I don't believe it's officially Vocation Sunday, although this week's scripture readings sure make it sound that way. Here's my reflection on the call of the first disciples. Have a read if you'd like, or feel free to listen in:
Can I have a hand?
As I read through this gospel in preparation for this weekend's homily, I thought of my parents, bags of groceries and tools. Now before you think that I've lost it completely, let me explain. Many times during my childhood, my brothers and I heard my father's or my mother's voice coming through the door of my childhood home. 'Can I have a hand here?' Sometimes, that invitation meant that there were bags of groceries coming in and we were being summoned to help transport them to the kitchen from the front door. At other times, dad was under the car, changing the oil or the brake shoes and needed someone to pass him any variety of tools while he was about the task at hand. More often than not, we had to pull ourselves away from the television to respond to such calls, but the simplest tasks were often the best way to spend some quality family time. When the oil had been changed, or the groceries had been put away, there was a feeling of satisfaction. As we look back now, this was and still is the stuff of memories.
In today's gospel, Jesus asked Peter, Andrew, James and John to lend him a hand. Working side by side with him, they created their own memories. They learned the craft of sowing the seeds of faith. They weren't the only ones he called, but he was deliberate about spending time with them, teaching them how to do the sowing, even as he counted on them to help with the task of proclaiming the good news. Jesus still asks people to lend a hand. In today's parlance, we refer to this asking as discovering and discerning a vocation, but we have to be careful never to think of discernment as something that we do on our own, like figuring out what we'd like to do when we grow up.
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was relatively easy to be a priest. Up until the mid-sixties, there were hundreds of seminarians, so there was lots of support for people who were trying to listen for God's voice, but in the mid-1980s when I found myself finishing off undergraduate studies and thinking seriously about priesthood, it wasn't so easy. Some of the men who began theology studies with me left after just a few days, others joined us, but still others disappeared for one reason or other along the way too. I still remember one of the faculty members at the seminary explaining to newly-arrived seminarians that the process of discernment and responding to God's call could be compared to a coppersmith whose task was to create a kettle. The trouble was, and still is today, that the only tools at his disposal were a flat sheet of copper and a hammer.
The 1980s, you might remember were also the years when the crisis of the Mount Cashel orphanage first became public news in Canada, and the never-ending tide of reports about abuse committed by priests and brothers cast a pall not only on priests who were already in the vineyard, but on those of us who hadn't even emerged from formation yet. In fact, as I look back at the years of my own discernment, there are decisions that had to be made about places and situations we could and couldn't get into, measures of safety we had to adopt for our own safety, and situations that we just can't afford to expose ourselves to. I remember thinking then, as I still do today, that the world has changed so much that kids today just don't get the same exposure to priests that even I had when I was a child, and the effects are already only too apparent.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to paint a 'woe is me' image of priesthood; far from it. No life today is easy, because we all face struggles. Where once there was a certain conviction of faith, there is all too often today a confusion about what is right, and one of the consequences of such confusion is that a faith formerly sustained by the conservative power of tradition needs the enlightened support of a strong intellectual base. We need to know our faith if we're to continue to sustain it. We need to know it in depth, in understanding, in learning. When the questions arise for us, we need to seek the answers - in scripture, in scholarship, in the Church's catechism, in adult education courses and in the established Tradition of the Church. When Jesus calls for help, we need to be able to respond with our minds and our wills, but unless our minds are fully informed for the future, our wills may let us down. It's not a question of holding on to the past, but of digging deep into the richness of our history, of being prepared to search, to explore and to equip ourselves for the challenges and opportunities that are yet to come.
In a world where opportunities to pass on faith are becoming fewer and further between, we might be tempted to give up, but this is not a time to walk away from faith; it's a time to explore its riches even more. Christ needs us in this generation to grow in faith, to share in his mission, to build up his kingdom. The perplexities of the present age should neither discourage nor daunt us. Working alongside Christ was never supposed to be easy. It's when the going gets tough that we need to work all the harder to pull ourselves away from the comfort of the television and respond to the call to lend a helping hand, for there will always be a gospel to be proclaimed, just as there will always be groceries to be brought in from the door, and oil to be changed in the car.
