Called and Chosen

The readings at Mass today (15th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B) are about vocation. In the first reading (Amos 7: 12-15) we hear about the call of a prophet who never planned on being one. In the Gospel (Mark 6: 7-13) we see how Jesus "summoned" the apostles and sent them out on a mission trip to confront evil and sickness head-on.  But I want to focus on the second reading from the first chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians.

It says that God chose us.  We are called to be children of God, followers of Jesus, members of the Body of Christ.  Or, as Paul puts it, "to be holy and without blemish."  We are made for union with God, to be holy as God is holy.  To be children of God and part of the Body of Christ means to be holy.

When did God call you?  When did God choose you?  Paul's answer may be surprising.  He writes that God chose us "before the foundation of the world."  In other words, before this world was created, God had you in mind. Shortly after his election as pope, Benedict XVI told the cardinals that "each of us is the result of a thought of God." And since those thoughts are eternal, God had you in mind from all eternity.

Why?  Why did God choose to create you and call you?  Pope St. John Paul II said that "each person is unique, precious, and unrepeatable."  There never was, never will, and isn't another "you" among the billions of human beings.  You give God a joy and pleasure that no other human being can.

You were chosen to be holy, like God. For that to happen a transformation is required.  This is where another word that Paul uses comes into play: "In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ."  Through baptism we became adopted children of God. However, when we say that we're speaking of something deeper than human adoption.  Human adoption is beautiful.  Parents give a child their name and their love, food and shelter and education. But parents cannot give an adopted child their own genetic makeup, their blood.  With God it's different. An interior transformation takes place. Through baptism a real change occurs.  God gives us grace to transform us into true children of God.  This is our deepest identity.   A person at baptism is flooded with sanctifying grace and is "holy and without blemish."

Now we are called to live out of our deepest identity: to be and to act what we truly are--children of God, joined to Christ, members of his Body.

All Christians have this most basic vocation and it is within this context that other calls are heard, other vocations arise.

Today is the wedding anniversary of a very special couple. They had nine children, four of whom died early. Four of the surviving children became Discalced Carmelite Sisters and one became a Visitation Sister.  The cause for the beatification of the latter, Leonie, has just been opened.  Of the four other daughters, one has been canonized--St. Therese of Lisieux. And the parents, who celebrate their anniversary today in heaven--Louis and Zelie Martin--will soon become the first married couple in the history of the Church to be canonized together.

You can find out more about this beautiful family at the following websites:

Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway
Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the Parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux
Leonie Martin, Disciple and Sister of St. Therese of Lisieux

"Duped?"

I know that the first reading at Mass today (Jeremiah 20: 7-9) is a favorite of many, including my friend and fellow-blogger Anne Bender, whose blog "Imprisoned In My Bones" takes its name from this passage. The first lines ring true for most of us: "You have duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped." Sometimes I think of my vocation story in light of that line.

My parents grew up in the 1930's, a time of economic crisis known as "The Great Depression." In rearing their children they emphasized education as a way to get ahead or at least guard against economic difficulties. This was especially true for their only son whom they encouraged to get what in their eyes was the best Catholic education in the city of Milwaukee--at Marquette University High School--even though this meant economic sacrifices on their part. Thus I made my way from the south side of Milwaukee, across the Menominee River Valley, to a Jesuit high school, having never met nor heard of Jesuits. One of them played an important role in helping me negotiate the trials of adolescence and so when the time came to consider what I was going to do when I "grew up," I began to think about being a Jesuit priest. I wanted to do for others what he had done for me. And so, forty years ago I entered the Jesuit novitiate with the dream of working in an urban Jesuit high school just like the one from which I had graduated a year earlier. How much time have I spent doing that? Zero. Nada. No time. Not even during our novitiate apostolic experience when I worked at a non-Jesuit high school and parish grade school in the inner city of Omaha.

