Jubilee of Seminarians

A special Jubilee of Seminarians is to take place in Rome, starting in the evening of Monday 23rd June and concluding the following day, Tuesday 24th June. It forms the first of a sequence of three "Jubilees", being followed in successive days by the Jubilee of Bishops and the Jubilee of Priests.

Adrienne von Speyr has a lovely book entitled "They Followed His Call", which explores the experience of vocational calling. It combines a theological sense with a certain psychological understanding of the experience of one who listens to the Lord's call, so that in his foreword Hans Urs von Balthasar writes that it "accompanies the young person very seriously and even maternally through the difficult time that leads from the call's awakening in the soul to the great Decision and its realization".

The chapter of Adrienne's book entitled "The Time of Choice" is perhaps most relevant to seminarians.

The experiences of the time of choice are comparable to those of a young mother who, before marriage, had only a theoretical knowledge of how to care for an infant. And now suddenly she is responsible for her living child's most diverse needs. Through his presence God shows what he needs, asks for, and expects. He creates new times and divisions in a day's work, new tools, too, and qualities. A person attempts to reciprocate God's new wishes and designs as best as he can. For the most part, this will mean valuing one's self and one's things less highly, leaving everything to God in ever greater measure, until we can perhaps say that we have totally forgotten about ourselves and find all meaning in God. ...

Just as there is a total treasury of prayer, so too, in particular, is there a treasury of the time of choice, a treasury of consent and of gleaming example. Every newly spoken consent, every example that is given in such a consent, belongs to the Church in an intimate way and is further dispensed by her. It is the Church's to administer. The Church keeps none of her treasures for herself. She no more locks up her spiritual provisions than she removes her monstrances and vestments in cathedrals from use. They are there in order to be seen, used and lived. No consent stands isolated. Each and every consent is related to a future one or an already spoken one, and to every other consent.

Two more things that have passed me by .... St John Vianney, Invocation

This weekend I find myself reflecting again on two events that have happened without my really noticing. As it turns out, the two events are connected.

The first event is the visit of the relic of the heart of St  John Mary Vianney to the north-west of England, and to Birmingham. Details of the visit, and associated resources, can be found at the website of Shrewsbury Diocese.

The second is the annual Invocation 2012 festival at Oscott College, Birmingham. This event is aimed at young people and intends to encourage them in discerning their vocation in the world and in the Church. It is characterised by the presence of young priests and religious and by the presence of representatives of some of the new orders and religious communities. The home page of the Invocation website is here. The link to the visit of the relic of St John Mary Vianney is that the relic was brought to Oscott College as part of the programme of the festival.

To try and capture something of both events, I link to the text of the address delivered by Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury at the Invocation event. Two points that I particularly noticed about this address were the way in which the origins of the priestly vocations of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were cited as examples for the young people listening, and the confident and strong affirmation of the value of the ordained priesthood that is drawn from the words of St John Mary Vianney.

It is also interesting to note the way in which the words of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are cited by Bishop Davies. There is nothing dogmatic or authoritarian about this. The Holy Father exercises a pastoral office towards the whole Church through annual messages such as those for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. However, that exercise of a universal office is not in conflict with the exercise of a local pastoral office by the Bishop of a diocese, and the use by Bishop Davies of citations of the words of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI indicates the way in which the two offices act in communion with each other.

Hearkening to God's Voice

I could sub-title this post as "A reflection on monastic life and lay life".


First of all, Mother Maria-Michael's latest reflection at St Walburga's Abbey. This is entitled Hearken to God's Voice. Though it is is addressed firstly to her own monastic community, it nevertheless has a very ready application to the lay person engaged in the activity of the world. Our silence is not as much the literal, physical silence that pertains within the life of a monastery (though there is no reason why we should not seek such times of physical silence, perhaps in a time of prayer or Adoration). But it is still a part of our Christian life to have the attentiveness towards God that is the meaning of silence, and gives to that silence an Advent character. We are more likely to suffer the effects of a physcial iPod than a monastic one!

