons to say Mass.

Ahem. Let's set this straight right now, folks. First, of course, we start with relevant Canons:

• Can. 900 §1. The minister who is able to confect the sacrament of the Eucharist in the person of Christ is a validly ordained priest alone.
• Can. 907 In the eucharistic celebration deacons and lay persons are not permitted to offer prayers, especially the eucharistic prayer, or to perform actions which are proper to the celebrating priest.

Lest we need to be reminded, these Canons are universal in the Latin Church and not particular to any country or Bishops' Council. So, unless this man's wife had some very heterodox priests and deacons where she lived, she most likely was mistaking a deacon-led Communion service with a Mass. The fact such a mistake can be made shows the inherent danger in frequent Communion services - over time they can easily be seen to hold equivalent stature to the Mass itself, which can never be the case.

Further, let us re-focus on Can. 900 §1 again - "a validly ordained priest alone." There simply is no substitute. Why can't the deacon pray Mass (yes, that was another minor bone of contention - one should never "say" Mass, one should only "pray" Mass)? Simply, aside from the fact he has not been given that faculty from the successor of the Apostles, his Bishop, he has not had that indelible mark set on his soul that comes with ordination to the priesthood. Just as a transitional deacon has no right to pray Mass even though he is "going to be" a priest, a permanent deacon has no right even though he is "almost" a priest in the eyes of some. And almost all of the permanent deacons around would tell you they wouldn't even try to have it any other way.

The fact, however, that we have people who are interested in the future of the Church and of their parish enough to take time out in the middle of the week to come to a listening session and still not understand the ontological difference between a priest and a deacon is very troubling. I must suggest to either our pastor or our deacon that this seems to be a more than opportune time to explicate the role of the priesthood in the life of the Church in a homily. We pray every Sunday for an increase in vocations; perhaps it would help as well to remind people both what it is they are actually praying for and from where it must come.

Tags: Catholic, New Hampshire, Priests, Vocations

Prayers for tonight

Tonight there will be a second listening session (the first I wrote about here) where the task force's recommendation regarding the future plans for the three churches in our Deanery cluster will be presented and discussed. Pray for those on the task force, for those attending the meeting, and for those who cannot or do not attend and are affected. I can only hope this session contains more positive commentary and constructive criticism and less short-term and sometimes even scandalous commentary. I may just lose my temper if someone decides it's an appropriate time to launch an ad hominem attack on the Bishop.

For all those that want to lay it at his feet, I ask you only these few questions. When is the last time you voluntarily fasted for a day as a sacrifice? When did you last spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament praying for the vocations that may have helped avert this problem? How have you helped make your family the ecclesia domestica it is called to be? And when did you perform some sacrificial act in reparation for the sins of others as well as yourself? Be very, very careful what you lay at the feet of others, for you may unknowingly be laying it at your own feet.

Tags: Catholic, Vocations, New Hampshire, Prayer

Minor orders?

Shawn Tribe at NLM has posted an excellent question on whether, particularly in light of the forthcoming Motu Proprio, it would be good to re-institute the Minor Orders, contra Ministeria Quaedam. I've always been of the otherwise uneducated opinion that the abolition of the Minor Orders was, and is, not a good idea. Certainly from the discussion in the combox you can see the Orders were in significant need of overhaul, but it has always felt to me that doing away with them completely missed the opportunity to properly reform them. Do read the combox discussion, it is quite educational.

I do have one question, however: if one is instituted to the ministry of Acolyte or Lector and then enters seminary, how would that interact with the Orders of Acolyte and Lector? I suppose, naturally, that would have to be handled by the document re-instituting the Orders. What do you think? Are Minor Orders a good thing the Church is missing or an unnecessary addition it was right to do away with?

Tags: Catholic, Vocations

Just call him "Father"

I can't believe I didn't post this already. I specifically waited until Saturday and then ... well, life happened. But this has nothing to do with me. The Diocese of Manchester ordained its latest priest this past Saturday when Deacon Paul Boudreau was ordained to the priesthood. Before the ordination, now-Fr. Boudreau offered the following:

I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for all that He has done for me and for giving me the grace to serve His people in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. I pray that through Mary’s intercession, the Lord will use me as His instrument to bring many souls to heaven, and that I can be a positive influence for other men discerning God’s call to the priesthood in their own lives.

The Diocese has put up a slideshow of the ordination. Incidentally, if you look at the front right of slide 12, you'll see my pastor. You'll also see the love our priests have for our Bishop - just as it should be. I have not yet heard where his first assignment will be.

