Why don't we pray for vocations to marriage the way we pray for vocations to priesthood/religious life?

[Maximilian75]

most common ≠ default.

Prayerful discernment is nessecary for all vocations, not just the priesthood/ religious life

 

[Thom18]

Everyone should have a healthy desire for marriage. This is asked even of candidates for the priesthood. Religious life, too, I’m sure- it’s in our nature. If you have a desire for marriage and choose to give it up for ordained ministry, that’s one thing- but to have no desire for it at all is odd, to say the least, and can call into question your motivation for seeking another vocation.

 

[TK421]

There isn’t a shortage of people getting married. And if we end up without priests we end up without the Eucharist.

I disagree. I think there is a shortage of valid, sacramental marriages lived out faithfully.

 

[TK421]

Why is it that time and again, we pray for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life, but I have never once witnessed a Prayer of the Faithful for more vocations to marriage? Yes, the priesthood is more noble, but we need holy marriages, too, for else where would priests and religious come from, and what scandal would we give the world without holy marriages?

The parishes I go to, when prayer for vocations are done, it does include marriages and single life.

But I think the conventional reason priests & religious are often invoked is because Holy Matrimony is more of a commonplace vocation (the vocation of Adam & Eve) and ordinations & religious life are supernaturally ordered.

And Generous Singleness is the poorest understood of them.

Pope Francis reminds us that a vocation is a commitment, and commitments in general are under attack. We are scared of the idea of “forever” or “for life”, and this is something anciently rooted in the priesthood and religious life.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

There are also lots of people struggling to find a partner.

 

[Xystus]

Vocations Crisis and solution . . . not what you think Liturgy and Sacraments

I see several threads that have postings related to the fact that we don’t have enough vocations to the priesthood. However, that is not really the vocation in this country that is in the greatest crisis. The real bigger problem IMHO is that we are experiencing a Catholic Marriage Vocation crisis. Compared to two decades ago, the number of American Catholics getting married every year has been cut in half—that’s according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. If that does not…

 

[angelic06]

I pray for a suitable wife…of the Holy Catholic Faith…every day.

It is from Catholic families that young men will rise to the great vocation of sacred priesthood.

And couples will need the strength that comes from the Holy Eucharist in order to feed their own marriages. Does that mean that marriages between Catholics and other Christians do not work? No, but I am convinced that it is largely because my parents received Holy Communion, the Precious “Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world” that their marriage remained for forty years and going, while others fell apart.

So, pray for more Catholic marriages. It is from there we will get holy priests to offer the sacrifice of the Mass on behalf of the living and the dead.

 

[Thom18]

The USCCB has been posting on facebook a lot recently about praying for marriages…