That reflections addressed to a monastic community have a relevance to those who live the Christian life outside of a monastery should not come as a surprise. In the 1950s, Louis Bouyer wrote a book entitled The Meaning of the Monastic Life. At the end of his first chapter, and the beginning of his second, he summarises the meaning/purpose (the French word "sens" conveys both implications together in one word) of the life of the monk as follows:

To be a monk, then, is simply to be an integral Christian. And regarded in that light, the Christian himself is simply the man restored by the Word of the Gospel to the vocation whichthe creative Word destined for him: to respond to the Word of Agape by the word of faith, in order eventually to meet God face to face....

...the monastic vocation is simply a call to the most perfect and direct realisation possible of the vocation of man in general and Christians in particular ..

I have just started reading a book which might offer some insight into this understanding of monastic life in relation to life in the lay state. Henri Nouwen is a name I have known for some time, perhaps most noticing that he spent the later part of his life as a member of a L'Arche Community in Toronto. Before then, as a rather energetic and busy academic, he took seven months out to live the life of a Trappist monk. Very unusually, a monastery accepted him to live their life for a temporary period. Henri Nouwen's notes/diary of this seven month period were published as The Genesee Diary.

After one week in the monastery, Henri Nouwen wrote the following about work, in the light of his experiences helping in the monastery's bakery and in physical labour. The italics added are mine.

I'd better start thinking a little more about my attitude toward work. If I have learned anything this week, it is that there is a contemplative way of working that is more important for me than praying, reading or singing. Most people think that you go to a monastery to pray. Well, I prayed more this week than before but also discovered that I have not learned yet to make the work of my hands into a prayer.

Now, if that isn't a thought from a monastery with a relevance to the life of the lay person, I don't know what is!

Testimony of a priestly vocation

I am copying the following from the parish newsletter of the parish of Leigh-on-Sea.

Fr Kevin's observations reflect two things that I think are of wider significance, things that make this more than just a testimony of faith in an individual situation. The first of these is what this testimony says about the moments, or perhaps days, during which someone is dying. Such a time can be very difficult, and that is quite a natural experience. But at the same time, they can be lived as a gift, a grace that is received; and this is not something that is limited to those who have a religious belief, though this testimony is given in the context of a strong faith. The second thing is the dialogue between male and female in the question of a vocation in the Church. At one level this can perhaps be seen as an accident of particular family circumstances. But the same dialogue of a man and woman in the founding of charism in the Church occurs time and again in the history of the Church. St Francis and St Clare, Chiara Lubich and Igino Giordani, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Adrienne von Speyr, Marthe Robin and Pere Finet ... One of the more memorable conversations I have had in my life was in a coffee bar in Dublin Airport, on the subject of what it was that meant that some families succeeded in handing on the practice of the faith to their children and others didn't. The example of mothers featured strongly in that conversation - my interlocuter relating a story from her family of how a group of women had rescued the Blessed Sacrament from a Church destroyed by republican forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Dear Friends in Christ


The last ten days have been one of the most emotionally difficult and challenging of my life. On 29th October my Mother suffered a major heart attack from which she never regained consciousness. She died very peacefully on 2nd November. My Mother – Marie Winifred - suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for over twenty years and for most of that period was very debilitated. During the four days Mum was in Hospital, she was completely surrounded and lifted-up by prayer. We kept a round-the-clock vigil at her bedside and she received the last Sacraments each day. Several priests came to pray with her and bless her; there were continual Rosaries offered and there was a most wonderful atmosphere of peace in her room, and a sense that a great grace was happening. When I received the news of her death, I was just about to celebrate the midday Mass on Monday; I was able to offer it for her eternal repose. How very kind of Almighty God to call her to Himself on the very day when the entire Church is praying for All Souls!

At this moment I can only thank God for the eighty-one-and-a-half years of her life and the fifty-five years of my parent’s marriage. Far from feeling desolate, I am completely buoyed-up by our faith in the promises of the Resurrection. I have been filled with great comfort and hope in these days, especially supported by the prayers and Masses of so many kind friends and Parishioners. My close friends – especially the priests – have been like guardian angels to me and I cannot express the kindness I have experienced. The Mother of a Priest is a very special person. She is the worthy woman of whom Scripture speaks. We only have one Mother, and she is the most special person in our lives; that does not change in death.

