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The word we use to describe the calling we all receive from God is “vocation”. Our vocation is our calling. Each of us has one. Our vocation is the work to which we are called, the work to which we dedicate our lives.
Having said that, it is also true that we usually save the word “vocation” for the special calling to the work of the Lord. Service in the Church.
I don’t remember receiving a “call” from God. Mom says that I already wanted to be a priest when I was five years old. Mom also reports that, when I was seven, I wanted to drive a garbage truck! I was back on track again by the time I got to the fifth grade, but there was that one summer when we visited Uncle Benny and Aunt Florence in North Dakota and I thought I’d like to be a farmer!
God often works through what the philosophers call “secondary causes”. There was no vision of the Lord when I received my calling. I got my calling through my parents. It was mother who taught me my early prayers, the Hail Mary and the Our Father. It must have been a moving experience for her; it was only three years earlier that she had learned the Hail Mary herself! Mom grew up Lutheran; she became Catholic after she and Dad were married.
Dad was a lifelong Catholic. He grew up in a home of Church musicians. Grandma was a soloist; grandpa was the church organist. In the late 40’s, dad was choir director at St. Matthew’s in South Bend. Sometimes he took me up in the church loft during Sunday High Mass, where I could see the priest and the servers in the distance, the ushers down below taking up the collection, and of course, dad directing the singers.
Dad had been an altar boy when he was young, and told lots of stories about his experiences with the irascible old Fr. Rehor, the pastor.
Dad prayed the rosary every day of his life, and made several attempts to establish the family rosary at home.
When we moved from South Bend to Hamilton, Ohio, in 1951, we kids went to Catholic school.
My decision was finally made in May of 1956. All my class-mates in the eighth grade at St. Peter in Chains School took the entrance exam for Hamilton Catholic High School –or Notre Dame, for the girls. I stayed home that day; a day or two later, I took the entrance exam at St. Gregory’s High School seminary in Mt. Washington.
The Catholic Church was a tightly run ship in those days! Mass on Sunday and holy days was mandatory. All the Mass prayers were in Latin. Catholics were well versed in their faith, and we even had a Catholic bishop on television every week, Bishop Sheen, presenting the best face of the Church and its teachings to the public. Bishop Sheen’s program, Life Is Worth Living, was the number one rated program on television for years.
And then the Church turned upside down! A new pope was elected. John XXIII announced that the Church needed to update much of its teaching and practice, and called the bishops of the world to what was called The Vatican Council.
I remember how proud we were to be in a Church that admitted to the world that we were not perfect. That the Church needed improvement, in our worship. In our prayers and devotions. In our attitudes toward the Protestants, the Jews, and unbelievers in general. As the bishops went about their busi-ness of reforming and modernizing, we were a gallery of cheering supporters, most of us. And right away we got busy in our parish churches experimenting with new music, new prayers, and new church decoration. Some of the improvements were merely tacky. Some were downright wrong-headed. Lots of Catholics were upset by them. And lots of bishops too!
At the extremes, there were Catholic newspapers and magazines that delighted in airing the Church’s dirty laundry. There was one Catholic publication that used to publish nasty little stories on the front page every week about stupid bishops, autocratic pastors, and humorless nuns who were resisting all the wonderful progress we were making.
We’ve been progressing for the last forty years. It’s been a very noisy and rancorous time! Lots of raised voices, disagreement, name-calling and the slamming of doors. Many times, I have found myself envying the Mormons, the Jews, the fundamentalists, and other religions that seemed to be sailing along year by year in full and blissful harmony! Happily worshipping as one people, while Catholics seemed to be following the rule, “If you can’t say something critical about the Church, don’t say anything at all!” We were proud of the progress we made in the years after the Vatican Council, and rightly so. Why didn’t we ever say so?
The Catholic Church, and especially the Church in America, followed the urging of the Holy Spirit and made its way through the agony and the anger of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s with prudence and courage. We changed the things that needed changing. We kept the things that needed keeping. We made lots of mistakes, but we kept the malice and the whining to a minimum. And, in recent years, we have begun noticing a new generation of Catholic youth --the next generation-- smaller in numbers, but more enthusiastic. More generous. More hungry for Catholic teaching, faith and tradition.
The world is starving for faith, hope and love! It’s a world deprived of goodness. A world fed up on plastic virtue, religion marketed as a commodity, and empty holiness. A world that still doesn’t know the meaning of life or the purpose of death. A world that wants to believe and doesn’t know how.
