Several of us with the Incarnate Word Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament are in the planning stages of hosting a vocation retreat. I, for one, would covet your prayers to help us prepare for the retreat as well as prayers during time the young ladies are with us. So mark your calendars for the first weekend in August, Aug. 4-6. And just by coincidence, this is the same weekend that you will be enjoying tax freedom on many of your purchases. How’s that for a memory marker?
So, that activity is the first exceedingly simple action you can do to help prompt religious vocations. Then what happens next? Go to the list below and check off at least one item that is doable for you. Should you remember some of these suggestions from some of my previous posts—
repeat after me—repetition is the key to learning.
Pray for parents and for families
Parents have the most important job in the world: raising children and creating a family. Vocations begin in the home. Every vocation. And our first vocation is our response to our baptismal call to holiness. Granted, some religious vocations do grow out of the arid soil of a dysfunctional family, but think what might happen if just 25 percent more of parents lived-out their vocations fully. I suspect there would be both an increase of religious vocations as well as solid marriages in the next generation of young people.
Ask them
I know a young man who be making first vows in his religious community soon because three people asked him, “Have you ever thought of being a priest?” Religious vocations are out there. Jesus modeled for us the importance of inviting, in doing so, He changed the world. You can too.
Pray for those who are discerning
As praying for vocations goes, this is the tough one. Young people today are very hesitant about making a commitment
. Religious vocations may be out there but until discerners actually make a decision at some point in their discernment; “nothing changes if nothing changes.”
Donate if you are considerably serious about religious vocations
The biggest impediment young people face today is debt. One resource I found mentioned that there are some 10,000 young people discerning a religious vocation and 42 percent cannot enter a formation program due to debt. Part of the answer to this problem are two national groups that help discerners take that all important step of saying yes with debt relief. Perhaps your pastor could arrange to have a special collection taken up with the proceeds going to either Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations or to the Laboure Society.
Join if you are really, really serious about religious vocations
Find out how you can make a difference in helping to support religious vocations as a member of the Serra Club. Their contact person is Juan Alonzo, who can be reached through the Vocation Office at (361) 882-6191.
If you know of any young lady who might be interested in attending our retreat, have her call our vocation director, Sister Anna Marie Espinosa at (361) 882-5413. And do not forget those prayers for our retreat. Thank you ahead of time.