After God, I have always believed that my vocation was inspired by her and has been sustained by her these last twenty-five years. I believe now that she will be looking after me even more! Her Requiem Mass will be celebrated on Monday in the Catholic Church in South Woodford and I would ask you to please keep her, my Father, and all the members of the family in your prayers.

With every blessing!

Fr Kevin Hale

Promoting vocations and religious practice

I found this post at Young Fogeys interesting.

It has some echoes of an article in the April-June 2009 issue of The Sower. The article is by Amette Ley, and is entitled "God's Pedagogy and the call to obedience". It is one of Amette's "On the Spot" articles which seeks to suggest responses to difficult questions or situations which might arise in the work of the catechesis.

In this article, Amette draws on the idea of a "divine pedagogy", that is found in the General Directory for Catechesis, and examines the idea of response to God's revelation (obedience) in that context. Amette looks at the idea of our response to God in revelation: knowledge and freedom (Adam and Eve's fall), effort is needed (Noah has to undertake the task of building the Ark), renunciation (Abram must undergo a journey), courage (Moses confrontation with Pharaoh), abandonment of our own plans (David does not build a house for the Ark, instead accepting God's promise of a household/dynasty of his own) ... all leading up to Christ as the example par excellence of response to the mission received from the Father (obedience even unto death).

There are then similar stages that we go through - or need to go through - in our own development of a response to God's call to us: the transition from going to Mass without protest, to realising that we will have to make some effort to get there, to taking a full responsibility of our own for going to Mass. The same applies to other areas of Christian living.

What Amette points out, though, and this is where there is an echo to the article at Young Fogeys, is that this is something about which we need to talk to our children and young people. We need to be explicit about it, and not just assume that it will happen by accident. If they do not know and understand the process of growth in faith that is represented here - and is exemplified in the way in which God has dealt with his people down the ages - they are not going to live it. They will simply rebel through lack of knowledge.

Or, in teacher-speak, it is about assessment for learning: the student needs to know where they are at now, and then what they have to do to improve and progress to the next stage in their learning.

And the connection to vocations awareness is pretty clear.

World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because in the Gospel we here Jesus speak of hmself as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheeop. That is why it is the day chosen as the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life and the Holy Father has written to us on this day inviting us to pray trustingly to God for thsoe called share in the Good Shepherd's ministry of caring for his flock. Pope Benedict has invited us to celebrate a Year for Priests, beginning on 19th June - the Feast of the Sacred Heart. It is to be dedicated to promoting the spiritual perfection of priests and to recognising more fully the irreplaceable value of priestly ministry at the heart of the Church. The Pope says we should not allow ourselves to become discouraged by accepting as inevitable that a time will come when we have to do without priests. We entrust the whole Church to the providence of God in our prayer for and encouragement of priestly vocations.

This piece has been taken from our parish newsletter this week, and, at first sight, it does not appear as exceptional as it actually is. What does make it exceptional is that nowhere does it refer to planning for a parish without a priest, something that is so often a kind of mantra in the Church here in England and Wales.

Is there such a thing as a vocation to "single life"?

My views on this question have always been strongly coloured by a book, originally published in German in 1955 and then in English translation in 1979, by Adrienne von Speyr. The book is called They followed His Call: Vocation and Asceticism. This was followed by a kind of intuitive antipathy to the suggestion that single life was a vocation equivalent in type to those of marriage, religious life or priesthood - the fashion for this in some contemporary pastoral activity in favour of a "culture of vocation" has always seemed to me to be a bit of a "let's not have anyone feel left out" syndrome without a substantial theological support. The accounts here and here, for example, appear rather unconvincing, and I am not sure I could find anything specifically single about the account here.

One aspect to this question is that of the age at which one responds to a call to a particular vocation. Perhaps for good reason, there has been a trend to accepting people into religious formation at an older age than in the past. Entering formation at an early age does clearly have the risk that such entry is seen as definitive, and those who find that they should leave and test a different vocation find it difficult to do so. But, on the other hand, if entry is left until later an opposite risk occurs. An older person can be more set in their ways, and therefore less docile and less adaptable to the formative demands of a particular form of life. I found this post at Southwark Vocations interesting, and would be supportive of its implication that we should perhaps be open to encouraging a response to vocation at an earlier age.

