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I would be interested in hearing different ideas and thoughts on how to encourage young people to realize that the priestly and religious ways of life are viable choices.

I'm 50 years old. If it were possible in my life I'd become a priest if allowed. Since I attend church at a Roman Rite church I guess it is out of the question.

The point I'm trying to make is that it took me most of my life to realize I should have considered this years ago.

Now ... the road narrows ... time grows short.

Let's say it was possible (in Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic) it would take about 7 to 10 years I think ... If I lived to 85 and was productive from 60 to 80 that would be 20 years of service.

Perhaps the young are a waste of time

I googled and found http://www.shst.edu/
http://www.stvincentmonks.com/index2.html

I am a young man interested in the Byzantine Catholic Priesthood!

I think a good way to help young people in seeing the priestly and religious life is for younger priests to come to colleges and high schools (not public ones of course) and speak to young men about their lives as priests.

My only problem is school debt. I have, worst case, 60,000 in school debt. Does anyone know of programs for young men with vocations to be helped with debt? And would it hurt me because I a wish to pursue the married Byzantine priesthood?

Well there you have it.

1. Let Old married people become priests

2. allow young men to marry before during and after seminary and ordination

3. pay expenses for people to become priests

The Roman Rite would do well to heed this as well

We need more priests and other religious outside the pulpit. Particularly, in the classroom, but as part of our non-liturgical life.

I suspect that we get at least a couple, probably a few, people recognizing their vocations for each priest/religious that we "spend" in a classroom--pulling them for parishes is probably a net loss.

We also need programs such as you describe. If there was a way to support my family, I'd be calling the bishop myself. Then again, if there were real interest on the hierarchy's end, there are enough Catholic colleges in Pittsburgh that my classroom time teaching could be traded for the other expenses.

Yes, I realized what I was supposed to be doing way to late--I should have been a classroom priest.

hawk

Glory to Jesus Christ, Honour to Mary Immaculate!

An excellent website for anyone thinking of a vocation to the priesthood or the religious life is www.vocationist.org. [vocationist.org.] This is an awesome website.

May Jesus the Lover of Mankind Bless You!

Maybe you can say more about what you're asking for.

I think the best outreach is seeing priests, sisters, deacons in love with their vocation, and then for the young person to be able to develop a relationship with priests and other religious. Father Abbot Nicholas and Father Thomas J Loya, both Byzantine, were here for the installation of our new RC bishop a few months ago. I wrote to Fr. Loya later to say he did more for raising an awareness of ECCs here just by being there in his Eastern garb than any amount of talking about ECCs I've done. There is such a powerful statement and an outreach in that clothing. (We see very little here of our RC priests in clerical garb, ditto for the sisters and nuns. Most of the kids and adults have not idea we usually have a bunch of sisters and sometimes priests in the pews. )

I agree with what Nelson Chase said about the importance of priests and religious going to talk to kids in the schools, tho I'd say the grade schools too, not just colleges and high schools. Camps like Camp Nazareth [youtube.com], Fr. Jim has posted here, seems like ideal places for talking about vocation in a very natural setting.

There are some wonderful videos re vocations on the internet. Young people look on the internet for so much of their information I think it is a critical place for all sorts of evangelization. I don't know if there are any for EC and Orthodox. Surely there must be and I haven't come across them yet.

I love this from the Archdiocese of NY [youtube.com], from their Vocations dept. It's a reminder that our processions ECC, RC, Orthodox are always life changing for all.

I just referred someone to this site [romancatholicvocations.blogspot.com] which has a lot of information and links, but I am disappointed to discover a number of the links aren't working anymore. Some you can find on goggle and on YouTube by typing in the title from the menu on this site right hand column (Ex:"Vocations Videos"). Many of the Orders [opwest.org] have videos on their sites in the vocations section. And on YouTube if you start in one area ex: Monks [youtube.com], vocations sisters [youtube.com] you get a number of videos from different monastic communities. And many Diocese have good videos on their vocation page.

This Cathedral Prep Discernment Program [youtube.com] looks like a great program for young guys.

There are Vocations Retreats [opwest.org] usually a couple times a year at seminaries and under other auspices, I imagine women's communities have these also, we should know about and encourage them to go to.

Father Loya did an excellent program about celibacy in his June 11 Body of Truth [catholicradiointernational.com] program prompted by Father Cutie's involvement with a woman being revealed, and his subsequent leaving the Catholic Church. I think it's the kind of clear, honest teaching that is also the kind of information helpful to those discerning a call, for those vocations that include celibacy, and those not. Something similar about the challenges of being a married priest in contemporary US, and probably other countries, would be very good. A young man recently told me he would like to become an ECC priest but doesn't see how, because he wants to marry and he sees how hard it is financially for married priests in his ECC.

