Vocations Today – Pray the World Hears

by Editor · May 7, 2017

Every year on the fourth Sunday of Easter, Catholics worldwide are called to pray for vocations on Good Shepherd’s Sunday.

Several articles in this week’s issue, and the many display adverts by religious congregations, are intended to present vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life as an attractive option.

This week, more than any other, The Southern Cross ought to be presented to young Catholics who may know little about the priesthood or religious life. Somewhere a seed may be planted; at least a better understanding of the life in service of God’s people may be fostered.

It is also important to stress that there are many lay vocations within the Church for those who do not wish to enter the clerical or consecrated state but nevertheless seek to serve God in a particular way.

These lay vocations will become increasingly important in areas where there are insufficient vocations to the priesthood or religious life, or where the growth of vocations does not match that of the Catholic population.

Different circumstances will require different, locally appropriate, responses. This is true even within Southern Africa, where the Church exists in a context of great diversity in cultural and societal norms as well as economic conditions.

South Africa is increasingly affected by the changes that have contributed to shrinking vocations in Europe. For example, the tendency towards smaller families has reduced the pool of possible vocations, as has the decline in the number of people who profess to have religious faith, at least in westernised cultures.

The status of being a priest or religious has diminished in increasingly secularising societies, accelerated by the various scandals involving Church personnel and leaders. In places like Ireland, where vocations used to flourish and the priesthood used to command huge respect, every new ordination is now front-page news in the Catholic press.

Thankfully, we have not reached that point in South Africa, but even here to choose the priesthood or religious life is increasingly becoming a counter-cultural option. Where in the past such a decision might have attracted appreciative approval, today it may also be met with bemusement, perhaps even derision.

To follow God’s call takes courage at the best of times, but it does so especially when it goes against the grain of the prevailing culture.

And this is particularly true in neo-liberal societies in which concern for the marginalised and vulnerable is secondary to the consumerist accumulation of wealth, status and possession; where the value of a person is more likely determined by the cars they drive, the size of their TVs or the price of their shoes.

We Need to Pray

Neo-liberal societies, among which one may include South Africa, tend to be driven by the individualistic pursuit of accumulation and status. They encourage norms that place a primacy on the individual at the expense of community values, concern for fellow human beings, and solidarity with strangers in need.

This finds expression in the decline of the welfare state and the parties that used to encourage social cohesion in many countries, often accompanied by the demonisation of the poor, and the rise of a populism that speaks to fear and demands exclusion.

This self-centred culture is not the way of the Church, as successive popes have made very clear. And when Christians are conditioned to put self before community, accumulation before solidarity, and status before Christ, fewer young men and women are likely to take the counter-cultural path.

So when we pray for vocations this week — and perhaps even every week — we must ask God for a conversion of those societies, including in our region, which sacrifice solidarity and service for materialism and self-interest.

We must pray for a groundswell of people who may foster a greater sense of service and community in society, even if this comes at the cost of a smaller TV set. We must pray that the Church, and the vocations that are offered in it, may be seen as a genuine alternative to the isolating egotism of modern societies.

And we must pray that every genuine call to a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life will find open hearts in an increasingly deaf world.