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Parish Vocation Ministry Training
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May 9, 2023In collaboration with Serra International, Bob Cummings, the Director of the Office of Vocations for the Diocese of Corpus Christi, hosted a vocations workshop in the parish hall of Most Precious Blood Catholic Church on Saturday, April 30, 2023. The mission of the U.S. Vocation Committee of Serra International is to “support and assist bishops and vocation directors in their vocation activities by promoting a culture of vocations in each parish and with Catholic families.” They accomplish this through establishing vocation ministries and encouraging parishes to involve families and ministries in “vocation awareness activities and discernment.” During the workshop, they introduced SPARK: The Serra Promotion and Resource Kit on serraspark.org, which was built to provide parishes and individuals with a suite of customizable tools they will need to carry out Serra’s mission.
The event began at 8:30am with Bishop Michael Mulvey saying Mass inside the main church. In his homily, he emphasized the supernatural grace that should spring fourth in us when we receive the Holy Eucharist. “We have to go deeper,” he said. “The Eucharist should change us. We need supernatural gifts from God. As Catherine of Siena said, we need to ‘see Him face to face’.” He built on this during his opening speech in the St. Juliana Hall: “Vocations belong to all of us. We are particularly concerned about consecrated life and the priesthood. Why aren’t there more? There is a new generation of people who find it hard to stay committed to something. We need to approach vocations not just from the practical side, but we also need to develop a spiritual life within the family for our young people that will cultivate vocations.”
He mentioned that he had recently done a Q&A session with the students at the Texas A&M Corpus Christi Newman Center. During that session, he’d noticed that most of the students’ questions were about spirituality. “That’s the great thirst of our society. Tap into that. Not just the practical side of being a priest or a nun. First, lead them to God to have a deep experience of Jesus Christ. When it is a vocation, it has to be real and personal. This requires a spiritual renewal.” Bishop Mulvey spoke of how his own family had played a large part in his journey to the priesthood, and how a priest is taken from the formative environment of the family in order to enter a vocation that serves the family. As baptized Catholics, he said, we all play a part, and we are all responsible for creating a culture of vocations.
There were seventy-eight workshop attendees, including sixty parishioners, four pastors, Bishop Mulvey, a few diocesan staff, and the Serra Club members. Serra International President Greg Schweitz was assisted by members Betty and Adam Lara in running the event and giving the presentation, which covered all the support and resources provided by the organization. Bob Cummings, Sr. Mary Claire Strasser, and Fr Carlos De La Rosa also assisted with various tasks, and added input throughout the sessions, which ended at 3:00pm.
Betty Lara began the presentation by sharing background information on Serra International and its patron, St. Junipero Serra. To illustrate how important it is to cultivate vocations, she shared some statistics on the national priest shortage crisis: Vocations have been down 30% since 1965. Only 14% of priests are Hispanic, despite rising Hispanic populations in the U.S. She also shared the startling statistic that 20% of dioceses in the U.S. had no ordinations last year.
In response to this crisis, Serra’s goal is to affirm young men and women in their vocational discernment and walk with them through that long journey by creating a culture of vocations. “It is not a single event. It is more of a commitment to friendship and development. This happens through assistance of vocation directors, pastors, and families, through unclear times, until they feel confident.” They want to support the “primary seminary,” that being the family, where children should be encouraged to see how God might be calling them. On SPARK there are thirty-one different tools designed to affirm, create awareness, invite, encourage, and promote prayer to build a vocations culture. These include the Traveling Crucifix, Holy Hour, Vocations Witness, Priesthood Sunday, Adopt a Seminarian, 31 Club, to name a few. These tools can all be found on their website. The Serra team is also on call to help parishes on an individual basis.
Along with structured activities, a key factor is prayerful patience. Loretta Hernandez and Georgia Landin were there, both representing Holy Family Catholic Church. Both ladies have sons in seminary. Deacon Eric Hernandez, Jr., CSP will be ordained a Paulist priest in Washington, D.C. on May 20th, and Subdeacon Alejandro Landin will be ordained a Marianite priest in Austin on May 28th. Loretta said that, since pursuing the priesthood, her son has found true joy and has fallen in love with the consecrated life. She shared that she had to be open to where God is calling her son. “I have a lot of faith in God,” she said. Georgina believes her son has become joyful in the process as well. “You have to give up so much to become a religious. And yet, this is the most joyful I have ever seen him now that he’s following God.”
Hernandez and Landin are not sure when their sons first felt the call. They observed that the discernment process is very long, even before they start seminary. Sr. Mary Claire Strasser shared her own experience of her slow discernment. To encourage the group, she said, “Be patient with the fruits. You don’t know what seeds are being planted.” She said that she and the other SOLT sisters are able to visit parishes to help young people witness what being a religious can look like.
From St. Pius X Catholic Church, Beth Ramos was one of the attendees who got up to share the tools her group intends to implement in their parish. Afterward, she said, “I do see first-hand that our priests are shorthanded and spread thin. I also know that rural communities and small parishes frequently have to share priests. As a parishioner, I struggle with this because I wish I could do more to help. Thanks to the Serra presentation, I see that all of us can actively help our priests and ensure our Church continues to have the shepherds we need. Whether we are praying, actively discussing vocations, or offering support to seminarians, we are all called to support our church, priests and religious.”
Bob Cummings also shared his thoughts after the workshop by saying, “I think it went really well, particularly after hearing the very concrete and enthusiastic presentations made in the afternoon by the parish teams of their mission statements and goals for their parish ministry upon their return.” Cummings’ main aspiration is to create a culture of vocations in the parishes of the diocese. He hopes to include more parishes when he coordinates this workshop again next year.
