Dear St. Rita Parishioners,
Vocation is a topic that every young Catholic should ponder. What is God calling me to? How does He want me to serve Him? Even better, the question should be directed towards God in prayer: “Lord, what are you asking of me?” It can also be considered from a very practical standpoint. What is the best way for me to get to Heaven? How can I best serve God and the Church? In a world where everyone wants to “change the world,” or make it a better place, or have some kind of long-term impact, we can ask instead, “How can I best be God’s instrument for the salvation of souls?” All the other impact I can make doesn’t matter in the end if it doesn’t help others get to Heaven. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mt 16:26).
Too often, our earthly ambitions and goals dominate our thinking and motivations for acting. And, while these goals have import for my life and for society, we must remember, too, that they are not, as a rule, the standard for measuring the moral goodness of a person, though of course there are some goals that a Christian can never morally seek. Nor does the accomplishment of my earthly goals necessarily mean moral success. Earthly success is not the meaning of life.
Therefore, when we discover in ourselves or in another the desire to serve God and the Church, it is a great gift that should not be squashed, but that rather needs nourishment and encouragement. And while such service to the Church can happen in many ways, the vocations of total dedication to Christ and His Church – namely priesthood and religious life – are the most far-reaching. Family life, which is God-given, sacred, and necessary, is nevertheless mainly focused on a few people. Priesthood and religious life are necessarily broader, and they exist for the good of the Church. “The priest,” says St. John Vianney, “is not a priest for himself; he does not give himself absolution; he does not administer the Sacraments to himself. He is not for himself, he is for you.”
The saint, who is incidentally the patron of priests, continues, “After God, the priest is everything. Leave a parish twenty years without priests; they will worship beasts.” Do you see, then, how important it is that we foster and encourage these vocations? It is not a squandering of earthly gifts. It is an offering of them to God, who will make use of them in ways that we cannot imagine. Nor is it an empty life, devoid of fulfillment and joy. The emptying of one’s heart of all earthly loves creates room for God to enter, and to be given over to the God who is not outdone in generosity is a joy beyond telling!
Part of the joy that God bestows in the priesthood is that of service to His people. To be an instrument of God’s peace for His people on earth, to bring them salvation, forgiveness, healing, nourishment, indeed Christ Himself – this is a joy that is quite undeserved. The priest, a mere nothing in his humanity, by virtue of his ordination acts in persona Christi – in the Person of Christ – to bring these gifts to others. What a privilege! (What a responsibility!) What a gift! To be enabled to pronounce – efficaciously – “I absolve you,” “This is My Body,” and the rest, is to be alter Christus (another Christ) in a very particular way, in the love that He has for His Church.
The priest’s celibacy, much less than being stifling, is a pre-requisite for his availability for all who come to him. His love is not as focused as that of the husband and father of a family, but it is just as intense, if not more so. It must be, because God’s people must know His love for them, and they will learn it through the priest. Through him, they will learn what it means for God to suffer for them, to care for them, to teach them, and to lead them. The faithful priest will engage in this love for God’s people, not to gratify himself, but that God’s people might be succored and saved.
Do not, then, stifle vocations to the priesthood and religious life! It is a great privilege for a family that such vocations should arise. It is in the context of family life that these vocations are often discovered and nurtured, and to nurture intentionally these vocations is a great gift to God, to the Church, and to God’s people. Your generosity will not be forgotten!
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen