Communio

Each month the various Catholic, Christian, Jewish and Orthodox seminaries (about 9 seminaries) in New York, gather for an informal meeting. The seminaries take turns in hosting the meeting. Tonight is Saint Joseph's Seminary opportunity to extend a welcome to the various churches, ecclesial communities and Jewish schools. There's always a bit of socializing, a point of welcome by the rector/president of the particular school, a tour of the school and a presentation & discussion on a particular topic. The 2009/2010 discussions have been dealing with violence. 

God, who drew blessed Josephine from abject servitude to the dignity of being your daughter and a spouse of Christ, grant to us, we ask, that by her example, we may follow the crucified Jesus with constant love, and be lovingly ready to persevere in mercy. 

Today is Father Paul Wattson's 70th anniversary of death-- the great Catholic ecumenist and convert. I pray that he lives with the Lord: May his memory be eternal.

O God, Who did raise Thy servant to the dignity of priest in the apostolic priesthood, grant, we beseech Thee, that he may be joined in fellowship with Thine Apostles forevermore.

This essay on Father Paul Wattson, "Father Paul of Graymoor: Founder of the Society of the Atonement and Father of the Church Unity Octave" written by Eleanore Villarrubia, is a great overview of Father Paul's life. 

Some words by Father Paul Wattson

Come, you whom my Father has blessed; I was ill and you consoled me. Anything you did for one of my brothers, you did for me, says the Lord.

Today the Dean of Students at St. Joseph's Seminary - Dunwoodie, Father Andrew King, was the principal celebrant and he preached the homily. The readings from sacred Scripture for today's Mass give us lots of grist for the mill given the question of discernment of spirits and God's call to the priesthood. How could one not think of mission, discipleship, preaching Christ crucified and risen and salvation when listening to Scriptures? He raises some excellent questions in the discernment of God's will viz. service as priest. One the points Fr King raises and that I find compelling is one that we at the dinner table frequently mention, the distinctions needed in vocation discernment: that priesthood and marriage are not of equal weight or of lasting importance. Marriage is a good and many people have a calling from God to be married. BUT priesthood is oriented to the supernatural, to salvation, to our final end, and thus not on the same level as marriage: its goal is different and higher as it concerns communion with the Blessed Trinity. Father King is quite good in pulling out some very central questions.

One could not find a more fitting place than a seminary to reflect on the Sacred Scriptures presented to us this morning... readings that manifest the Divine sovereignty and initiative... and the free human response which is inspired, supported, and guided by Divine grace.

The Divine sovereignty is shown by the Lord's choice of who to call... He is not bound by human expectations of judgments of who is more deserving or less deserving.

St. Paul..... knows himself to be unworthy...  "I am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God."

Isaiah ... "I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips"

St. Peter.... "I am a sinful man"

Apparently, all this is true: there is no disagreement with Isaiah's assessment, nor with Paul's, nor with Peter's. Indeed, their self knowledge, and admission of being unfit to be in the presence of God is a necessary condition for the ever deeper conversion that allows them, to remove obstacles to a greater love for the Lord. 

The acknowledgement of their weakness is paradoxically united with a deep confidence in what God can work through them. Trusting less and less in themselves, they trust more in God.

Even more paradoxically, the less they trust in themselves, the more freedom they have to act.

Isaiah says:  "Send me." ... a bold statement!

St. Paul 'matter of factly' says that he has worked harder and done more than all the other apostles!

St. Peter says less, and lets his actions speak... leaving his boat, net, and life, to become a disciple of the Lord.

A reflection on the readings could go in a number of directions, and circumstances invite us to look at the vocation to the priesthood in particular.

There have been difficulties with the way priestly vocations are presented.

At the beginning of the last century, there was considerable controversy in France over the nature of a priestly vocation. It became so heated that an appeal was made to the Holy See, asking for an intervention. Pope Pius X established a commission of Cardinals to examine the particular matter of controversy, and on June 26, 1912 they issued a brief statement that noted that the judgment of the Church is integral to the definition of what a priestly vocation is. This corrected a tendency to overemphasize the subjective dispositions of one claiming to have a vocation, and marginalize the judgment of the Church (i.e. the bishop).

In our own day, I think that we often, with the best of intentions, speak of priestly vocations in a way that makes it very unlikely that a person will recognize such a vocation.

We begin with the questions: "Does God want you to be a priest?" "Is God calling you to be a priest?"

The response, and the appropriate one, for most young men is: "I don't know... after all, how do I know what God thinks about something like that, and how would I know?"

