Do you know how sad it is when you are talking to a young man about becoming a priest, and we’ll start chatting, and you see there is an interest there, and he has his wits about him, and the know-how and the enthusiasm and the sincerity, and then you’ll say to him, “How can I follow through? Can I give you a call?” And sometimes — it will break your heart — he’ll say, “Don’t call the house, because mom and dad will be upset if they hear I am thinking about becoming a priest.”
There is what you might call the negative side of the family. I happen to think there might be a benevolent explanation for that, and that moms and dads deep down only want their kids to be happy, and they think that priests are unhappy. And if they think that priests are crabs, they don’t want their sons to be that. So that’s why I always say to priests, “We’ve got to be men of joy, or else what parent is going to want his or her son to be a priest?”
I think that is changing, and we’ve got a positive influence. When the family beams, when the family encourages, when the family fosters. You often see me write or speak about a “culture of vocations.” What I mean by a culture of vocations is that when our young people grow up in a culture that encourages you to do God’s will and that affirms one in his desire to be a priest, you are going to get priests. I grew up in such a culture. I said to my teachers in grade school, “I think I want to be a priest,” and they beamed and did everything possible to encourage me. My parish priest would. My folks would. My neighbors would. The parish would. I can remember as a kid — I must have been 9 or 10 years old — getting a haircut, and the barber said, “Hey shrimp, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “I want to be a priest.” And he wasn’t even a Catholic, but he said, “Hey, isn’t that great?” Now that is the culture of vocations that we need in the Church.
For awhile, I am afraid, we had a culture that discouraged vocations. And sometimes families were a part of that. I am always amazed, when I have the ordination of a priest, of how many times that becomes the occasion of bringing a family back to the faith, because they had drifted. And sometimes, today in the Church, we have young men ordained who are neo-converts. They may have been raised Catholics in a less than enthusiastic way, drifted from the faith, usually in high school and college, and then maybe embraced the faith in a newfound way in their early 20s, from where came a vocation. The family, in the meantime, is sort of left in the dust, sometimes not opposed to it, but just blasé about it. And very often, when I am getting to know seminarians, they will say, “My family is a little upset about this,” or “My family doesn’t know what to make of this,” or “My family keeps trying to get me to change my mind.” But very often the ordination will be an occasion of family unity and the family will come back to the practice of the faith and be radiant in their son’s choice, especially when they see a culture of vocations in the seminary; when they see their son happy; when they see good men around him who share his values and a sense of that call. That’s a miracle there.
Church of Saint Paul families, have you “met” your seminarian yet? During the January classroom meeting, each of your children received a card with the photo and name of a seminarian from our diocese. We highly encourage you to pray for that man as often as possible and to establish a relationship with him in some way. Of course, the best way is to pray for him, but you may also want to send a simple note of encouragement, mail cookies, or send some other small item that a college student might like.
Fishers of Men is a fast-paced, energetic film produced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to help encourage current priests and to show others the priesthood for what it really is; a joy-filled, heroic commitment to Christ.
Matt Brounstein
Sue Klejeski
Molly Koop