This question of the age at which one responds to a vocation is linked to that of how we understand the single state in the life of the Church. I happen to think that the single state, precisely as a single state (but see comments below about lay movements and ecclesial communities), is not a vocational choice in itself, and should not be presented as such in pastoral activity. It represents an openess towards a choice of vocation in the Church. So the situation of someone who remains single until late in life has something unfinished about it, something anomalous. This what Adrienne von Speyr writes about this:

The call reaches persons in their youth, and also older persons. But the "late called" are mostly those with whom the Lord's patience has persevered for so long that they have at last heard. If he closely examines his life, such a person will see that he owes his vocation to God's long suffering.

There is the possibility that the one who has remained single has done so because they have pushed the voice of the Lord calling them into the background, and hidden it away. They have, in effect, declined to answer their calling to a particular vocation. Adrienne von Speyr again:

The muting of the voice is such a frightening event and it so unsettles the person that whoever has said No or tried to put God off, postponing a decision, is a permanently marked man. He is and remains recognisable. He has pushed aside the experience of his life. In the future he remains embittered, dissatisfied, sarcastic and fault finding, and he never grows tired of ... trying to prove the impossibility of discipleship.... The No impresses itself and remains, and it is at times more capable of transforming a person's spiritual physiognomy more deeply that the Yes would have done.

Three of the chapters in Adrienne von Speyr's book are devoted in turn to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. Writing in 1948 (so far as I can tell), Hans Urs von Balthasar began to present the life of the counsels as appropriate to the lay state of life in the Church. A work that he then originally entitled The Laity and the Religious State was later re-edited and published with the title The Laity and the Life of the Counsels. For both Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar, the form of the evangelical counsels, whether expressed in promises or in vows (private or public), is available to the lay person and represents the form of the Yes to the vocation from the Lord. An Apostolic Constitution of 1947, Provida Mater, gave lay associations in the Church the chance to achieve a canonical status as secular institutes. Hans Urs von Balthasar saw this as a great opportunity for the lay person - the secular institutes were a possibility open to the single lay person whose status in the Church otherwise remained anomalous. Writing of the potential of the lay person living the life of the counsels, Hans Urs von Balthasar says:

... the layman would never need to fear being unfaithful to his spiritual mission even in the most worldly turmoil of his professional work. For he would not have chosen this mission for himself; it would have been entrusted to him in the obedience of the counsels, and he would carry out under obedience all that it entails, even what appeared its most worldly dimension ....

It is scarcely possible to gauge a priori the springs of supernatural power that would be unleashed in such a life. Working in the same practice, office, or factory, but freed from the absorbing and often depressing concerns about family and earnings, the layman in the state of the counsels would have an incomparable advantage in terms of time, freedom, and productivity, not to mention the possibilities of taking up deeper questions that may not be immediately lucrative but are much more necessary, when seen with Christian eyes: public questions for which those with such busy private lives have no time, questions affecting the Church in the civil sphere, in which married people, who are dependent in so many ways, perhaps do ot want to take the risk of getting their fingers burned, questions of the apostolate in the lay milieu, which the priest finds impossible or at least difficult to approach ...

It is the spiritual value and significance for lay people of a life of the counsels that Hans Urs von Balthasar goes on to draw out, not just the practical possibilities of the single state. The future tense implicit in Hans Urs von Balthasar's words seems strange to us now, who so much take for granted the existence of lay movements and ecclesial communities in the Church. I have found it quite fascinating to see a kind of prophetic wisdom in the position of Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and it lies in this. Many of the new movements and ecclesial communities have, gradually, evolved a core group at the centre of their life who choose to live the life of the counsels. This is true of Communion and Liberation and of the Focolare, to name but two.

I would want to argue that the single state in the Church is not a vocational state in itself. It is full of opportunities to respond with a Yes to a vocation in the Church, the movements, ecclesial communities and secular institutes providing forms for that Yes in the single, lay state. Or, of course, it provides an openess to a vocation to the priesthood, religious life or marriage.

