Pope Francis’ Intention for February: For vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
Let us pray that the ecclesial community might welcome the desires and doubts of those young people who feel a call to serve Christ’s mission in the priesthood and religious life.
In this month’s prayer intention Pope Francis’ encouragement of vocations to the priesthood and religious life takes an unusual turn. Most writing on religious vocations commend it, explain how important it is for the Church, and what the life can offer those who follow it. All important topics to explore. They look at vocations seen from outside. Pope Francis, however, looks from inside. The Church is not seen as an organisation to join but as a community of which the candidate is part. The church community is to focus too, not on the committed attitude that candidates should have, but on the internal dialogue within itself. The path to the priesthood or religious life involves more than a person making a decision to join and the church accepting or declining that decision. It involves the relationship between members of a community who listen, speak, are sympathetic and rejoice in all the movements of heart and mind that are involved in big decisions. The Church is not there to barrack for the right decision but to encourage persons in whatever decision they take.
This welcoming and supportive attitude to a religious calling within church communities is not to be taken for granted today. Sixty years ago, in the Catholic Church many parents welcomed the decision of their children to become priests or religious. Others, of course, had reservations. Today, however, the decision is so counter-cultural that many family members might oppose it, and the wider community might find it incomprehensible. Pope Francis understands these responses, praying only that members of the Catholic community will enter the life of persons considering a religious vocation and be open to both their doubts and desires.
Pope Francis’ request to give equal weight to good desires and to doubts is also striking. Many Christian writers have regarded doubts as a weakness – a sign of a wavering faith or timid mind. They believed that we should fight against doubt and hope for certainty. Pope Francis gives good desires and doubts equal standing, believing that generous desires will eventually open out into the path that God wants us to follow. Doubts remind us that we have not yet arrived at choosing the way of life that will match our desires. They are particularly significant when we are considering a way of life that runs so strongly against the professed values of our culture as religious life or priesthood. A calling is not a sudden flash of light but a work in progress.
Finally, Pope Francis focuses on the call to the young person and how it should be seen and received in Church communities. He does not touch on a larger question – often taken for granted – whether priesthood and religious life as we understand them should have as prominent a place in the church of tomorrow as it has today. It is right and gracious to pray for young people who consider religious and priestly vocations. It is also right to pray that we read the signs of our times as a Church and respond to God’s call to develop fresh ways of service.
Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ writes for Jesuit Communications and Jesuit Social Services.