Am I disappointed? Do I feel that my dream has gone unfulfilled? No, not at all. God may have used the desire to teach in an urban Jesuit high school to lead me into the Jesuits, but what I've done since has been better than I imagined. God's ways are not ours. If I had known what I ended up doing or if I had known the challenges I faced in my Jesuit formation and life, I would probably have never applied. I would have been afraid. Yet now, in retrospect, I am grateful because God's plan was indeed much better than mine.

In today's Gospel (Matthew 16: 21-27) Peter, out of love, tells Jesus, who has just informed him and the others that he was going to suffer and be killed: "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." Peter loved Jesus and wanted to save him from pain and death. Jesus rebukes Peter for thinking in human ways, even though they arose out of love, rather than in God's way--the way of perfect love. Jesus loved Peter and all people and wanted to save them from ultimate pain--separation from God--and eternal death. His own suffering and death would accomplish that and he tells Peter not to stand in his way. He challenges Peter to pick up his own cross of sacrificial love and join him in the work of salvation.

This is the life of every Christian. It is the "simple and profound" spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer. We often quote today's second reading (Romans 12: 1-2): "Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice." We do that by praying the Morning Offering, then striving to live the offering we've made throughout the day, and then reviewing the offering we've made at the end of the day. It's a "living" offering that needs to be constantly renewed because it can be easily taken back.

Blessed John Paul II often said that to love is to make a gift of yourself. We have been loved by God who proved that love my sending the Son to suffer and die. We return love for love now by making a total gift of ourselves, by offering to God the most precious thing we have--time--the seconds, minutes, and hours of every day, one day at a time.

When I entered the Jesuits I didn't plan on doing what I've ended up doing these past forty years, but I'm glad my plan didn't work out. God's plan was better even though it involved challenges and pain that I would have avoided had I known they were going to be part of the plan. But I wouldn't change any of that plan. Through it I've received more of God's love than I ever imagined. Through it I've been touched by God's love through my neighbor in ways that I never imagined.

In the end the story of God's dealings with us is all about love. That's why I prefer a different translation for the first reading. Where the New American Bible has the prophet saying that he has been "duped," the Jerusalem Bible has a different word that I think captures better my own experience: "You have seduced me, O Lord, and I have let myself be seduced."

"You Know not the Hour..."

"You know not the hour...." These words of Jesus were spoken in relation to His Second Coming, but they can also apply to the hour of our passing from this life to the next. I thought of that this week because of Bob.

Bob was my step-brother-in-law. After my mother died the year after my ordination my father remarried. In fact, I presided at his wedding. One of the gifts of a priestly vocation is to be able to celebrate in a sacramental way the weddings, baptisms, and funerals in one's family. It's unusual, though, to preside at the wedding of one's own father. As a result of it, I've become part of another family and, though my father has since died, I remain a part of it.

Last weekend I got a call from Dan, one of my step-brothers. He informed me of Bob's death. I'd last seen him on New Year's Day when my step-family gathered for its annual Christmas celebration. Bob was 75 and was on his way to a health club to work out. According to witnesses, he put on the emergency flashers of his car and began pulling to the side of the road. Before he could finish, his car zoomed ahead out of control, took out several mailboxes, went through a culvert and hit a tree. Bob was dead on the scene. He must have felt the heart attack coming and tried to pull over.

I always enjoyed Bob. He had a beautiful combination of seriousness and humor. We played golf together with Dan and his son once a year. The emails I'd get periodically from Bob were either humorous, patriotic, political, or religious.

At his funeral on Wednesday, I talked about the pain of unexpected death. Though Bob went the way he'd hoped--suddenly and without a lingering illness--it's hard on family and friends who don't have the chance to say "good-bye." His family and many friends showed up at the wake and funeral Mass to do so, but it's not the same. One could say that his life was his farewell. I sensed that he was ready. He'd lived his life well. The love of Rita, his wife of almost 55 years; the love of his two daughters, their husbands, and children; the love of so many other relatives and friends--that love spoke of his love for them. While we didn't get the chance to say "good-bye" during his earthly life, Bob's love for us was his "good-bye." I think he left with no regrets and no unfinished business.