I also think participating in any Liturgy for Ordination is one of the great experiences one can have. I've not been to any Eastern or Orthodox ordinations but have been blessed to participate in the Masses for ordination of RC men to the diaconate, priesthood and for a bishop. Every time I hear one is coming up I tell our RCIA folks and all my friends about it, encouraging them to go. Just thinking about an ordination is so exciting and moving for me. We should really encourage our young people to come and participate in these liturgies.

Catholic Radio airs short one or two minute testimonies of priests, deacons, sisters, nuns talking about their call to vocation. I heard Fr. Michael Sopoliga once, but he's the only Eastern priest I've heard in that series. I think those are very effective. Ancient Faith Radio [ancientfaith.com] has "Campus Ministry", "Voices From St Vladimir’s Seminary", and "re/Call" Podcasts geared to youth but it doesn't really look like these have a vocations focus. I usually only am listening to archived shows there, not live. I'm sure the very vibrant priests and other religious on EWTN are having an influence. Again, it's priests and sisters visible. I realize this isn't typically an issue for ECCs and Orthodox who have managed to keep in clerical clothing and habits. (And I continue to ask EWTN for more programming with Eastern priests. They have several bi-ritual RC priests but it's not the same as the old Light of the East program with Fr. Sopoliga and Fr. Joseph Bertha, sigh.) On our Catholic Radio anyone can put in for a Public Service Announcement [ihradio.org] so there's no reason that can't be used by anyone to promote vocations.

I apologize that most of the resources I mention are RC. I'd love to see more for Orthodox, ECCs and Oriental. I think there must be some more out there.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI declared this the Year for Priests and I hope we all really do respond. We need to pray for vocations for all of God's church regardless of rite etc., to let our religious know how much we love them and how grateful we are for their vocation. Do our children see how much we love our priests, deacons and sisters??...

Here's a story that could inspire one to vocations. The slide show [tinyurl.com] is great.

When I was in formation for Diaconate, there was an optional course on catechesis taught by a Sister who had been involved in the English translation of the CCC. She made the point that when we catechize, before we even begin to cover the prescribed material, in many cases we will have to "rebuild the culture" of that child, because their parents have been badly catechized (by doing "collages" ,and by the use of bad texts). This "rebuilding" of the child's "culture" will involve instilling in him/her a belief in the existence of God, the afterlife, the supernatural, etc. , since our setting is now so secularistic. Coming from very poor family situations, we can assume nothing about the level of knowledge of the one to be catechized. They may not ever have heard of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that this is also the reason for the dearth of vocations to priesthood and monasticism. In essence, the problem is one of "growing the Church" by "rebuilding the culture" while simultaneously spreading the Faith. More people in the pews with larger, more generous families will result in more young people looking to serve the Church. This is the long-term answer.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Gee, you don't suppose the failure of our hierarchs to provide a clear and unambiguous message regarding ordained ministry as something open to all men, or their outright hostility to real Eastern monasticism might have something to do with it, do you?

Or perhaps men see the way in which clerics are being whipsawed and browbeaten by their bishop, pulled in one direction by the Holy See, and a different direction by their own hierarchs, and say, "Thanks, but I'll pass"?

And I could mention the bishops' cluelessness and utter passivity on the issue. "Pray for vocations" is nice, but never any indication that it is our job, as the laity, to actively encourage suitable men to put themselves forward? I suppose it all comes down to the mistaken belief that ordained ministry is a "vocation" to which one is called by God, rather than a ministry of service to which one is called by the Church (meaning, inter alia, the entire Body of Christ, but particularly the parish community in which one lives). It certainly would have surprised Ambrose of Milan or John Chrysostom to hear that one is "personally called" to the priesthood, especially considering the circumstances of their own ordinations. Monasticism is a personal vocation; ordained ministry is not.

That aside, it is my observation that children naturally believe in God, or are inclined to do so, and that it takes a concerted effort to knock that out of them. So, it's not so much a matter of rebuilding the culture as it is accessing the innate faith of the very young.

And it is also my observation that full and active participation in the Liturgy is the best way of accessing that innate faith. We were baptized when my children were six and four, and I taught ECF for seven years thereafter. I always taught through the Liturgy, and was always amazed at how readily children could pick up the tones and the words, how much they were engaged by the ritual and processions, and (among boys) how much they wanted to participate by serving at the altar. There was no need to rebuild the culture, but there was a need to put the faith in opposition to the culture, and let nature take its course.

