Dear Friends,

 

Today is the 4^th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday. Because the readings always focus on Jesus, the Good Shepherd, in all the years of the three-year cycle of readings, this Sunday has also become the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, especially and specifically vocations to the priesthood. As we are encouraged to place our hearts and lives into the hands of the Shepherd Who always loves and cares for us, we are asked to pray for more shepherds today, servant-leaders, priests, who would love us as Jesus did. 

 

I have mentioned this before but I do so again because when I first read it, it made such an enormous impression on me. A few years ago, on a pastoral visit to one of the parishes of Rome, the Holy Father addressed the Parish Pastoral Council, and everyone in attendance. He said this. “Every person carries within himself (herself), a project of God, a personal vocation, a personal idea of God, on what he (she) is required to do in history to build His Church, a living temple of His presence. And the priest’s role is above all to reawaken this awareness, to help the individual to discover his (her) personal vocation, God’s task for each one of us.”

 

First, notice the Holy Father stresses that God has a calling for each one of us, a way for each one of us to participate in the divine plan. I love the way the Holy Father puts it, “a personal idea of God,” for each one of us. Think about that a little today. What does that mean for you? If God has an idea for me, how can I know it and if I come to know it, am I listening, answering and following? And who’s the best example of this? Mary, of course. She heard the invitation from God through the angel. She could have said no. But she didn’t and because she didn’t God broke into our world in flesh and blood and the world hasn’t been the same ever since. (And the month of May is still a good time to practice some extra devotion to Mary, in gratitude for her Yes to God.) Wow! Talk about “a project of God, a personal vocation, a personal idea of God.” And God has one of those for you, too.

 

And maybe that personal idea for some of our young men out there is to be a priest. I’m thirty-eight years a priest this year, the last twelve as your pastor (the longest I’ve ever held down the same job). I’ve held down many different posts and rubbed elbows with many different people, including President Clinton, John Paul II, the current Pontiff, when he was a cardinal. But more important than any and all of these is what I feel my life is about now. To help people discover the Divine Presence in their lives, person by person. Those who come to daily Mass know that I have four or five favorite quotes from scripture. One of them is from The Book of Revelation, chapter 3. “Here I stand knocking at the door. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with Me.” After all these years I never get tired of seeing this as my calling, one person at a time. For each one to know that Jesus is there, knocking, waiting to enter. Whatever the means, to help every man, woman, teenager, youngster to open the door. Then, when they open that door, they can do what the Holy Father suggests, discover God’s life personal idea for them. With all its frustrations, I wouldn’t trade this for anything else in the world, not even for the 220 million of this week’s lottery. 

 

If you feel such a knocking at your heart, or if you know someone who has given any indication that they might be feeling such a knocking, let me know. I would be glad to sit with you (them) to listen to your story, share my own and help you find out if you should open that door.