Kate, mother of eight children, writes an excellent blog called "At home in my Father's house" (now added to the blogroll). She has followed up on my recent post about The importance of a "culture of vocation" with her own thoughts on the culture of vocation at home. One of her sons is in the "Quo Vadis" group organised by Fr Stephen Langridge, the vocations Director for Southwark (see: Southwark Vocations)so say a prayer for him and for the others in the group.
I was at Wonersh today for my last session of the academic year. The students have various pastoral and other courses before the summer break. First of all, though, they have to take their exams so a prayer for them to St Joseph Cupertino would not go amiss.
5 comments:
Thanks for the link, Father! I am to nag my bishop about vocation promotion soon, and home environments such as these are exactly what we should be focussing on (in my opinion).
Please don't forget St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Joseph of Cupertino is only the patron for bad students, isn't he? (You wouldn't hear me complaining, by the way, he helped me pass an exam just last month!)
I am always glad to find resources on how to promote vocations within the context of the family. One thing I preached on recently was how in so many families the possibility of marriage is presumed ("when you grow up and get married, you will be able to do this or that..."), but the possibility of the priesthood or religious life is not presumed nor discussed as a viable and desirable option. I mentioned also that it would be commendable for families to pray during their daily family prayers that God would BLESS their family with at least one of the children becoming a priest or religious.
Some people looked at me like I had two heads!
I have been contemplating what might be a rather "tough" homily for the future, that might involve my putting the question to the people this way: "Why is it that God has not blessed our parish with a vocation in X number of years? What have we done wrong?" The ball needs to be put in their court in various ways. People tend to hope for vocations but they hope for them somewhat at a distance -- "As long as it is not MY son!". Or they might even be open to one of their children becoming a priest or religious, but they never make it a serious point of family or private discussion or they just figure that God will take care of things.
My but that academic term seems short!
Are you planning on posting about tomorrow's feast day?
Fink it may be busy in Pantheon square!
Thanks Fr., all prayers for our son and the other Quo Vadis members are very welcome!
Thanks also for adding my blog to your blogroll, as a newcomer I feel very honoured.
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