Discerning vocations
Father Terrance W. Klein
Vocations are born in the church and develop in the church and are sustained by the Church. These words are those of a “Conclusive Document” published in 1982 following an international congress of bishops and others having responsibilities for vocations, but the belief they express about the origin of vocations might easily have been taken from the early centuries of church history. This notion that vocations from the church is one we have forgotten to our peril, and the lapse threatens to undermine the continued existence of priestly and religious vocations.
| Today vocational discernment is usually thought of as a process accomplished by an individual deep within the self. The church’s role is seen as supporting and affirming such discernment. However, such an understanding is not only theologically insufficient, it may be exacerbating the current vocational shortage. Do vocations begin within the person? We tend to presume that values and inspirations are individual before they are collective. Given our modern society’s propensity to begin all discussion of values with the individual, this is to be expected. Contemporary life tends to see the group at the guarantor and servant of the individual’s rights and agenda. Both the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution are expressions of this fundamentally modern view.
But this was certainly not the understanding of the early church! The very word “individual” is unknown to ancient authors. The scriptural |
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The apostolic and patristic church viewed Christ as primarily active in the group and therefore considered vocational discernment as the concern of the community before it became that of the individual. Communities discerned vocations and called them forth in the name of Christ. Individuals then, guided by their own interior movements of the Spirit, chose whether or not to respond to this very clear call. The salient point which must not be lost is that individual discernment followed ecclesial discernment.
The list of early figures called in just this manner reads like a Who’s Who of the ancient church: Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Basil. Ambrose was elected bishop of Milan by acclamation when he entered the cathedral as military prefect. He had been sent to quell riots that arose over who would be the next bishop. His authority in restoring peace was so impressive that the crowd began to call out his name as a candidate for bishop, even though he was only a catechumen at the time! In early church practice the call from God was heard first in the community, not the individual. In our own day the process has been reversed.
In recent years an inverted spirituality of the call has been operative, with very negative consequences. We think of vocational discernment as a choice of an individual, only later ratified by the church. This is not surprising since contemporary Western thought, especially American, begins by considering an individual’s action before considering the community within which the individual exists and defines the self. One consequence of this unexamined theology of vocation is that those working among young people tend to wait for the young person to announce a vocational decision or direction. After such an announcement is made, priests, educators and others are happy to assist and affirm the decision, presuming this to be their proper role.
Vocational studies have shown, however, that those who choose ministerial vocations do so for two basic reasons: the example of those already in ministry and the explicit suggestion from another that the young person ought to consider ministry as an option. The research only underscores what theology already should have made clear. God acts. We respond. One cannot place the blame for the vocational shortage upon divine inactivity. If vocations are not forthcoming, something needs to be reformed in the church, not in heaven. Statistical research such as that presented in the 1984 document of the United States Catholic Conference, “Research on Men’s Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life,” shows that young people today are not less spiritually inclined. The Holy Spirit has not ceased to be active. What has happened is that we are no longer trailing that divine initiative before them as we should.
Vocation as suggestion
Theology and statistics seem to suggest a new role for the educator/pastor/youth minister. It is to help young people hear the call, not first in the depths of consciousness, but rather in the proof of daily living. In simple words, those who work with youth should not wait for young persons to present themselves as having been called. They should rather actively present the call to others in whom the action of God is already apparent because of the life they are living.
The task is to discern and support what the Holy Spirit is actually doing in the lives of young people. Some are already leaders of the Christian community. They are lectors, servers, chief volunteers in the canned food drive, leaders on campus or socially active and esteemed. Clearly the Holy Spirit is at work within them, and vocational discernment means helping the young person to see that the same Spirit might be calling them to ratify their nascent service in a lifetime of consecrated ministry.
They may, or may not, have ever considered such a role for themselves. But their ability to envision such a future is not the key to vocational aptitude. In fact, it is often considered, and for good reasons, a negative valuative factor. What the educator, priest, youth minister must consider is not future dreams, but present realities. Does this young person know how to serve and how to lead? Whether or not they have fallen “in love” with the church in a way that is easily expressed is not the point, and may not be a reasonable expectation at a time when so many young people come to maturity without real contact with the institutional church. If God is really active, God needs no introduction. It is the church that must be introduced as a good and productive place in which to respond to the initiative of God. Young people still want an alter of sacrifice. They want to dream dreams that are too big for corporations. They want to heal beyond the powers of medicine, to right wrongs that no court or police force can ever remedy. They simply need to learn that the church has always been, and can still be, such an alter.
What to look for
The following list of qualities is offered to those working with high school and college-age students to discern potential vocations. People who match this description need to have ministerial vocations presented to them as real options. Clearly the spirit of God is at work in their lives.
| Service | Does the young person show signs of altruism? |
| Compassion | Does the person feel empathy for the suffering of others? |
| Commitment | Is this a person who follows through on commitments? |
| Sociability | Do these young people interact well with peers? Do others enjoy being around them? |
| Leadership | Can they lead by persuasion and example rather than position? |
| Inquietude | Is this an inquisitive person, someone who consistently asks the larger questions? |
| Trust | Do others consider this to be an honest person, someone worthy of trust? |
| Attraction | Does this person seem to be attracted to positive ministerial role models? Would he or she be an attractive model for others? |
| Goals | Is this a young person who has his or her own goals? One who meets those goals? |
| Learning | Does this person have the ability to learn, academically and personally? |
| Meaning | Does this young person act out of a value system and believe life is purposeful? |
These are the people in whom the Spirit is active, and vocational discernment should be seen not as their dreaming up a role for themselves in the church, but as a process in which others assist them to complete the good work that God has already begun.
Concrete closing suggestions
The times demand courageous and measured steps. Bishops and religious superiors need to re-evaluate ministries that take their personnel away from youth. That there is good to be done cannot be our primary criterion in considering such ministries. Ministries that do not touch youth do not touch the future. Vocations are caught, not cajoled. Close a parish rather than remove priests or religious from a high school or college campus. Hard advice, but heartfelt.
A new idea: vocational interventions. What about pastors and directors of vocations creating small gatherings in which teachers, friends, parents and others who are intimately involved in the life of a young person call in the youth to tell them what they see? As a group. As the living voice of the church. Let the young person struggle with the meaning of what others discern. That’s why we have seminaries and formation houses. But let not undue respect for the rights and prerogatives of individuals squelch the Spirit-given voice of the church. After everyone has faced the truth about what God is doing in a young person’s life, there is time to decide how best to help the young person respond in a way that is not overwhelming.
All of us need to begin to tell young people what we see in them. This is the very heart of the mystery we call church. God is revealed as God when we all come together and share the partial insights given to each of us. The church never knows what God has done or is doing until the people are assembled and have given witness to the wonders of God. In the 2,000-year history of the church, no one ever came to a vocation, no one ever discovered an identity as servant, without the eyes and the voices and the hearts of others in the church helping them to see Christ.
Terrance W. Klein is a spiritual director at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. He has been spiritual director at several seminaries and served his home diocese of Dodge City, KS as a vocation director.
Reprinted with permission from America, May 1, 1993