Most of us weekly pray for “an increase of vocations to the priesthood and religious life,” or something along those lines at the Sunday parish Eucharist. We are also encouraged to pray “for an increase of vocations”. The expression usually has it that “there is a shortage of vocations,” meaning a shortage of priests and religious, both male and female. And, if we pray for these the Lord will send laborers into the vineyard. Who can be “against” that?
All are equally called to holiness (relationship to God). There are no second class citizens here. There are different venues to answer that destiny. The share of God’s work to which we are called has something to do (however amorphous) with the reign of God working itself out in history. Granted this requires a more nuanced understanding of holiness than commonly accepted. But, by now, we should appreciate that this call to holiness doesn’t mean that some are called to be really holy and other, well, just about make it. There is no place for mediocrity in this call to holiness. Would you believe it, we are called to be saints! What we need among all the baptized is a willingness to answer this call to holiness whatever form this response takes in the concrete, nitty-gritty of life.
My suggestion is that what may possibly help in the present situation relative to the matter of vocations, narrowly understood, is to promote on all sides and for everyone a sense of vocation, comprehensively appreciated, namely, the realization that each of us has a call from God to do a share of God’s work in the service of God’s people. A heart specialist who is skilled in heart transplants as well as a park employee who picks up butts and other trash in a public park to remove some of the ugliness from the face of the earth. That goes for butcher, baker, nuclear scientist, nurse’s aide, sanitation worker. Think of the problem we’d have if we didn’t have garbage collectors! Whatever serves to humanize human life, whatever makes it easier to be good, whatever makes more for the type of society that all, deep down, are hungering and thirsting for.
To promote this mentality and the living of it because it is the truth, it seems to me would be an immense contribution towards the awareness that God may be calling some to a way of life that is that of the priest or of a sister or brother. With this collective awareness that we all have this call from God to do a share of God’s work in the service of God’s people, there is the possibility that the Spirit may awaken in some the realization, hey, it may be that God is calling me to do the life and work of a priest or sister or brother! In my judgment, it’s worth the try and there’s nothing to lose and plenty to gain even if, only by the individuals, who have this perspective on their answer to the call for holiness! Ordinary work, decent, upright, up building doesn’t have to be sanctified. It is sanctifying.
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