Call for Vocation
Larry Mapps

It was Palm Sunday and because of a sore throat, five-year-old Johnny stayed home from church with a sitter.  When the family returned home, they were carrying several palm branches. The boy asked what they were for. "People held them over Jesus' head as he walked by."  "Wouldn't you know it," the boy fumed, "the one Sunday I don't go, He shows up!"

But we as Catholics know that every time we go to mass Jesus will be there.  He will be there in the Word, the Priest, and in the Eucharist.  He is present among us tonight in the Eucharist.

Pope John Paul II said that Eucharist is the source of all vocations. And dictionary defines vocation as a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action; a gift of ones self to a call.  What greater or better example do we have in history of this than Jesus Christ, who was told and sent by God (a strong inclination) to go out and teach (course of action) of the Father’s will for us and to give us his life, his spirit, He was asked to sacrifice his complete self to draw us closer to the Father (defiantly a gift of ones self to a call).

In essence vocation is born by sacrifice, lived by sacrifice, measured by sacrifice and maintained by sacrifice.  It is born by sacrifice because we say yes to the will of the Father sacrificing our own will. Jesus said “I come not for my own, but for the will of the one who sent me.” It is lived by sacrifice because we do without so that others might have.  The apostles sold there possession to feed and give to the poor.  It is measured by sacrifice when we look at what someone gave up.  Peter gave up a thriving fishing business with his family to follow Jesus and become a fisher of men.  It is maintained by sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ through the Eucharist.

We are fed by Christ to be lead by Christ to continue His message to fulfill the will of the one who sent Him.  This is why it makes perfect sense for us to come together tonight before the Blessed Sacrament and pray for vocations to the religious life. 

Our local Archdiocesan Church is comprised of 149 parishes, 8 missions and 17 stations. They serve more than 1.5 million Catholics from all walks of life in 10 counties covering more than 8,800 square miles and growing. And there is a very strong possibility that some at time in the near future there will be a shortage of priest to server our community. 

Archbishop Joseph A. Florenza has said that “It is past time for all in the Church to realize that priests come from families and parishes which pray and work hard to encourage and nourish vocations to priesthood.  It is time to develop a culture for vocations.”

Tonight we have taken our first step to develop that culture of vocation.  We have come together to pray for more of our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters to accept God’s call into the consecrated life.

This isn’t the first that our church has faced such a dilemma.  Matthew 9 starts off with Jesus healing a paralyzed man, then calls a disciple to come follow him, they stop to get something to eat and Pharisees interrupts him with questions, so he educates them. Just as he finishes a man walks in says that his daughter has and ask Jesus to come and lay his hand on her so she might live.  As they are leaving a woman suffering from hemorrhages stops him and touches his clothes to be healed. Reaches the man’s house raised his daughter from the dead.
As he was leaving two blind men stop him and asked to be healed. As soon as they leave a mute was brought to him and he cured him.
Then the bibles says that he went on to other villages proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease and illness.  At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest."

So here we are like then Jesus had his disciples and our priests have their deacons, but there are some things that only Jesus could do and just like there are some things only a priest can do.  So as Jesus said we pray that the master sends us laborers to gather his harvest.

Today’s gospel reading from Luke of the encounter between the risen Christ and the disciples on the road to Emmaus provides a helpful paradigm for vocation ministry.

The story is both consoling and challenging.  It is consoling because in it we meet Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, truly present and walking with us.  It is challenging because it concludes with a mission: to encounter the risen Christ is to share our experience with others, draw them into the dialogue of salvation, help them gradually recognize and joyfully respond to the One who makes Himself know in the sharing of the stories and the breaking of bread.

If you hear the Lord’s call, do not reject it! Dare to become part of the great movements of holiness which renowned saints have launched in their following of Jesus Christ.  Parents, give thanks to the Lord if He has called one of your children to the consecrated life.  It is to be considered a great honor – as it always has been – that the Lord should look upon a family and choose to invite one of its members to set out on the path of the evangelical counsels!

Pope John Paul II - seminarians and novice in Budapest

The first disciples, and in a special way the Twelve, were invited to become friends of Jesus. But the condition for being admitted to this privileged relationship was their radical commitment.  Today, too, the only possible response to Christ’s call remains that of the apostles:  “They left everything and followed Him” (Lk 5:11).