Follow Me Vocations Awareness Week By Bishop Terry R. LaValley

Nov. 5, 2014

As you know, our diocesan Envisioning Process has highlighted three key pastoral priorities that the Diocese of Ogdensburg is now focusing on for the next five years:  Creating a Culture of Vocations, Strengthening Faith Formation in Family Life, and Building Parishes with Living Stones. 

Clearly, all three priorities are intimately connected. Our ability to address successfully each priority is directly related to the attention we give to the other two.  I encourage all of the faithful in our Diocese to participate in your parish’s efforts to address these priorities and meet the targeted goals. 

Yes, there are many challenges that vocations, families, and parishes face today.  As a family of faith, we can and we will address these opportunities through sustained prayer and focused action.

November 2-9, 2014 is National Vocations Awareness Week. Is there anything more important in our local Church today than creating a culture of vocations in the North Country? 

The ability of our Church to provide a culture so that vocations might flourish is a telling indicator of our vitality and sustainability.

Cultivating faith formation in our families and building vibrant parishes in our Diocese help to create a healthy, grace-filled environment where every person can discern the Lord’s will for him or her.  

Each of us is called to be holy.  How we decide to live out that call defines our vocation.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “Let us not forget that Christian marriage is a vocation to holiness in the full sense of the word, and that the example of holy parents is the first condition favorable for the flowering of priestly and religious vocations.”

During this week, we are called to be especially aware of our responsibility to pray that young people will respond generously to the Lord’s call to serve the Church in the consecrated life and ordained ministry.

When we recognize in a person in our parish the qualities necessary for the lifestyle of a sister, brother, deacon or priest, do we invite them to consider that the Lord might be calling them to such a blessed life? 

To foster and to nurture vocations means that we enter into the lives and hearts of people.  We look forward to sharing with them our own experiences of life, our vocation story. In this way, priests, consecrated religious, deacons, and parishioners who share their personal vocation stories help to sensitize others to God’s call in their own lives.

How can we find the time, given today’s packed family calendars, to share such stories? Look for opportunities.  How about around the supper table?  Even when we are on the road, maybe on the way to practice or a game. I remember well, a casual conversation I had with my pastor on the way home from a CYO meeting when he asked me if I ever considered becoming a priest.

Personal invitation continues to be the main reason someone chooses to consider a Church vocation.
Pope Francis underlined the continued need to build a culture of vocations. 

He wrote: “The fraternal life and fervor of the community can awaken in the young a desire to consecrate themselves completely to God and to preaching of the Gospel.  This is particularly true if such a living community prays insistently for vocations and courageously proposes to its young people the path of special consecration.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013) 

May this Vocations Awareness Week provide the occasion for each of us to renew our resolve to pray for vocations every day. 

As the Holy Father wrote:  “Vocations are born in prayer and from prayer; and only through prayer can they persevere and bear fruit.” In our prayer, we thank God for our seminarians who have responded to the Lord’s invitation:  Michael Jablonski, Todd Thibault, Matthew Conger and Leagon Carlin.  Let us keep these men in our thoughts and prayers.  Drop them a line from time to time and offer them your prayerful support.   It is crucial to create a culture of vocations in our parishes if we are to continue to provide the social support needed for each person to hear and respond generously to God’s call in his or her life.

Let’s do our part in supporting our seminarians and encouraging other young men and women to consider the priesthood and consecrated religious life.