By Fr. John Adamski

Let this serve as a preview of coming attractions. During the first months of 1973, several Atlanta priests and sisters will be working on vocation programs throughout Atlanta. We will be visiting most of our local colleges and some area high schools. You may see some of us in posters or papers; you might hear one of us on the radio-all in order to remind others that ministry is an important, meaningful possibility in today’s world and today’s church.

You won’t find us in the pages of PLAYBOY (we can’t afford that), but we do hope to find you in many of the places where you live, study and otherwise “do your thing.” We’ll be making these efforts because service and leadership in the Church is so important and real in our lives that we would like to encourage others to consider the same possibility for their lives.

During the past ten years, there has been a great deal of change and some resulting confusion in the Church. Many haven’t always been too sure what the priesthood and sisterhood might still mean. That time of change may have been a helpful and necessary time of growth.

Perhaps now we can move out of the time of confusion. We’re eager to share some of our convictions and reasons for wanting to serve with others who might find the same need and call in their lives.

Many people will be involved in this effort – it’s a big task. Nevertheless, these people will never be able to accomplish the task themselves. A call to service in the Church is seldom heard in just one event or encounter. Rather, it’s more likely to be a series or pattern of people and experiences which help another person to hear that call from God in a way which becomes increasingly clearer. Each person reading this column is an important part of that process.

All of today’s priests and sisters should realize that they are largely responsible for tomorrow’s leaders in the Church. We must each be willing to share ourselves with others, and especially our young people, in such a way that they are more and more able to understand something of the reason and purpose we find for our style of lives. There isn’t any single way of accomplishing that kind of communication, other than a very basic and honest sincerity which lets the strength of our convictions and the existence of our doubts penetrate our being with people. I don’t believe our young people will turn away simply because things don’t come across in their own jargon or categories.

They may have great reason, however, to remain disinterested if they can’t see in our lives and actions some genuine enthusiasm and interest in God’s call for this world and the needs of our brothers and sisters around us. We need to make sure that we’re willing and ready to give of ourselves in that way.

Parents obviously have a very significant role to play in this process as well. Your effort to teach your child about the meaning and purpose of life, its value and significance, will certainly have a profound impact on your child’s approach to the deep questions of his own life. If your son or daughter recognizes in your actions a firm commitment to live as one of God’s people, he may find it much more sensible to work through a similar response in his own life. Our young people learn a lot from the way we live our lives and the convictions that guide our actions if not necessarily our words.

Commitment and service will become much more viable options for a young person if he has learned and understood these ideals from the actions and lives of his parents and other adults around him. With that kind of background and appreciation, a person might become much more capable of responding to God’s call to ministry in the Church because the value of that Church and its people already has meaning in his life.

We’re in the midst of Advent ’72 – an important time of preparation for each of us to examine again the sincerity of our own Christian lives. No doubt, each of us needs to prepare the Lord’s way into our own hearts and lives so that we can serve him better.

But we also must be willing to help prepare his way into the lives of others, to help others respond more fully to that call. Maybe our prayers and actions can grow even stronger in that effort today.