Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

National Vocation Awareness Week / November 6-12, 2022

      Today begins Vocation Awareness Week.  As Catholics, we firmly believe that God has a plan for our lives!  He calls some to marriage, some to the priesthood, and others to religious life or to live as generous single people.  Fully living our own vocations – and teaching young people how to discern God’s call – is a serious duty.

      During this week, please encourage the younger people in your life – children, grandchildren, students, and friends – to be open if God calls them to priesthood or religious life.

DISCERNMENT – Asking the Right Questions

Launch into Life by Looking for a Different Set of Answers

      Failure to Launch was the title of a popular movie several years ago about a shiftless young man with no direction in life.  The term “launch” in the movie’s title is used by psychologists to describe the period when a young person is trying to make a life for himself/herself outside the care of his/her parents.

      For many young people, there is often a time of “spiritual launching” – of making decisions about what to believe, what to value, and what to pursue in life.  This is precisely the time to be asking God about one’s vocation.

      Fr. Joe Hirsch, a priest of Wisconsin (who now runs an orphanage in Peru), says that during this launching period, it is critical to ask the right questions: “The questions we ask determine the direction of our lives. If we ask the right questions, we’ll go one direction.  Ask the wrong questions, and we’ll go in the wrong direction.”

 

Many people have internalized these kind        But the saints ask different questions.  The greatest of questions:                                                         heroes and leaders ask questions like these:

•  How can I be more popular?                        •  Who am I?

•  How can I have the most fun?                     •  Why was I created?

•  How can I make more money?                    •  Who is Jesus Christ?

•  What will make me feel good?                     •  What is my purpose and mission in life?

•  How can I be most successful?                   •  Where am I going?  How do I get there?

                                                                        •  Who will I serve?

                                                                         •  How much of myself will I give?

                                                                         •  To what state in life is God calling me?

      Fr. Hirsch points out that “100% of seminarians and religious novices are asking the second set of questions, and so are 100% of men and women in the best marriages.”  They are seeking answers to selfless questions, not selfish questions.

      What kind of questions are you asking yourself?  Try bringing your deepest questions to prayer, then listen to the Holy Spirit for Answers.

Everyone Has a Divine Vocation. 

      “Jesus has a specific task in life for each and every one of us.  Each one of us is hand-picked, called by name by Jesus!  There is no one among us who does not have a divine vocation!  Some are called audibly by God, but the usual kind of call is internal, through the inner working of the Spirit.”   -- Homily by Pope Saint John Paul II

Prayer for Vocations / Before the Blessed Sacrament

O Jesus, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, draw all people to yourself, especially those you are calling to the priesthood and consecrated life.

Give your Church, we pray, fervent priests to serve at your altar, and holy men and women who will devote their lives in prayer and service as consecrated brothers and sisters.

May the Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection at every moment in all the tabernacles of the world, even until the end of time.  Amen

 

Sincerely yours in Jesus,

Fr. John Seper