We continue: "Well, do you feel like God is calling you to the priesthood, do you feel an attraction to the priesthood?"

The response:  "I haven't thought about it all that much, but I know that I feel an attraction to marriage, so I guess God is calling me to be married."

This sort of conclusion is all the more likely, given the tendency to speak about marriage and the priesthood as vocations, without making any distinctions in the way we use the term 'vocation'. Frankly, even if we make the appropriate distinctions (that the attraction to marriage is written into our nature, while the priestly vocation is supernatural, so that both can be present in a person), the fact that both are called vocations will lead many of the faithful to view them as equivalent.

The questions: "Does God want you to be a priest?" "Is God calling you to be a priest?" are good ones... indeed essential ones.

Archbishop Dolan tells of a conversation he had while serving as rector:

Once, while rector of the North American College in Rome, I was interviewing on of our new students.

"Why do you want to be a priest?" I asked him.

He looked at me a bit awkwardly.

"Pardon me, Monsignor, but, what I really want has nothing to do with it. I want to be a priest because I have discerned - after a lot of prayer, soul searching, and talking with people I trust, - that the Lord wants me to be a priest. It's not about me. I'ts about Him. I only want to be a priest because I believe He wants me to!"

Bravo! He is right on target.   

[Source: Is Jesus Calling you to be a Catholic Priest?, National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. 2008]

I suggest that in the current circumstances, a brief introduction can clear the way for someone to answer these essential questions more accurately - and thus to recognize a priestly vocation in themselves or in another.

Introduce the matter by asking: 

"Are you willing to be a priest?"

And also, "Why would a person be willing to be a priest?"

Why are you willing to be a priest?

            A person can say 'yes' to this without claiming to know the will or mind of God.

            They only have to know their own mind and will.

            Further their own mind should be informed in such a way that will lead them to say 'yes'.

Propose the reasons why a person would be willing to be a priest. Look to things such as:

            -mankind's need for salvation

            -Christ is savior

                        -Christ saves by means of His Church

                        -the necessity of the priesthood within the Church

                        -the glory given to God by a heroic priestly life

                        -friendship with Christ found within the priestly life

Are you willing to be a priest?

Are you willing, for the salvation of souls, and for the glory of God, to be a priest?

If you are willing to be a priest, this is a sign that very possibly you have a vocation. It is an indication, though not a guarantee, that God is calling you to the priesthood. 

If you are not willing to be a priest, pray about it some more, and ask yourself why not. Perhaps you don't have a vocation to the priesthood, but perhaps you do, and it will become clear to you through the work of grace in prayer.

Are you willing to be a priest? ..... It leads back to the question - the most essential question --  "Does God want you to be a priest?"... but it seems to offer more 'traction' so to speak for the young man hearing the question to get him moving to take practical steps towards the priesthood.

The point to get across is that if you are willing, and you also have the appropriate qualities (such as upright motives, generosity of spirit, physical health, mental ability etc.) then it is quite likely that God is in fact calling you to be a priest - that you have a vocation. In retreats, and even in the early years of seminary this is tested and examined, and through 'discernment' one comes to a greater confidence that that one does or does not have a vocation to the priesthood.

If you do have a vocation, you make a free decision as to whether or not you will accept it.

Finally, as emphasized in the 1912 declaration of the Holy See, the approval of the Church is an integral part of the vocation.     

A good treatment of this (and related topics) was written by a priest of New York:  Msgr. Charles Hugo Doyle, in Looking toward the Priesthood: the nature, dignity, necessity and signs of a sacerdotal vocation (1961).  Another priest of N.Y: Rev. Joseph W. Grundner translated in 1937 an excellent book called Vocation to the Priesthood by Wilhelm Stockums, an auxiliary bishop of Cologne (not to be confused with Stockums' book on the priesthood). A superb treatment of discernment is found in a 35 page booklet Is Jesus Calling you to be a Catholic Priest? published by the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. It was written by Fr. Thomas Richter, the vocation director of the Diocese of Bismark, ND.

 A few cautions:

We should be cautious about setting low human expectations on the number of priestly vocations that the Lord wills to raise up. Accounts (I have not seen official numbers) from years when the faith showed more vitality in New York, indicate that some Catholic boys' high schools were sending a significant number of their graduates to seminaries of one sort or another. I would not be surprised if ten percent of fit Catholic young men have a priestly vocation.

Does that sound excessive?

Suppose there were three Catholic families that between them had ten boys and ten girls. Would it be surprising that from those three families, there would be at least one priestly vocation?  There is your ten percent.