People are hungry for faith, which is why there is such a proliferation of cults and new agey movements. People are looking for a faith that is full, authentic and true. We can give that to them, we have a liturgical and spiritual Tradition that has succeeded in gaining adherents everywhere from Africa to Alaska. We succeed not when we engage the culture, or when we try to rebuild the culture, but when we stand outside of the culture as something new, dynamic, exotic and different.

If we are failing, it is because we have not offered this vision of ourselves, which, in the case of Byzantine Catholics, might just be due to our mixed feelings about who we are and what we ought to be.

My recollection is that, in context, the instructor was referring to situations where there is no practice of the Faith in the home, but where it is decided to send the kids for religious education because it is tied to the reception of a sacrament (such as Confirmation in the Latin Rite), which is viewed more as some sort of a "rite of passage". The kids involved are starting off with little or no religious knowledge. As a catechist, I have seen aberrational things like this in our parishes. In one parish where I was involved in the early 80's, the priest would schedule two Divine Liturgies on Sundays (which wouldn't be done if we followed our own disciplines), and we would have Religious Ed classes between the end of the first Liturgy, and the beginning of the second. I remember a couple of cases where the parents would drop the kids off for class, and pick them up at the end of class, with nobody in the family attending the Liturgy (the priest finally addressed the issue after I brought it to his attention). In cases such as this, it is much more difficult, but not impossible, to effectively catechize. I think this Sister was also correct, in the context of the Latin Church, in mentioning the horrible catechesis which was done in the aftermath of Vatican II, with texts which were authored by neo-Modernists. The parents who were victimized by this horror have very little of the authentic Faith to pass on to their kids. In situations such as this, it is probably a good idea to catechize the parents and the kids at the same time.

Dn. Robert

I doubt it matters whether there is overt practice of religion in a household. All children have a natural belief in things unseen. They are credulous, which means they are willing to believe, so all you need to do is give them something to believe.

Now, if their parents are bringing them to church, there is some recognition on their part that this is an important aspect of their child's formation. And, as I told the parents of my students at the beginning of each year (my "come to Jesus" meeting), I had their kids for an hour a week, so there was a definite limit to what I could do through my own efforts. I stressed the need for them to live out at home what I taught in ECF. I stressed the centrality of the Liturgy in the spiritual formation and catechesis of their children. I told them that we would be studying the Liturgy up close and personal, so their kids would have to attend--meaning they would have to attend. In short, I pretty much shamed them into coming to Liturgy, shamed them into at least giving lip service to prayer in the home, veneration of icons, observance of the fast, reception of the sacraments.

The Latin Church is very much a different milieu from our own, because for a very, very long time liturgy and catechesis had little to do with each other (other than rubricism). Catechesis is something you get from studying the catechism, not going to Mass. Mass is an obligation you fulfill so you can receive communion.

For us, Liturgy is the wellspring and touchstone of our theology, and (in theory) the principal means of catechesis, with stuff like ECF definitely secondary and supplementary. So the ways in which we approach catechesis are very different, and for us, the first and overriding requirement to ensure proper catechesis of all the faithful, from infants to adults, cradle and convert, is the restoration of the fullness of our liturgical tradition and the celebration of the liturgy--all of it--in a manner consistent with our texts and our Tradition.

I am currently serving as a Coordinator of Youth Ministry and Faith Formation for Jr and Sr. High.Liturgy in a Latin Parish. Liturgy is also the principal form of catechesis for the Latin Church. We realize that we do not live up to the standard and fail in this practice.

I have stated many times in my experience as a Catechetical Leader, as well as many of my colleagues, that we would rather have children (and adults) attend the Liturgies of the Church and not attend Religious Ed. session than to attend the sessions and not attend Liturgy. "Religious instruction" is meaningless without full and active participation in Liturgy.

I think that one of the most important ways to encourage young people to consider religious life is for them to have ample opportunity to get to know and interact with the people who are living it.

I just returned yesterday from a camping trip with the Oblates of St. Joseph, a Latin order of priests and brothers, with a special charism to work with young people. We had daily Mass, and at one of the Masses, two of the Brothers renewed their vows. The priests and brothers were a joyful, active presence to all of us present. Our children had an opportunity to see that they lead full and active lives, yes still see their lives in the context of their priesthood.

I also am privileged to know several Sisters from the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. These women absolutely glow with joy and their faith and love are infectious.

One thing that my experience with both of these groups is that they talk about their lives and their love of God, and they make an effort to truly get to know young people. In this way, young people can start to see themselves in this life. Most importantly, they extend personal invitations to young people to consider their way of life. Of the 4 priests who preached during the camping trip, two of them specifically made the call for young men to consider life as a Priest or Brother. This is helpful, but they are also in the position to identify and mentor young men who might be interested in religious life.


Elizabeth