Top Ten Ways ...(Help Needed)

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awfulthings9

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Hey all,

I need help. I’m writing an article for our parish newsletter called “Ten Ways to Encourage Your Son To Consider to the Priesthood”.

It’s not a “top ten” list, but that sounded better in the header.

Looking for suggestions that some of you might have for this list - practical suggestions, such as 1) invite your parish priest over for supper so that your children can see that he is a respected and important person for your family.

Of course prayer is the top on the list, but I’m trying to think outside the box and come up with actual things a person can do to help a consideration of the priesthood be as normal for his/her son as a consideration of married life.
 
Try something along these lines: You should actually and verbally *invite *your Catholic son to honestly consider the priesthood as well as marriage or the single life. Don’t just ‘hint’ at it.
 
Read Lives of the Saints. I know TAN Books has an extensive series of Saints in chapters with illustrations, suitable for children, and some of them will talk about how the subject wanted to be a priest since he was little… told mother such & such… etc.

Indirectly, for older boys: Don’t treat your son as weird if he’s not dating. (Now of course people who read articles of this type are less likely to do this; it’s important though–when people are pressured into dating, obviously, it’s a lot harder to discern.)
 
Hmm…that may be why I’m discerning a vocation to be a nun…I’ve never dated!

A tip: Don’t keep asking about marriage or husbands or wives or anything like that. My mom keeps telling me that “when I get married…” instead of “if I get married”. I think that makes me more cautious to inform my family of my discernation (I haven’t yet). 🤷

Also, perhaps their sons ARE thinking about being priests, but don’t get enough encouragement! Maybe if parents mention it as one of the options that are open, the boy will open up and say, “You know, I was thinking about that already…”

Of course, that may just be optimistic 🙂
 
awfulthings9 said:
Of course prayer is the top on the list, but I’m trying to think outside the box and come up with actual things a person can do to help a consideration of the priesthood be as normal for his/her son as a consideration of married life.
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In general, I think the LC summer camp is a good idea. Other orders have summer programs as well. For example, the Glenmary Home Missioners, which serves counties in the Bible Belt with little or no Catholic presence, has a really neat looking program that is ongoing and oriented toward youth groups. glenmary.org/opport/layinfo/volunteer.htm

Now for more specific stuff. I am a late vocation who might have been a “normal” aged vocation had I received the right push at the right time. So I’m trying to think of things that might have helped me way back when.

Regarding the priesthood vs other things. Teenage boys do not think about marriage. They think about sex. In our society, they are very carefully trained to think that random, meaningless sex with multiple partners is the measure of a man. So it does little good, IMHO, to teach your kids that the priesthood is as good as marriage – you have to teach them that it is better than sex.

So, what is really cool about the priesthood, from a teen or pre-teen perspective?

POWER!

The priest has the power, (authority really, but we’ll go with power for now), to hand out the love of God any time he feels like it, and when he asks Christ to make Himself physically present, Christ will do so every time. So, make sure that they have as full an understanding of the sacraments as their age and capabilities allow.

A few more specific suggestions:
  1. Teach them! Make sure they know what the Church believes and why, and make sure that their eduction in the faith grows up as they do.
  2. Raise your kids to love and respect Jesus Christ. Specifically, see to it that they do not fall into the popular perception of Jesus as a passive little wimp.
  3. Make sure they also love and respect His Church. Show them that you love and respect the Holy Father, your Bishop, and the priests at your parish. In other words, show them by your own actions and beliefs that being a priest is really cool.
  4. Talk to them about it – very carefully and selectively. Be very careful not to pressure, and remember that to a teenager mentioning something twice in a year may well be construed as overbearing pressure. Just make sure that a few times during their development they hear if from your lips that you’d be happy and supportive if they were to think seriously of a religious vocation.
 
This one isn’t so much for that parents as the priests themselves:

“Make sure you make it known how much you love your vocation! Brag about it! Let every child know that joy that comes with following God’s will in both word and action.”
 
Hi,

Maybe you’ve already sent in your article, but if you’re still looking for ideas:
  1. Encourage your children to consider all options, with the first step being that they should ask what God wants them to do. They should know that God has wonderful plans for their lives and they can experience these plans if they will be open to His will. A big part of this step of considering one’s options is to spend time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, which I would definitely recommend to a young person considering God’s will for his or her life.
  2. Another thing that you family can do to show that you recognize the value of the priesthood is to spiritually adopt a priest. At Opus Sanctorum Angelorum, you and/or your family can be assigned a Bishop, priest or seminarian to pray for for a year. The year begins on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, so if you’re interested, contact them soon! Their web site is opusangelorum.org.
  3. The Cincinnati diocese has an “Adopt a Seminarian” program. This is kind of taking the “invite a priest to dinner” idea a step further, including the seminarian in some of your family activites and special events and keeping in touch with him regularly. My sister in that diocese participated in that program and felt it was a nice both for the seminarian and for her family.
Hope one or two of these ideas helps!
 
Get your sons exposed to priests. Let priests be role models for them. Allow them to see that priests are people too. They’re normal human beings, but what they do is also special. Don’t push too hard, just let your son know about such a vocation, the seminary system, religious orders in a very natural way of conversation or other exposure. Go on a trip as a family to the seminary sometime, for example, if it’s open to the public! Or invite the pastor to dinner. Encourage him to be involved in some sort of Church type thing (like being an altar boy or some service ministry) which might attract him to Church work.
 
Teach your son to love Christ and have a personal relationship with him. That sounds kind of ‘evangelical-y’, but it’s important. Too often I think we teach our kids the ‘rules’ so to speak, but forget to instill in them a true loving relationship with Christ. If you can succeed in doing that, the Lord will make his call on your child’s life clear. 🙂

Also, you may want to re-title your article “Ways to Encourage Your Child To Consider to Religious Life”. Religious Brothers and Sisters are important to God’s kingdom too! 😉
 
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