Can I have a hand?
As I read through this gospel in preparation for this weekend's homily, I thought of my parents, bags of groceries and tools. Now before you think that I've lost it completely, let me explain. Many times during my childhood, my brothers and I heard my father's or my mother's voice coming through the door of my childhood home. 'Can I have a hand here?' Sometimes, that invitation meant that there were bags of groceries coming in and we were being summoned to help transport them to the kitchen from the front door. At other times, dad was under the car, changing the oil or the brake shoes and needed someone to pass him any variety of tools while he was about the task at hand. More often than not, we had to pull ourselves away from the television to respond to such calls, but the simplest tasks were often the best way to spend some quality family time. When the oil had been changed, or the groceries had been put away, there was a feeling of satisfaction. As we look back now, this was and still is the stuff of memories.
In today's gospel, Jesus asked Peter, Andrew, James and John to lend him a hand. Working side by side with him, they created their own memories. They learned the craft of sowing the seeds of faith. They weren't the only ones he called, but he was deliberate about spending time with them, teaching them how to do the sowing, even as he counted on them to help with the task of proclaiming the good news. Jesus still asks people to lend a hand. In today's parlance, we refer to this asking as discovering and discerning a vocation, but we have to be careful never to think of discernment as something that we do on our own, like figuring out what we'd like to do when we grow up.
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was relatively easy to be a priest. Up until the mid-sixties, there were hundreds of seminarians, so there was lots of support for people who were trying to listen for God's voice, but in the mid-1980s when I found myself finishing off undergraduate studies and thinking seriously about priesthood, it wasn't so easy. Some of the men who began theology studies with me left after just a few days, others joined us, but still others disappeared for one reason or other along the way too. I still remember one of the faculty members at the seminary explaining to newly-arrived seminarians that the process of discernment and responding to God's call could be compared to a coppersmith whose task was to create a kettle. The trouble was, and still is today, that the only tools at his disposal were a flat sheet of copper and a hammer.
The 1980s, you might remember were also the years when the crisis of the Mount Cashel orphanage first became public news in Canada, and the never-ending tide of reports about abuse committed by priests and brothers cast a pall not only on priests who were already in the vineyard, but on those of us who hadn't even emerged from formation yet. In fact, as I look back at the years of my own discernment, there are decisions that had to be made about places and situations we could and couldn't get into, measures of safety we had to adopt for our own safety, and situations that we just can't afford to expose ourselves to. I remember thinking then, as I still do today, that the world has changed so much that kids today just don't get the same exposure to priests that even I had when I was a child, and the effects are already only too apparent.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to paint a 'woe is me' image of priesthood; far from it. No life today is easy, because we all face struggles. Where once there was a certain conviction of faith, there is all too often today a confusion about what is right, and one of the consequences of such confusion is that a faith formerly sustained by the conservative power of tradition needs the enlightened support of a strong intellectual base. We need to know our faith if we're to continue to sustain it. We need to know it in depth, in understanding, in learning. When the questions arise for us, we need to seek the answers - in scripture, in scholarship, in the Church's catechism, in adult education courses and in the established Tradition of the Church. When Jesus calls for help, we need to be able to respond with our minds and our wills, but unless our minds are fully informed for the future, our wills may let us down. It's not a question of holding on to the past, but of digging deep into the richness of our history, of being prepared to search, to explore and to equip ourselves for the challenges and opportunities that are yet to come.
In a world where opportunities to pass on faith are becoming fewer and further between, we might be tempted to give up, but this is not a time to walk away from faith; it's a time to explore its riches even more. Christ needs us in this generation to grow in faith, to share in his mission, to build up his kingdom. The perplexities of the present age should neither discourage nor daunt us. Working alongside Christ was never supposed to be easy. It's when the going gets tough that we need to work all the harder to pull ourselves away from the comfort of the television and respond to the call to lend a helping hand, for there will always be a gospel to be proclaimed, just as there will always be groceries to be brought in from the door, and oil to be changed in the car.
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