This is Part 13 of a fifteen-part series called “The Vision of an Ideal Parish” based on an article by Dr. Peter Williamson published in 2016. This series is intended to return us to our original Faith Forward Vision.
“Come out, Come out, from wherever you are!” I remember yelling that as a kid playing hide-and-seek. What a fun game that was! Whether you were “it,” or you were the one hiding, I think hide-and-seek was an early exercise of mental espionage. I mean, the game itself is a mental exercise of out-guessing one’s opponent: “He thinks I’ll hide here… so I’m going to hide over there;” or “He usually hides in this place… so I’m going to look in a new place.” And even the phrase called out, “Come out, come out…” is a mental trick to get the opponent to make a small noise.
Sometimes I wonder if vocational discernment is like a game of hide-and-seek with Jesus. Didn’t Jesus have to go and ‘find’ the twelve apostles? He ‘found’ some of them while they were working. Others he ‘found’ while he was teaching. And then there was Nathanial who he ‘found’ because he “saw Nathaniel under the fig tree” (John 1:48). Nathaniel was so surprised that Jesus saw him there that he exclaimed “you are the Son of God!” (John 1:49). Talk about mental espionage! Nathaniel couldn’t even figure out how Jesus found him!
I know, from my own experience and the experience of others, hearing a vocation is a lot like Jesus yelling, “Come out, come out, from wherever you are!” And just like he called his apostles in different ways and found them in different circumstances, so too he seeks men and women to follow him as priests or religious in various ways and circumstances.
An ideal parish helps Jesus play a game of hide-and-seek with men and women for some consider a celibate vocation. A parish is kind of like Jesus’ megaphone: while it is the Lord himself who calls, we, as fellow parishioners, magnify his voice every time we invite a person to consider the priesthood or religious life… and pray for them too. As Jesus said,
“Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).
We are so blessed, as a parish, to have several men and women enter the priesthood or religious life, not to mention our five seminarians and two women in religious formation! The only way that we have achieved such a blessing is because parishioners like you took an active role in suggesting that a young person consider a vocation. Let us, therefore, continue to help Jesus play hide-and-seek to help young men and women get their minds wrapped around the possibility of a celibate vocation. And, might I suggest, that you utilize our new prayer corner for vocations, located by the confessionals with the statue of St. John Vianney.
In prayer and word, let us be Jesus’ megaphone and magnify his voice as he cries out, “Come out, come out, from wherever you are!”
Father Jarrod Lies, Pastor