In recent years there have been a number of great initiatives to promote vocations. They show young priests happy with their priesthood, they show the joy of celebrating the sacraments and preaching, and they point out how important priests are to others. Then you have communities making brochures about their apostolates and spirit.
These are all good but they all remain objective. They are like listings on a dating site where they show the person’s job, hobbies, and height. Nobody marries someone just because they’re an engineer and 6’3”. They marry them because they fall in love. What is so often missing in vocation work is this subjective side of the vocation.
This was my experience. I didn’t look into a bunch of different forms of religious life. I felt a call to the priesthood, knew some people involved with Regnum Christi and so immediately thought of the Legion. (The Legion of Christ is part of Regnum Christi but most Regnum Christi members, including those I knew beforehand, are lay people.) So I visited the Legion’s seminary and I fell in love with the Legion. Period.
Back when I was discerning you could fill out one form and 15 communities would send you their promotional material. I sent it and it didn’t help me much. I’m sure it can help some like eHarmony and CatholicMatch help some couples find each other. But after you’ve gotten the listing, you still need to fall in love.
A religious vocation is a fulfilling life. Yet being a cog in God’s plan of salvation alone doesn’t seem so fulfilling. No! Love makes it fulfilling: the love we have for God, for our specific community and for all our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Some think that the solution to the vocation crisis is a return to the good old days. They weren’t as good as we imagine. There were vocations, but often the sisters were there to get free teachers or nurses, and the priests were there to celebrate more masses so everyone’s mass intentions would be fulfilled. Often – but far from always – these religious lacked a subjective element. Our culture’s current subjective turn makes this even less attractive today than it was back then.
In the same way, we can’t promote vocations by blindly picking who we think are the best candidates based on their qualities. I could name at least a dozen before I entered or as a novice who looked like they had better qualities to be a religious and a priest than I did, but who are neither priests nor religious now.
In my work as a religious brother, I helped several enter the seminary (and probably at least one this year – please pray for them). What I have found is that those we think have the ideal qualities are often not called but others fall in love with this life because they are called to it.
Vocations are about love first, and second about what you do. Unless you fall in love with your vocation, you won’t be fulfilled in it.