It strikes me: that's the way to live, since we know not the hour.

"In His Most Sacred Heart"

When I'm not travelling, I try to catch up on reading the various newspapers and periodicals to which I subscribe. Usually I'm weeks or months behind. Having worked in western South Dakota for nine years, I subscribe to the Rapid City Diocese's newspaper "West River Catholic." It's a way that I can keep up with the news of that special piece of God's creation and my friends there.

In the September issue there was a special Vocations Section that included a reflection by a seminarian, Tom Lawrence, entitled "In His Most Sacred Heart." In it he wrote about his experience of the suffering that resulted from a near head-on collision that left him with a broken femur and tibia, three broken ribs, and a ruptured spleen. Here is part of his moving reflection:

"During my recovery, God showed his unfailing presence to me through the love and wisdom of my mother. God also stripped away those things that used to get me through hard times. All that I had left was God himself. I was given the realization that if I tried to push through or ignore the pain or turn inward on myself, simply remaining in my mind, then I was being distracted from seeing Christ who was with me. He gave me the ability to see beyond my fear--the fear that this pain would never end.

"I have come to know--through prayer and experience--that Christ will never abandon me. He is the one who is most intimately present to me now, and he has been intimately present to me throughout my whole life. Christ has given me the faith to embrace him everywhere, especially in his suffering upon the Cross. It is Christ who carries me through my suffering into his most Sacred Heart. I have received this grace by uniting my suffering to his upon the Cross. By resting in Christ's love he deflates our pride, so that the person God has created us to be may 'fit' in his most Sacred Heart--within his infinite embrace of love. This is the beautiful place where Jesus takes us to find rest from our fears and our anxieties. This is the place where we discover our true selves. This is where Jesus brings us to the fullness of life!"

NCDVD conference

The annual NCDVD conference is being held in Milwaukee this week. That's the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. Through the generosity of a benefactor the Apostleship of Prayer was able to have a table at the conference. I used the slogan that I've used with Serra Clubs and other organizations that promote vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life: "The Apostleship of Prayer: Creating a Culture of Vocations." I believe that using the Morning Offering can be an important step in planting a seed that could one day sprout in a call to offer one's life in service to Christ and His Church. Along with our CD's of the Morning Offering, I also offered to the participants our Evening Review CD in which I lead the listener through the Ignatian Examen, a way of discerning God's presence in one's daily life. I think that if a person is discerning those daily movements of the Holy Spirit, one will be better able to discern a vocational call.

The conference also gave me the opportunity to connect with friends, priests from dioceses where I've worked or given retreats and missions, as well as a local friend, Anne, who follows this blog and has a tremendous blog of her own called "Imprisoned in my Bones." And I made new friends, some of whom are priests who work at seminaries and who were at the conference to tell the vocation directors about priestly formation at their seminaries. My table was right across from two laymen, John Bradford and Ryan Anthony, who run a fascinating program called "Wilderness Outreach." They propose the following question to men: "Do you have what it takes to go deep into the Wilderness, deep into work, and deep into the Heart of God?" The last part of that question caught my attention because that's a key part of the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer--to enter more deeply into the Heart of Jesus.

Belated Birthday Greetings

Belated Birthday Greetings to Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother!

I had hoped to make this greeting yesterday but it was a busy day in the office and in my community. So I'm a day late. September 8, nine months after the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the Feast of the Nativity of Mary.