The world yearns for dignity and a destiny, but our scientists can’t seem to find it. The world hears the Good News –signs and arrows and road maps and directions from people on the street—but the world wants proof. The trees and flowers come to life every spring, but the botanists dare not mention the name of God, the giver of life. We can see the moon and the stars move in their predictable paths, but the hand of God is somehow invisible.
That’s why being a priest is so attractive! The priest is the one who helps with the search and the discovery of God. The priest is another Christ. Teacher. Shepherd. Guide and guard. Helping the flock find pasture and water. Chasing away the wolves. Especially the wolves in sheep’s clothing. It’s a great life. Even when you’re tired or upset or distracted.
The question is not “Why did you become a priest?” The important question is “Why did you stay?” I think that priests sign up for the mission –to spread the gospel, the good news. But they stay for the people. They find that people are easy to love, and the people are generous with their love for us.
People, and especially priest people! It’s easier to be a priest if you have lots of friends who are priests. The older priests in your life are like old uncles, who have trod the path and survived the snares. They serve as reassurance to you that you made the right choice. That service of God’s Church is noble and rewarding. The younger priests are like young cousins, listening politely to your war stories and often re-minding you of your own youthful idealism of long ago.
What about celibacy? Is that a burden? A barrier? Wasn’t it a barrier forty years ago, when I made the big step? Has it been a lonely forty years?
The promise of celibacy that I made to the bishop and to the Church forty years ago was difficult to keep. But no more difficult, I think, than the promise and the commitment that married people make. Married people are tempted too. Married people get tired. Or angry. Or bored. Lukewarm. Disappointed. The challenge to remain faithful does not scare people away from getting married. I don’t think it cares young men away from the priesthood either.
And sometimes life itself demands celibacy from people who have not chosen it. The celibate priest is in a better position to talk about chastity to dating teenagers, to widows and widowers, to the divorced, to homosexuals, to soldiers separated from their families, to husbands whose wives are hospitalized, to wives whose husbands are away from home on business. The world keeps telling us that faithfulness and chastity are impossible. --Even unhealthy!-- The consecrated celibate –priest, nun, or brother—declares by his-or-her life that you can be both celibate and happy!
There were twelve of us being ordained in St. Peter’s Cathedral back in 1968. Within a year, several were gone. I wonder if you remember the great scandal in the Catholic Church forty years ago? The huge number of priests –young, middle-aged, and older—who were quitting the priesthood and getting married. The defections had a terrible effect on the morale of many Catholics! How come priests all of a sudden could quit and get married? But married people couldn’t get a divorce!
Today, the scandal seems to be behind us. But I think the damage has been done. (The same for the more recent scandal!) It’s going to take a couple generations for all the damage to be repaired.
In conclusion, a word about prayer.
You learn a lot about prayer after 66 years of practice. And, especially, you learn the answer to the old question, “How come God doesn’t answer my prayers?”
It turns out many of our prayers don’t need answering. Lots of times, when we talk to the Lord, it’s about our sins. And our prayer is a prayer of apology. “Oh God, I’m sorry for what I did. I wish I were stronger. Make me strong, so I don’t do it again!”
Many of our prayers are prayers of thanksgiving.
Here’s some homework for you. When you get home, find a calculator and multiply your exact age by 365.25. (The point-two-five is for the extra day in the leap years.). The total is the number of days God has given you. All of them filled with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Forty years as a priest comes out to 14,609.2 days. For my whole life: 24,258.5. Each of those days was a gift from God. We owe the Lord a lot of thanks for the days of our lives and for the gifts they contained.
In contrast to all the prayers of thanksgiving, and apology, our prayers of petition should be pretty small in number. Remember when we were little? Living at home with our parents? How often did we have to ask for things? Our loving parents showered us with everything we needed and lots of extras besides. So it is with the Lord. Especially in the year 2008 in America.
That leaves the most important prayer: the glory and praise we give to God as Father and Creator. This one we do best when we do it together. Glory and praise has always been our social prayer. We even have a special word for it: worship.
Worship is the family prayer of the human family. Worship is the prayer of praise and thanksgiving that we offer as a community of believers. Somehow we do a better job of it when we do it together. Worship is more formal. More carefully choreographed. With processions, music and ritual. It’s more ordered. More polished. And more precise. Notice how many prayers in the Mass are addressed, not to St. Joseph or Mary, the mother of Jesus, or even to Jesus Himself! When we worship, we instinctively address the Father, who sent His Son to save us. And the Holy Spirit to guide us.
We are family! At Mass, we give thanks around the table of the Lord! And our prayer of thanksgiving contains all our other prayers of praise and apology and petition!
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God! It is right to give him thanks and praise. 2045
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