Not too many years ago, I had two jobs at once, something that I have handled several times over the years. The last time was just a few years ago. One of my jobs was one of the easiest jobs on earth and the other one was one of the hardest jobs on earth.
My weekend job as chaplain at Bellarmine was a real pleasure. No matter how tired I was some Sunday afternoons, a burst of energy filled my body and soul when I drove into the parking lot at the top of the hill and grew as I walked down the isle to begin Mass. I always looked forward to it. In a world where many people assume that young people today have given up on religion, I found that untrue among those who came to Sunday night Mass. There were some serious spiritual seekers on that campus and the long hours I spent preparing my homilies were well worth the time I spent on them. Doing what I did then was the light of my life.
My other job, vocation
director for the archdiocese, was one of the hardest jobs on earth, especially
when I did that job during the sexual abuse scandal that hit our diocese. While I tried to promote all vocations,
I specialized in recruiting young men with vocations for the priesthood. When I
was really, really discouraged, I felt like I am trying to sell refrigerators
to Eskimos or tickets to the Titanic!
One good thing about that
job, I didn’t know anybody who was out to take that job away from me. I got
beyond discouraged. That year certainly didn’t help. Why did I stay with it as
long as I could? For one reason and one reason only: regardless of what people
may think about the call to priesthood, I still believe I have one of the best
jobs in the whole wide world. I still wouldn’t trade with anybody!
My job as a Vocation Director, is described in our first reading today. I represented Eli in that reading. Samuel represents all the young people I listened to throughout the year. Eli (whose name, by the way, means “uncertain”) is an old temple priest who lived at a time when things looked bleak in Israel. The temple priests were corrupt and there was no prophet in the land to speak positively for the Lord. Old Eli was assisted in his Temple duties by a young man named Samuel. Samuel, we are told, was like many young people of his time: he was not familiar with the Lord. It is precisely in this terrible state of affairs that the call comes to young Samuel.
One night the old Eli and the young Samuel were sleeping in different parts of the Temple. Samuel keeps waking up thinking he hears someone calling his name. He presumes it is the old priest Eli and goes to him and says, “You called?” Twice Eli tells the young Samuel, “No, I didn’t call you!” “Just go back to sleep!” The third time Eli is awakened by Samuel, Eli realizes that it must be the Lord calling him, so he tells Samuel, “Samuel, if you hear that voice again, tell the voice “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” God takes Samuel and makes him into a great prophet “not permitting any word of his to be without effect.” I have always stopped at hearing those words when they come up in our readings. That is any homilist’s greatest dreams “to have his words to never be without effect!”
Like old Eli, my job as vocation director was not to talk anybody into anything, but to help young people, like Samuel, figure out what God was calling them to do. I just encouraged them to listen for God’s voice and then, hearing it, they would know what to do! I didn’t call people to ministry! God did! My job was simply to encourage young people to listen for God’s call and to answer “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
All of us have a “vocation” or a “call” to do something in this world for the benefit of others, so let me say a few things about what I have learned about “calls.”
The first “call” all of
us have is the call to holiness as disciples of Christ at our baptisms. Our
second call, at our baptisms, was to grow more like Christ by carrying on some
part of his ministry in the world. Those are the “calls” we all need to
“wake up” to: our call to personal holiness and our call to carry on some part
of Christ’s ministry! Within our common baptismal
call, some of us carry out our ministry in other sacraments. Spouses and parents carry
out part of Christ’s ministry in the Sacrament of Marriage. Bishops, priests
and deacons carry out their part of Christ’s ministry in the Sacrament of Holy
Orders. Both Marriage
and Holy Orders are geared toward the salvation of others. They are sacraments
of service to all the baptized in their calls to holiness.
Within our same baptismal calls, some of you have calls to various professions. The hard part, like Samuel, is to discern when God is calling and what God is calling us to do.
There are several factors that are common in this discernment process. I will speak later about marriage and other vocations, but let me today speak about the calls to priesthood, religious life and full-time lay ministry. Don’t turn me off just because you feel it is not your call. The work of promoting religious vocations is just as much your responsibility as it is mine. Even if it is not your call, you have a responsibility to encourage others in that call if you see a glimmer of service in them. After all, someday you will need to be married, have your babies baptized and confirmed, have your confessions heard, attend Mass and be anointed when you are sick and dying, when it’s time for your funeral or be ministered to in countless ways by lay and ordained ministers.
Today is a day to appreciate and pray for priests, sisters, brothers, deacons, marriage couples and lay ministers. You have one full time priest, two retired priests and many talented and generous lay ministers. Today is a good time to think about calling forth, from the community of believers, new people to carry on their ministries into the future.
This is how “vocations” work!
Jesus doesn’t usually appear and say, “I want you!” He usually sends one of his
messengers to do the inviting. Back when I was pastor of the Cathedral, the
President of Bellarmine, Dr. Jay McGowen, was a parishioner. One Sunday he said
to me coming out of church, “Someday you will be working at Bellarmine!” I
laughed because I never thought of being a campus minister. Several years later I ended up at Bellarmine for
14 years as the longest serving campus minister priest in their history!
Surely, there is someone
in these two communities being called to take my place? I believe it’s someone
here today! Back when I was working in campus ministry at Bellarmine, I said to
one of the faithful chapel students who never even mentioned the possibility of
going to the seminary, “Someday you will be taking my place.” He laughed, but a
few years later he went to the seminary, got ordained and took two of my jobs –
pastor of the Cathedral and Vocation Director! That’s how vocations work! God prompts
somebody to ask and God takes it from there!
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