A few years ago Father Greg Shaffer started a basketball team of priests and seminarians called DC ‘Hood (as in priest-HOOD) that would offer to play parish teams in order to promote vocations and show another side of parish priests. The team has been a huge success playing at a variety of parishes in the Archdiocese of Washington. At each game there is a talk at halftime where a priest or religious sister talks to the young people present (as well as their parents) about their call. Although the ‘HOOD doesn’t always win (but actually does most of the time), it’s always a great event for families and the promotion of vocations.
The following video clip is from a game at the Verizon Center in 2008 that DC ‘HOOD played against the “Men in Black” which a team of priests and seminarians from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Please continue to pray for vocations!
Here is an excellent video produced about the most recent ordinations for the Archdiocese of NY. The priesthood is truly a gift from God!
Have you felt called to the priesthood? The Archdiocese of Washington will be holding a discernment dinner for Catholic men college age to their forties on Sunday Sept. 20th from 4-8 pm at St. Stephen Martyr Church in Washington, DC. Cardinal McCarrick will offer Mass and the evening also includes dinner, a presentation on the priesthood and time to meet priests, seminarians and other men interested in the priesthood from the area. Contact Msgr. Rob Panke, Director of Priest Vocations at Vocations.adw.org for more information and to register.
“The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus Christ” – St. John Vianney
Celebrate the year for priests consider the priesthood
The following article appeared in the New York Times earlier this week. Written by Laurie Goodstein, it reports on a CARA study showing a strong preference for and return to tradition among young adults who enter priesthood and religious life. I have known this anecdotally for years but now we have some hard data to chew on. Here I publish excerpts of the NY Times article and put my own commentary in red. Note: you can click on the graph to the lower left to see a clearer image of the graph.
A new study of Roman Catholic nuns and priests in the United States shows that an aging, predominantly white generation is being succeeded by a smaller group of more racially and ethnically diverse recruits who are attracted to the religious orders that practice traditional prayer rituals and wear habits. [In recent years I have personally experienced a lot of ethnic diversity in vocations gatherings. Through a movement known as the Neocatechumenal Way we have we havemen from all over the world studying for the priesthood here in DC. At my own parish there are over 25 Religious sisters in our Convent from the Servant Sisters of the Lord (see photo above right of Sisters, novices and postulants) and they too include some Americans but when I am with them I feel like I’m at the U.N. The Church really is “catholic” (universal) after all].
The study found that the graying of American nuns and priests was even more pronounced than many Catholics had realized. Ninety-one percent of nuns and 75 percent of priests are 60 or older, and most of the rest are at least 50. They are the generation defined by the Second Vatican Council, of the 1960s, which modernized the church and many of its religious orders. Many nuns gave up their habits, moved out of convents, earned higher educational degrees and went to work in the professions and in community service. [Well, the article simplifies things a bit. Just because you are old and white doesn’t necessarily mean that you are one of the “modernizers.” To be sure that generation collectively did the things described here but not every member of that generation went as far as moving out of convents, gave up habits etc. It’s about more than age and race].
The study confirms what has long been suspected: that these more modernized religious orders are attracting the fewest new members….The new study, being released on Tuesday, was conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, for the National Religious Vocation Conference, which is looking for ways for the Church to attract and retain new nuns and priests. It was financed by an anonymous donor.
“We’ve heard anecdotally that the youngest people coming to religious life are distinctive, and they really are,” said Sister Mary Bendyna, [I have met with a worked with Sr. Bendyna. She is very thorough and very honest in interpreting data. I have a great deal of respect for her work and her insistence on acknowledging what the data says, distinct from what ideologies might wish the data says.]executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. “They’re more attracted to a traditional style of religious life, where there is community living, common prayer, having Mass together, praying the Liturgy of the Hours together. They are much more likely to say fidelity to the Church is important to them. And they really are looking for communities where members wear habits.” [I have often wondered by many more “modernized” orders that resist accepting this fact continue down the road which does not have many of these features described Sister. They observe the orders with more traditional features getting numerous vocations while their own orders do not. There is a very strange resistance at work here. Ultimately it seems non-existence is in the future of some of the orders that refuse to adapt. But that doesn’t seem to phase them. I remember talking to several Benedictine Sisters at a recent workshop. Their branch of the Benedictines has become very modernized and hasn’t had a vocation in years. When I asked them why they hadn’t consider changing their approach, they gave me a rather surprising answer. They indicated that maybe it was time for Religious Life to largely go away and to hand the Church back to it’s “rightful owners,” the laity. Wow! They seemed to have lost any notion of the Charism of Religious Life. Great to know the laity are more involved today but religious life is surely still and important gift of the Lord to the Church, seems to me!. Now this was just one group of sisters. I haveno idea how representative their answer is of other communities that seem to be unable or unwilling to adapt]. Of the new priests and nuns who recently joined religious orders, two-thirds chose orders that wear a habit all the time or regularly during prayer or ministry, the study found.