So, what of the person who reaches their later, or slightly later, years (or, to use a phrase now not often heard - the person who reaches their "middle youth") and is still single? Personally, I find the suggestion that being single in some way constitutes a vocation in itself patronising; it assumes a Yes that is not there in lived experience, and to try and pretend that it is there is unreal and, in the end, unhelpful. I suspect that it is possible that one is called to live, for a long period of time, in an openess towards a call that will only be revealed later in life; but that involves the radicalness of a living obedience, from one moment to the next moment, day in and day out, without the external scaffolding of formal commitment, that is a rare and quite exceptional, spiritual gift. One can also find a call to engagement in one or more particular activities on behalf of the Church or of the Christian mission in the world; but these engagements, providentially good and genuinely charismatic as they may be, remain a "secondary mission" that the Lord "tolerates". They cannot replace the "first" call that is pushed into the background in a refusal, a No.

UPDATE: This is a post that makes a couple of relevant points .... in its references to a person's "inability to commit to anything" at a certain age (!) and in its suggestion of inviting the girl out anyway instead of making an excuse ....

A lovely story

Here.

It is a big decision to enter the religious life or to begin training for the priesthood. The person entering makes a decision that they feel called to this way of life; and the religious order or diocese makes a discernment of that calling. As the story indicates, this decision might well be mediated through a lot of everyday circumstances (on the part of the one called) and a lot of administration and human examination (on the part of the religious order or seminary). The trust on all sides, however, is that this process is undertaken in obedience to the gift of God's grace shared by them in the life of the Church.

Sometimes another big decision will be made. The first years of religious life are a period of formation, and most of the years in seminary training are undertaken before diaconal ordination. During this time, it might become clear that, after all, this is not the vocation for me. No final commitment has been made, only preparation for that commitment. Sometimes it will be the person themselves who comes to this decision; sometimes it will be the religious order or the diocese.

I think it is important that someone who is trying a vocation, perhaps particularly to the religious life, can feel completely comfortable if they later decide to come away again. This is not an unusual experience in the Church. The measure is not that of "did I make it to permanent vows" but that of "am I doing God's will at this particular moment"? And that might change and grow with time and human circumstances.

The person entering does so with a conviction of their vocation born of God's grace, and quite rightly so. It is those around them - friends, family, parish - who need to make sure that someone who enters religious life can feel comfortable if they later come away. I think the correct pastoral attitude is one of expressing support for the person entering, yes with excitement at the fact that they are entering, but trying to say at the same time that you would be equally supportive if they were choosing a lay vocation in life.

Priest Academy

I am not sure how it came to her attention, but zero sent the following:

You and your fellow bloggers may be interested in http://www.pretres-academy.com/, a French internet reality show launched by the diocese of Besancon in eastern France. It marks the first ordination of a local priest in three years. The first two episodes having go 150 000 hits apparently.

I have just watched Episode 1, and thought it raised some interesting questions about the mission of the priest. I suspect that viewers will have different opinions on the fact, for example, that two out of the three featured clerics are shown dressed in "civvies". Another question is whether or not the programme offers a vision of priesthood that will inspire vocations.

Vocations continued

Following on from yesterday's post in connection with Vocations Sunday, I offer below the notes for my Legion of Mary allocutio this evening. I suspect that many other organisations or movements in the Church will find a similar vocation-mission dialogue within their charisms. This is a Marian-ecclesial character of all vocation in the Church.


Spiritual Reading: from the Handbook of the Legion of Mary pp.307-308


"GO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE WHOLE CREATION" (Mk 16:15)
1. HIS LAST TESTAMENT
A solemnity attaches to last words even though they are uttered in turmoil or weakness. What then is to be thought of our Lord's final injunction to the apostles: what has been called his last will and testament, delivered at a moment more awesome than that of Sinai - that is as the completion of all his earthly lawgiving and immediately before his Ascension? As he speaks, he is already clothed with the very majesty of the Trinity: "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation." (Mk 16:15)
Those words supply the Christian keynote. Faith must strain after people with inextinguishable ardour. Sometimes that essential note is missing. People are not sought after, neither those in the fold nor those outside it. But if that Ascension commandment be disregarded, it will be at a price - the price of loss of grace, of diminution and decay, even to the extinction of faith. Look around and see how many places have already paid that awful price…..