Tags: Catholic, Priesthood, Priests, New Hampshire

Vocations uplift

Kansas City Catholic has a wonderful post on his Bishop taking his seminarians on pilgrimage. It certainly seems Bishop Finn has taken a concerted interest in vocations in his diocese, and it looks to be having positive results. This reminds me... The Diocese of Manchester will be having a Seventh Trumpet Mass and Eucharistic Procession for vocations this coming Sunday, on the Feast of Corpus Christi. With any luck, I'll see you there!

Tags: Catholic, Vocations, Kansas City, New Hampshire

What's it like?

That's one of the first questions, and the hardest to answer, whenever someone is thinking about undertaking a new experience. For those life-changing experiences, that question is often followed quickly by "how does it work"; these two questions then usually repeat in varying order over and again due to the intensity of the questioning. If you know anyone who is contemplating a vocation to the priesthood, Fr. Jay Toborowsky at Young Fogeys (I guess, by definition, I'd probably be one of them) has some beautiful reflections on the nine-year-anniversary of his ordination and his first Mass.

I think his analogy of the process to Holy Orders to courting, engagement and marriage is a very good one (at least from the "never been close to Holy Orders" perspective) because it approaches the subject from an angle most people are at least fairly familiar with. One other reason to point those contemplating The Jump here: his obvious love of his vocation. It provides a good opportunity to point out the fact that recent surveys have shown the priesthood to have the highest job satisfaction. Certainly, those surveys is no reason to jump for the collar, but they do give the lie to the meme that priests are always disgruntled. Anyway, enough of my rambling. Go. Read.

Well...why not?

Fr. Finigan posts about a story in the Catholic Times where two schools have been chastised for allowing students to serve at Mass during school hours. Mind you, of course, this is a venerable tradition that goes well back in history.

When I was a small boy, we took it in turns to walk round from school to serve Mass. It was actually a very educational experience. We learned about being given the responsibility to get ourselves there and back without messing around: going to serve Mass was a privilege we didn't want to lose. We learned to respect the different priests of St Mary's in Croydon. And of course, we learned to love the Mass and the care of the altar and the sacristy. I thank God that the "curriculum" was not such an idol then.

Exactly. It is high time we restore some sanctity and reverence to and for those who serve at the altar. I find absolutely nothing wrong with allowing kids who are doing well already in school and who properly fulfill their roles as altar servers to periodically scoot over to the church to serve. Particularly in the case of schools attached to parishes or sufficiently close to them as to not pose a safety risk. Our parish and kids' school would be a prime opportunity for this - a quick jaunt from the school to the church across the parking lot and the children could be available to serve for funerals or any other mid-day need.

By tying their opportunity to serve Mass to their attaining and maintaining good grades, the children would also see serving as a rewarding experience, which can help build respect for the task required in those who need it and reinforce it for children who already understand the great gift that is serving at the altar. And just maybe a few of them would see the gift that serving at the altar is and just maybe it would tickle in them an interest in the priesthood. It would, in a way, be a Catholic variant of the "senior privilege" many schools offer to seniors who maintain a certain GPA - they can come in late, leave early, leave the campus or any variety of other treats. This treat just happens to come with a spiritual uplift as well - the opportunity to serve at the altar and receive Christ in the Eucharist. And learn some responsibility along the way as well. I wonder what our pastor thinks about this...

Tags: Catholic, Vocations

On vocations and parish life

Yesterday was a very, well, interesting day. Sufficiently interesting, in fact, that it has taken me until today to write about it because I've been trying to digest everything since then. In fact, I still haven't fully processed everything even now, but if I don't write anything now I never will.

The morning started, per the norm for our Sundays, with our RCIA session - this weekend's topic was Holy Orders. Since we're still using "Come and See", and the article on Holy Orders was frankly morbidly obtuse. Not a single defense or explanation of the apostolic origin of the structure of the Church but rather four pages of Fr. Richstatter stammering about how the priesthood of today (this was 1997) is "different" than the priesthood of yesterday and a predictable over-emphasis on the common priesthood of the Baptised. Don't get me wrong - that was one of the most important aspects of the documents of VCII, the common call to holiness, but to place it as opposite to the ordained priesthood in what is supposed to be an article about the ordained priesthood, well, that disqualifies it as a valuable teaching tool in my book. You want to have a theological argument about the relative positions, values and strengths of the common and ordained priesthood? Fine, but not in a teaching tool for those who don't have any depth of knowledge in the field, and certainly not without providing counter-arguments.