The study also showed that whites account for 94 percent of current nuns and priests but only 58 percent of those in the process of joining orders. Asians and Pacific Islanders are disproportionately represented among the newcomers, accounting for 14 percent, far above their 3 percent share of the Catholic population in the United States, Sister Bendyna said. Hispanics are 21 percent of the newcomers, compared with only 3 percent of the current priests and nuns.
Of women who recently entered religious orders, the average age is 32; for men, it is 30. But retaining new recruits is a challenge. About half of those who have entered religious orders since 1990 have not stayed, and almost all who left did so before making their final vows. [This doesn’t really mean that they “left.” It is like a seminarian going off to seminary. One of the purposes of that time is further discernment, “Is this what God is calling me to do?” A seminarian who chooses to leave the seminary is not said to have “left the priesthood.” So also those who leave before final vows are not said to have left religious life]. “People come to religious life because they feel they’re being called,” said Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference, adding that the purpose of the Church’s training process “is to discern that call before a commitment is made.” So “it’s not surprising,” he said, “that you would have people that would leave.”
Over the weekend, I got into a discussion with a friend about the priesthood and celibacy that went something like this:
Is it possible and appropriate nowadays to observe such an obligation? Has the time not come to break the bond linking celibacy with the priesthood in the Church? Could the difficult observance of it not be made optional? Would this not be a way to help the priestly ministry and facilitate ecumenical approaches? And if the golden law of sacred celibacy is to remain, what reasons are there to show that it is holy and fitting?
I say “something like this” because I’ve just quoted the exact questions which the encyclical The Celibacy of the Priest sought to answer…in 1967! I was surprised as I was reading the first few paragraphs, because more than forty years later it sounded as if it were written yesterday.
In light of recent scandals, plenty of opinions about the priestly obligation to “perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Canon 277 §1) have been featured on the news, yet the disagreements are rather old and worn. Can we disagree with the fact that Christ lived celibately? “Like Christ Himself, His minister is wholly and solely intent on the things of God and the Church, and he imitates the great High priest who lives ever in the presence of God in order to intercede in our favor.” (28, The Celibacy of the Priest)
The encyclical answers each of the disagreements in a orderly fashion to reveal the truth and beauty of the gift of celibacy. If you have questions about priestly celibacy or have friends that are asking about it, I highly recommend that you read it.
With the many distractions, temptations, and seductions faced by priests in our culture today, let’s continue to pray that they nurture their gift of celibacy.
St. John Vianney, pray for us and our priests! (Feast Day: August 4th)
In the article “How to Discern Elements of Your Personal Vocation” by Fr. Peter Ryan, Professor of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, he says,
“With respect to future possibilities, we cannot discern whether we should do something, but only whether we should try to do it…The real possibility that we could die before we carry something out or that other things could intervene and make something impossible should warn us not to conclude that we are definitely called to do something in the future, but only that we are called to try to do it. Often enough, all God wants is the effort; and if we make the effort, we produce the results he desires.”
Takes a lot of the pressure off, doesn’t it!
Brian doesn’t have to discern whether he will marry Leslie; he only has to try to date her. Cheryl doesn’t have to discern whether she will be a religious sister; she only has to try to live in the community for a time. Tim doesn’t have to discern whether he will be a priest; he only has to apply to the seminary and see if he is accepted. Where these people end up on the other side of their decision to try is in God’s hands.
Young adults are at a point in their lives where they are discerning many things including personal vocations. Personally, I’m often frustrated with the fact that I can’t see the future, and even more frustrated when what I think will happen doesn’t end up happening. (What can I say, I’m a planner.) But as Fr. Ryan says, our effort to try is often what God desires as it shows faith and hope. God wants us to say to him, “I don’t know where this path will lead, but Yes Lord, I’m going to follow you anyway.” We can act within these uncertainties saying and believing, Thy Will be done.
