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Being faithful to one’s vocation
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November 7, 2023Lively chatter, greetings, and Mariachi music – the 30th Annual Clergy and Religious Appreciation Banquet, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, was a delightful evening for priests, religious, lay consecrated people and donors.
Michael Villareal, Chapter President of the Knights of Columbus in the Corpus Christi Diocese, thanked the priests, religious and lay consecrated people for being faithful to a serious commitment: “You are helping us to build a closer relationship with God.”
Bishop Michael Mulvey presented to the participants the members of the Fazenda de Esperanza, who are getting started on the farm in Violet to receive the first people struggling with addiction. He recalled his remarks at the State of the Diocese, where he had presented the audience with some facts on the diocese's future: money is short, priests are shorter – and the diocese is spending a lot of money on insurance for its buildings. However, the people were grateful to be involved and discern together, “we prayed and talked at the tables – a miracle.”
Indeed, the Church has never been stagnant. What is asked of us today, so the bishop is to work together – all vocations and charisms, to discern “what the Holy Spirit wants from the Church now.”
“We are one family,” he continued, “we don’t need to be ‘super people’ – love is simple.” If only half of the money spent for insurance would go to youth ministry, “what a healthy Church we would have.”
Supreme Knights Michael Villareal and Victoriano Garcia presented this year’s check for the bishop. Bishop Mulvey designated it to The Ark, an emergency shelter for youth.
The evening’s keynote speaker was Msgr. Douglas Courville, Judicial Vicar of the Diocese. He quotes from the prologue of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, where a country parish priest is described as not ambitious nor greedy; instead, he gives of his own when someone is in need: “I spent my happiest years when I was a parish priest.” Being present to the people is an important quality; most people remember a priest “who was there when your mother was dying.”
He also recalled that when he celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination with his colleagues, “every single one named a nun who encouraged us to pursue a potential vocation.”
With these blessings, there is an obligation – to be faithful to one’s vocation. Msgr. Courville quoted from the book “The Soul of the Apostolate” by Fr. Jean-Baptiste Chautard: “If the priest is a saint (the saying goes), the people will be fervent; if the priest is fervent, the people will be pious; if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent. But if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless.”
He encouraged the participants to seek dialogue, not debate: “Dialogue means to listen to one another… It is easy to become jaded or cynical, but God is Love, and we believe in the power of Love.” Quoting St. Paul to the Corinthians that Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails,” he emphasized that love is the vocation of all of us.