The Legion must be, so to speak, obsessed by that final commandment. It must, as a first principle, set out to establish a contact of some sort with every soul everywhere. If this be done - and it can be done - then the Lord's command will be moving towards fulfilment.
Our Lord, it will be noted, does not order that every person be converted, but only that approach be made to every one. The former may be beyond human possibility. But it is not impossible to make the approach.

1. Pope Benedict XVI, Regina Caeli Sunday 13th April 2008 (World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life)

Vocation and mission are inseparable:

This missionary service is carried out, in the first place, by priests …
… by those who decide to radically live the Gospel through the vows of chastity,
poverty and obedience
Christian marriage is also a missionary vocation

“Let us invoke the maternal protection of Mary for the many vocations that exist in the Church so that they are developed with an intense missionary character. To her, Mother of the Church and Queen of Peace, I also commend the special missionary experience that I will live in the next few days with the apostolic trip to the United States and the visit to the United Nations, as I ask all of you to accompany me with your prayers.”

2. The Second Vatican Council on the Blessed Virgin and vocations in the Church

“In her life the Virgin has been a model of that motherly love with which all who join in the Church’s apostolic mission for the regeneration of mankind should be animated.”[1]

“(Priests) always find a wonderful example of such docility in the Blessed Virgin Mary who under the guidance of the Holy Spirit made a total dedication of herself for the mystery of the redemption of men. Priests should always venerate and love her, with a filial devotion and worship, as the Mother of the supreme and eternal Priest, as Queen of Apostles, and as protectress of their ministry.”[2] [my emphasis - to show response to vocation as being at the service of mission]

“(Members of religious institutes) have dedicated their whole lives to his service. This constitutes a special consecration, which is deeply rooted in their baptismal consecration and is a fuller expression of it.”[3]

“Spouses, therefore, are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for their duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament…”[4]

3. The Marian character of vocation and mission in the Legion of Mary

The vocation of the Legionary is expressed in a consecration to the Virgin Mary; this consecration is renewed each year in the Acies ceremony. This Marian consecration is a specification of the consecration received in baptism, and so we can understand it in the same context as the consecrations of the priesthood, religious life and marriage. In this way our Legion membership is a response to a vocation.

The Legion is profoundly missionary. This is expressed in the obligation for members of a praesidium to undertake a substantial apostolic work each week, and by such Legion activities as the Peregrinatio Pro Christo.

The devotional outlook of the Legion sees its devotion to Mary as the root of its missionary work.[5] As Pope Benedict XVI suggested, Legion membership seen as a vocation and Legion membership seen as a mission are inseparable.

[1] Vatican II Lumen Gentium n.65.
[2] Vatican II Presbyterorum Ordinis n.18. This paragraph has a footnote referring to Vatican II Lumen Gentium n.65.
[3] Vatican II Perfectae Caritatis n.5
[4] Vatican II Gaudium et Spes n.48.
[5] cf Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary pp.22-23.

BBC News website coverage of Vocations Sunday

I have just watched a video clip on the BBC's news website. It is an interview with Fr Paul Embury and Fr Joe Silver, broadcast in connection with the vocations campaign being run here in the UK for the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life. It is well worth a look. Follow the links from news.bbc.co.uk, or try searching for "BBC News Player - Recruitment drive for priests". I think Fr Paul and Fr Joe do quite a good job, and certainly communicated a good impression.

One might have asked for a better argued response to the suggestion by one of the interviewers of women priests and married priests than "we have to do what the Pope says, almost", and a more complete description of the personal qualities expected of prospective priests. But in other respects Fr Paul and Fr Joe projected a confidence in their own priesthood. They were willing to talk about the "counter cultural" nature of permanent commitment and celibacy in today's world.

Not having a TV, I do not know the names of the male and female interviewers, and can't find these on the clip. However, both interviewers were very courteous. The male interviewer particularly impressed me by asking questions that showed a genuine understanding of the nature of vocation within Catholicism.