The good priest is like a soldier who is willing to live a sacrificial life for his people. He is called to live a life of discipline and follow orders from the Lord and his bishop. His sword is the Word of God and he fights on the Battlefield of the soul. The Battle is the Lord’s and to Him belongs the victory. For the priest it is enough to know that he has, by God’s grace, moved the battle line forward even a few inches. Pray for priests and for vocations. Pray also for Catholic priests who are military Chaplains.
I put this video together by splicing scenes from Fishers of Men. The music is by Lyle Lovett, “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord.” It is available at iTunes.
Reflecting on the Holy Priesthood, Pope Benedict draws highly from the writings of St. John Vianney who 150th Birthday is being celebrated this year too:
Here the teaching and example of Saint John Mary Vianney can serve as a significant point of reference for us all. The Curé of Ars was quite humble, yet as a priest he was conscious of being an immense gift to his people: “A good shepherd, a pastor after God’s heart, is the greatest treasure which the good Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy”.[3] He spoke of the priesthood as if incapable of fathoming the grandeur of the gift and task entrusted to a human creature: “O, how great is the priest! … If he realized what he is, he would die… God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host…” Explaining to his parishioners the importance of the sacraments, he would say: “Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest. And if this soul should happen to die [as a result of mortal sin], who will raise it up, who will restore its calm and peace? Again, the priest… After God, the priest is everything! … Only in heaven will he fully realize what he is”. These words, welling up from the priestly heart of the holy pastor, might sound excessive. Yet they reveal the high esteem in which he held the sacrament of the priesthood. He seemed overwhelmed by a boundless sense of responsibility: “What use would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of his goods … .
The words of St. John Vianney DO seem “excessive” by today’s standards. We tend to be a bit more cautious and sober in our speaking today. Today is my 20th Anniversary of Ordination to priesthood and I hardly think of God “obeying” me as I speak the words of consecration. And yet God does “obey” not for my sake but for the sake of his people. I have often thought, if I gave a good sermon, or taught effectively, or just saw anything go really well in my priestly activity it was not so much for my sake or my glory, but for God’s people and God’s glory. I have learned to ask that I preach and teach well and administer the sacraments effectively simply because God’s people deserve the very best. In the end I hope it is not God who obeys me but I who obey God and get out of the way so he can take over. Perhaps what St. John Vianney really refers to is a kind of subordinate obeying that God does. He inspires the Priest to ask for what he [Christ] wants, and in the end it is one Christ and one will, one obedience.
I want to show you a movie clip. I am no big fan of Hollywood, for lots of reasons. But I must say, it was a Hollywood movie that played a role in my discovery of a vocation to the priesthood. I went to this movie with my college girlfriend who also sang in Church Choir with me back in 1981. So here I sat in the theater with my girl and suddenly, in Dolby stereo rang out a choir singing the Kyrie from Viadonna’s Missa L’Hora Passa. And the camera panned into a scene from a solemn high mass in Latin (the movie was set in the 1940s). Robert DiNiro was the priest and he played the role of the priest perfectly. But strangely it was in a Hollywood movie that I first saw close up the dignity of the priest celebrant as he carefully pronounced the words of consecration. Yes I know it was an actor, but I saw for the first time displayed the power of what a real priest can do. I also beheld a liturgy beautifully celebrated which I must say, sadly, was not the usual case in my suburban parish church of the time. Well, I didn’t tell my girlfriend that evening, but for the first time the priesthood seemed attractive, from a movie, a Hollywood movie. I didn’t think of being a priest yet, but I had never thought of a priest as anything special before that night. Now I did. Here is the clip of what I saw and heard in 1981 (From the Movie True Confessions).
The following video does a pretty good job of briefly reviewing teachings on the priesthood. There is only one High Priest: Jesus Christ, all other priests are his ministers. He works through his priests who act in persona Christi (in the person of Christ). Christ established the sacrament of Holy Orders in order that men should minister in his person by teaching, governing and sanctifying. All of this is done in and through Jesus who minsters through his priests. This video traces some of the history and teachings about the priesthood and is also entertaining. It is three and a half minutes. Enjoy the “outtakes” at the end as well 🙂
A few years ago Father Greg Shaffer started a basketball team of priests and seminarians called DC ‘Hood (as in priest-HOOD) that would offer to play parish teams in order to promote vocations and show another side of parish priests. The team has been a huge success playing at a variety of parishes in the Archdiocese of Washington. At each game there is a talk at halftime where a priest or religious sister talks to the young people present (as well as their parents) about their call. Although the ‘HOOD doesn’t always win (but actually does most of the time), it’s always a great event for families and the promotion of vocations.
