Vocations in families

[jp54321]

My priest gave a homily today on vocations since next week is good Shepard Sunday. He said that St Robert bellarmine said that one out of every three children have a vocation. He said that we must foster vocations in our families and pray and make sacrifices for vocations since there is a shortage. He also said that a spirit of discipline must permeate our homes to foster vocations. Any thing you would add for advice to families on this?

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I don’t know what else people can do but take their children to Mass and teach them to pray for their vocation and the ability to discern it properly.

Many people in my family are either nuns or priests. We have more than the one in three becoming either a nun or a priest, though that number seems rather high to me. We all have a vocation, but I assume you mean to the religious life or the priesthood.

 

[mommy_k]

I think the disciipline your priest refers to is to speak about vocations at home with the same intensity as any other vocation or career choice. Some parents these days do not.

 

[Sarcelle]

I’m afraid being celibate for the sake of the Kingdom is seen as weird or even downright perverse in today’s Western culture. A lot of Catholics would rather see their children cohabitate than discern a religious vocation.

And yes, I have met those Catholics.

 

[Usige]

I’m afraid being celibate for the sake of the Kingdom is seen as weird or even downright perverse in today’s Western culture. A lot of Catholics would rather see their children cohabitate than discern a religious vocation.

And yes, I have met those Catholics.

This is especially true in cultures where people are only having one or two kids. If your only child were to be celibate then you’d have no grandchildren. Some (most?) people see willingly foregoing sexual intimacy as a sign of some kind of brokenness. I think that is why many Catholics dismiss Church teaching on sexual mores. They see religious and clerics as fringe types to one degree or another.

 

[Usige]

Something else I would add is kids need exposure to priests or religious.

In my area there are very few religious other than perhaps Jesuits at one of the highschools and universities. Because of that many kids have never encountered a Dominican, Franciscan, or other religious. Our priests are often tied up with parish administration too, so they never see them outside of Mass or confession.

So how do you expose them if priest and religious aren’t thick on the ground? Actively seek them out. Different active orders will participate in different types of service. If there are Franciscans feeding the poor, offer to help them. I also found out that there was a monastery of cloistered Carmelites near where I grew up. They invite the public to Mass at the monastery once or twice a week. You obviously can not speak with the nuns, but the priorees will speak to people about the order and always happily accepts prayer requests. You can also invite a member of any religious community to speak to kids in CCD through the superior of their local house. No guarantee that they will be able to fulfill the request, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

My whole point is that kids will never consider a vocation if they are unaware of what that vocation is and it’s importance to the Church and the wider world.

 

[EleanorArr]

This is especially true in cultures where people are only having one or two kids. If your only child were to be celibate then you’d have no grandchildren. Some (most?) people see willingly foregoing sexual intimacy as a sign of some kind of brokenness. I think that is why many Catholics dismiss Church teaching on sexual mores. They see religious and clerics as fringe types to one degree or another.

I agree.

My husband and I currently have two children (but with hope for more!). I think if we were not blessed again and both our current children (who are still both very young!) did discern they had a religious vocation, we would be not so much disappointed of course - but maybe sad of the implications re. future grandchildren, however delighted and joyful we would be in other respects.

That doesn’t mean one should dismiss or ignore the Church’s teaching regarding moral sexual behaviour - but where family size is limited (by choice, sadly common enough today, or just by chance) - I think it’s more the impact that a call to a particular state of life which entails celibacy is potentially quite upsetting, than a desire for anyone to disregard the teaching.

I also agree with Lily B, that we should all pray for all families to help the next generation in their discernment towards whatever life God has called each of them to.

 

[MomaMary8]

I’m afraid being celibate for the sake of the Kingdom is seen as weird or even downright perverse in today’s Western culture. A lot of Catholics would rather see their children cohabitate than discern a religious vocation.

And yes, I have met those Catholics.

I have run into mothers with this attitude as well. Religious vocations need to be fostered in the family. Children should be raised with a mind that is open to listening to where God is calling them. It should be common for a little boy to say “when I grow up, I want to be a priest.” They can change their mind, and they often do, but at least it has been considered.

Grandparents can also play a role in a child’s religious vocations, so it’s not just on parents. There was a story about a year ago in our Ach Dio. Paper that highlighted a granmother’s role in praying for priests in her family. She now has 2 grandsons that are priests (they are cousins) and a third is in the seminary.

The best thing we can do is to pray for more vocations, and have humble heart to God’s will in this matter.

Here is the story about 3 brothers being priests:

gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2008/March_08/03272008_05.asp

 

[Xantippe]

The small family thing does not necessarily imply a lack of vocations. Pope Benedict’s parents had “only” three children, and two of them became priests.

 

[Xantippe]

John Paul II’s parents also had three children, but his sister died as an infant, so it was effectively a family with two very widely spaced children.

 

[SusanneT]

A vocation is just that - a gift or burden but from God not a choice.

I can understand that that if in a small family all the children were to have a religious vocation that would be difficult for the parents in terms of grandchildren. But generally I believe we should accept such choices as God makes for our own and our children’s lives.

 

[SusanneT]

A vocation is just that - a gift or burden but from God not a choice.

I can understand that that if in a small family all the children were to have a religious vocation that would be difficult for the parents in terms of grandchildren. But generally I believe we should accept such choices as God makes for our own and our children’s lives.

 

[AdamP88]

Both my fiancee and I have many friends who are either priests or religious. We are kind of hoping that when we have children one might join a religious order. I myself spent some time discerning a vocation as a Dominican brother.

I think when I do have kids my attitude will be to have it that they’re used to seeing people in habit or cassock visiting our home. I’d be very into teaching about the history of the Church and the formations of different orders etc. I think it’s probably the case that children need to know people from different orders in order to see how their lives glorify God. And if we, as parents are encouraging of any desire to have a vocation. Then there’s a much better chance that they’ll see this option as “normal”.

 

[UbiCaritas]

I heartily agree with those who have said to pray for your kids’ vocations (whatever they may be) and to have religious around the house so that they aren’t seen as a scary unknown.

I would add to that that one of the best witnesses for the Catholic life as a whole and vocations in general that your kids will see is your own marriage and your treatment of them. That’s their first “school,” so to speak, in relationships both with other people and with God. At the risk of being a bit depressing, let me put it this way: my parents had priests over to the house all the time when we were kids, but I was terrified of them. Why?

Because I’d usually gone to Confession to those priests (behind a screen, yes, but kids are self-centered, and so I was sure they knew who I was and what I’d done), and while my mother had told me that a priest would never repeat what was said in the confessional, she’d lied to me or betrayed my trust in so many other areas that I couldn’t believe her in that one. This meant that, since I could see that she was friends with these priests, I was sure that at some point one of them would tell her about what I said in Confession and I’d get into serious trouble.

It wasn’t until I got into college and met some really awesome priests via the pro-life movement that I could shake my instinctive fear of religious.

So–pray for their vocations, encourage them to do the same, expose them to the religious life as a possible way of life, but also live your vocation as a spouse and parent to the best of your ability, because that’s where they’ll look first.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

In a believing family, three out of three children have the vocation of layman and laywoman (no minimum age).

It is furthermore the doorway to all the other vocations especially if single.

The Church is utterly desperate for lay vocations.

One has to be awfully inventive to scramble together some formation for it.