We should also be cautious about setting low human expectations on what is possible, even in the relatively near future. A priest I know in South Dakota is pastor of a large parish (unusually large for his diocese, but more common on the East Coast). The other year they had a prayer campaign in the parish - asking that two young men from their parish would go to a seminary that year. They got it. Two entered. I have to get in touch with him to see if they continued the prayer campaign this year, and what has happened.

The contribution that Catholic couples can make is evident: grow in holiness, and should God bless them with continued fertility, have more children.

As priests, you can do a lot to help make these things happen.

In all of this we turn to Mary, the Mother of Jesus the Priest, to Mary the Mother of Priests. I don't know of any title that identifies Mary particularly as mother of seminarians, but there is no doubt that she has a special maternal care for seminarians. Many priests will tell you of the particular evidences of her maternal care and intercession for them as they made their way through the seminary to ordination. She helps us to respond well to our own vocation, and to be effective in leading others to do the same.

We need Mary's continual presence to guide us, preserve us, and protect us. The devil has strategies not only to lead us into distractions or despair, but also, should we avoid those pitfalls, to misguide our zeal. Mary our Mother will counter our adversary, and obtain what the Church needs - a love and high regard for priestly vocations, and what we - both priests and those preparing for priesthood -  need, particularly the grace of humility.

Let us rejoice and shout for joy, because the Lord of all things has favored this holy and glorious virgin with his love.

God, our Father, You set Saint Colette as an example and leader of evangelical perfection for many virgins. Grant that the spirit of Saint Francis which she wisely taught and wondrously confirmed by her holy example may ever abide in us.

Following the death of her parents, Colette, with permission of the ecclesial authorities remained hidden from the world in a room next a church where a window allowed her to adore the Blessed Sacrament. Essentially she adopted an ancient form of religious life as an anchoress. Colette embraced the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, desiring to live in perfect poverty, severe mortification, and constant prayer in order to become like the Seraphic Father. The life she was graced to live had bountiful consolations but she faced severe temptations and even corporal abuse from Satan. Who, by the way, is clearly instrumental in trying to bring the Church to her knees.

Because her life as a Third Order Franciscan an interest developed to know more about the life of Saint Clare and the early Poor Clare rule where the ideal was to live in strict observance of the rule of Saint Clare. By this time, history indicates that even the Poor Clares were a bit economical in living the life Clare envisioned. Discerning that her call in life was not to take an active role in re-forming the Poor Clare observance, Colette dismissed the desires she had entertained. The problem was that these desires resurfaced time-and-again to the extent that she discovered that God, not the devil, placed the desire of reform in her heart. Rather boldly God got Colette's attention by striking her dumb and blind, until she finally resigned herself to the will of God, like some notable biblical figures. Acknowledging the will of God, her speech and her sight were restored.

You know the scenario: God never asks you to do something without giving the grace to accomplish the task. A spiritual father given to Colette to guide her spiritual life so that she could what the Lord required. As preparation, Colette spent four years on before receiving the blessing of the pope to establish one convent of Poor Clares. In time the charism Colette proposed was corresponding to women's desires that in her lifetime Colette seventeen monasteries were founded under her inspiration. In the USA, the Colettine Poor Clares have a number of monasteries. One foundation that I would like to highlight is the Bethlehem Monastery of the Poor Clares, Barhamsville, VA.

Grace upon grace was given to Colette for saving souls for Christ that in a vision she saw souls falling into hell more swiftly than the snowflakes in a winter's storm. At once she knew her mission.

Saint Colettes's devotion to the Passion of Our Lord was evident which enabled her to make sacrifices to do what the Lord wanted. With her friend, the Dominican, Saint Vincent Ferrer,  she is considered most responsible for the end of the Great Western Schism when the Popes resided at Avignon, France between 1378 and 1417. Some Dominicans will likely dispute this claim, but as history is written on this period in Church history, Colette and Vincent seem to more key in papal correction than Saint Catherine of Siena is, but the latter's influence is no doubt significant. The unity of the Church was a stake when Colette and Vincent wrote to the Fathers in council at Constance guiding them on how to deal with John XXIII, Benedict XIII, and Gregory XII. They proposed the deposing of Benedict XIII in order for a new election.

God, our Father, source of strength for all Your saints, You led Peter Baptist, Paul Miki, and their companions through the sufferings of the cross to the joy eternal life. May their prayers give us the courage to be loyal until death in professing our faith.