By Fr. Jerry Hardy

Several years go, I wrote in this column every other week on the subject of vocations in the service of the Church. This week marks the return of the column at least for a while. Fr. John Adamski will be writing for you every other week to give added variety.

For whom is this column intended? Primarily, I think I’ll aim it at parents, and for several reasons. First of all, I don’t know how many BULLETIN readers there are among the young Catholics in the Archdiocese. Secondly, the whole question of parental attitude towards a vocation to priesthood or religious life is still a problem. Thirdly, if it is not a problem then parents who read this may be moved to show it to the eligible members of their family with some encouragement to read it.

Why write the column in the first place? Well, I have the smiling suspicion that there are some folks who might be interested in the kind of life and work the priesthood and religious life are all about. But if no one introduces it as a topic of conversation (when was the last time anyone brought it up when talking with you?), the challenge and reality of it may not be made apparent to our younger adults.

So you might say this column is to catch you eye, your mind’s eye, so you’ll think about the possibilities in a vocation to the life and work of a priest, brother, sister, or married deacon. If not for you, then maybe someone in your family or circle of friends.

One of the major problems most people point to as a roadblock to considering one of these vocational choices is the current turmoil and transition in the Church. Some younger people say they cannot suggest such a vocational choice as a viable option until things calm down. Both miss the point. Jesus himself experienced the pain and turmoil of his own day, the misinterpretation of his motives, the twisting of his words, the collapse of his kingdom, the apathetic loyalty of his followers and the judgment by his fellow citizens that he wasn’t fit to live. But then, Jesus never told us his love would make it easy; he did tell us his love would make it possible. A life in the service of the gospel through the ministry of the Church is simply a radical, tangible expression of faith in what his love can make possible.

The point lies not in choosing something because it’s comfortable or tension-free, but because it offers you some significant satisfaction and demands from you a quality called “your very best.”

Life for a person who dedicates himself or herself to doing the Gospel does both. The significant satisfactions. They’ll vary from minister to minister and all those choices are choices of a ministry of sorts), but essentially they arise from the realization that because of your help a man is more closely in touch with himself and with his Lord. They rise from watching people grow tall enough to handle their own responsibilities with hands made stronger and steadier by the reassurance of your life that we have a FATHER who loves us, not in proportion to our worthiness, but in proportion to our neediness. They rise from the surprising realization that the Lord can somehow use you to phrase and formulate some meaning out of the problems of men’s lives showing them that believing is possible.

The demands? Much like marriage, such a life in the service of the Church demands from you a capacity of love, to live beyond yourself, to laugh as best you can, even when everything around says cry It asks of you an uncommon holiness which means, that more than other men and women, you make yourself available to the Lord and his spirit who may lead you where you had not thought of going. It calls you to suffer a little, like married life, through free-will sacrifice and loneliness.

But suffering isn’t what’s important. It never is since we’ll have suffering whatever we choose to do. What is important is that this kind of vocational life style can say some things our world needs to hear and can say them with a living witness. Things like:

GOD is something to believe in.

JESUS is the real thing.

HOPE and COURAGE are the wings of man.

LOVE is building a better way to see the U.S.A.

While the Christian vocation in general calls us to say those things to some degree, the times demand some folks who will offer their lives as specific radical signs of them. I’m looking for some of those folks.