Enough about that. Suffice it to say I'm very glad our Deacon was the leader for the session - he is a very wise man (he's currently pursuing his Doctorates, a D.Div, I believe) and has an amazing capacity for personable and soft but yet exuberant and intellectual discussion. I have much to learn from him when it comes to "keeping it simple" (note to self: if you use the word "ontological" you've just lost your audience).

It turns out he is also on the Diocesan task force assigned to formulate the formation program for the next Diaconal class. As a part of describing that some very interesting, very difficult, numbers came out. Our diocese expects to ordain one priest this year and none - nada, zero, zilch - next year (although the understanding is there is an uptick in years after that). Those are hard numbers to overcome. Even if we, tomorrow, had twenty folks enter the seminary it would still be between four and six years before they would be ordained and anywhere from five to nine years before they would be appointed as pastor. Sometimes people forget that it isn't just a case of "opening the spigot" where priests will just magically appear shortly at the end of some hose - these things take extraordinary amounts of time. Pray for Fr. Jason Jalbert and his vocations staff - they need all the help they can get.

Now... if that's where the "interesting" part ended it would be a fairly normal day, but that's not how things go. Later in the afternoon there was a listening session for the Cluster Task Force of which my parish is a part. (IYDK: our Diocese is broken up into Deaneries and then each Deanery is further delineated into Clusters - how this is all done is beyond me.) Our particular Cluster is composed of St. Catherine of Siena in Manchester, Holy Rosary in Hooksett and St. John the Baptist in Suncook; of the three, St. Catherine's is by far the largest, St. John the Baptist is in the middle and Holy Rosary is the smallest by a large margin. As it stands now, and due to the above-mentioned ordination figures is likely to stay for the near future, those three parishes have two priests between them: Fr. Paul Montminy at St. Catherine's, and Fr. Ed Crowley is split between Holy Rosary and St. John the Baptist. Further exacerbating the issue is the projected large growth in population in the area served by these three parishes over the next several years - this area has become an extended bedroom community for both southern NH and metro-Boston thanks to its proximity to two major highways. I think that should suffice for background.

How can I put this without coming across as unnecessarily blunt? I feel terrible for those who sit on the Task Force. Over an hour of the allotted hour and a half was spent with people asserting in tones ranging from a timorous plea to aggressive how-dare-you that the only acceptable solution was to do nothing. This was, of course, capped by a man who virtually shouted his feeling that the Diocese is being, in his word, "disingenuous" and that effectively the decision had already been made. His proof, naturally, was "a priest who knows people at the Diocese" - yes, we're dealing with insulting our priests and our Bishop via third-hand information in the Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Of course, Rome was also blamed - they apparently don't care about the United States any more according to one. I shouldn't even mention the complaint that there were only men on the Task Force (someone in the combox please explain to me how one gender or the other empirically cannot understand the ramifications of parish realignments on members of the opposite gender because I just don't get it). It was all very hard to listen to.

There were, happily, a few bright spots. One man reminded everyone that the real solution to the problem is to work and pray for greater vocations or more correctly a greater response to those vocations. While absolutely true and I am truly grateful that the gentleman made that point, it sadly does nothing to address the five year problem which is the core driver for the Task Force. Another man made a rather rambling but well-informed speech about how, as Pope John Paul II said, the restoration of the Church can only come through the Eucharist. He didn't do much to tie that point to the question of parish re-alignment but I can only hope the pure faith he portrayed gave those sharpening their knives some pause for reflection. I was impressed the members of the Task Force took the sometimes harsh words in as well as they did and did not respond to some of the more slanderous statements which would have risked turning a listening session into a debate or worse. Their calm and cool was commendable.

I, for my part, decided for an as-yet indeterminate reason to remain purely an observer, listening and people-watching. What I wanted to do was to ask those who would accept nothing than the retention of their own current comfort, if necessary at the expense of others, if they had forgotten that the Church has been built upon self-giving sacrifice. "Amen, amen I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. (Jn 13:16)" As happened to the true Master, so shall it be for His disciples.

Have we forgotten how to sacrifice, with our ready-made lives and shrink-wrapped entertainment, with our "relevant" liturgies and our anything-you-want-any-time-you-want amenities? I ask because I did not hear, other than one person, the suggestion that "not my will, but yours be done. (Lk 22:42b)" Father, if I must sacrifice my convenience for the good of your Church and the greater Glory of your name I only count myself as unworthy of such a privilege. What I have is Yours for it comes from You from the beginning; do with me as you will. Not my will, but yours be done. Lord of the Harvest, send laborers, for the harvest is great and the laborers few.

Tags: Catholic, New Hampshire, Vocations, Priesthood