We didn't pray the rosary in my family when I was growing up. I remember praying it at wakes and on special occasions in the Catholic grade school I attended. It certainly wasn't part of my spiritual life in high school. So when Fr. John Eagan, S.J. proposed that I and my five friends who were about to leave Milwaukee on a two week camping trip with him in the summer of 1969 pray a rosary as we drove, I rolled my eyes. The rosary wasn't cool. Seven of us were crammed into a station wagon: three in the front seat, three in the back seat, and one in the very back behind all the equipment and supplies. That was the choice spot that we all took turns getting because the one in that spot didn't have to lead one of the decades of the five decade rosary. In fact, being in the back as the car rolled down the highway, he didn't have to respond. He could nap or read or just zone out.

By the end of the trip something had happened to me. It was my turn to sit in the back of the wagon and not participate in praying the rosary. But I declined. I wanted to pray the rosary. I can't recall the reason anymore. Somehow, on a level below any conscious reasons, I felt good praying the rosary.

After my high school graduation I went off to college, commuting 35 minutes in a car my parents had bought me for that purpose. I began my commute praying the rosary. Most of the time I recited the prayers fast to get through them and then turn on the radio to the local pop station. Nevertheless, the rosary had become part of my life and I can't help thinking now that in connecting myself to Mary in this way, she somehow came to play a greater and greater role in my vocation.

After one year of college I entered the Jesuit novitiate. At night, before our common prayer at 10, I would take a walk and pray the rosary. A couple times a week, when I returned to the novitiate at night after working as an orderly at a nursing home, I walked back from the bus stop praying the rosary. And when it came time to finish the novitiate and pronounce perpetual vows as a Jesuit, I considered Mary to be the Mother of my vocation. Jesuits don't change their names when they enter the novitiate or take vows as other consecrated persons, both men and women, often do. But we do have a tradition of taking a devotional vow name. It's an option and the six of us who pronounced vows as Jesuits in St. Paul, Minnesota in August, 1973 all took a vow name. I remember one took "Jeremiah" and another took "Ignatius." I took "Mary." As the Mother of my vocation, that was only natural. Moreover, my middle initial was already "M" for "Michael," so it worked well. Now, when I sign official documents and include my middle initial, I sign "M" for "Michael" but also think of it as "M" for "Mary."

That's why I didn't want to miss the opportunity of celebrating my Mother's birthday this year.

Sister Ida's Sisters

I'm back home and reflecting on my recent retreat with the Sisters of the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart. Members of my community ask me how the retreat went and who were the Sisters whom I led in retreat. Answering their questions gives me another opportunity to reflect on what a grace it was for me to meet them.

I'm still amazed at being able to meet courageous women who survived the Nazi and Communist occupation of their country, Hungary, and hearing how they were able to find freedom in Canada and then in the U.S. The stories of the early members read like the script of an exciting movie.

Sister Hermine, now 92 years old, invited the foundress, Sister Ida Peterfy, to go on a Jesuit retreat which changed Sister Ida's life. She once spoke about the experience this way: "Suddenly I realized that God knew me and loved me, Ida, personally. To God I am not just one of the cabbages in a cabbage field. He knows me by name! Then I asked myself again; if I pursue my career as a chemist, who will take care of the children? The Church will. But who is the Church? I am the Church!" Thus Sister Ida said "Yes!" to God's call to form a community of catechists who would care for the spiritual needs of children.

This was 1940 and in the next few years other women joined the two. One was Sister Eva with whom I spoke. She told me that at the age of thirteen, when she was in a boarding school, she told a Jesuit priest about her interest in religious life. He told her that a new community was just being formed and introduced her to Sister Ida who was studying at a local university. When she was seventeen, Sister Eva took a private vow of chastity for one year. All the Sisters lived separately at this time because it was too dangerous to come together as a community.

When World War II ended, and the Soviets became the occupying army in Hungary, Sister Aurelia was arrested because she had a German surname. She was sent to Siberia where, according to Sister Eva, this frail woman shoveled coal in a coal mine for two years before a falling beam of timber broke her back and she was shipped back to Hungary. She survived, escaped with the others to safety in North America, and died shortly after Sister Ida's death in the Jubilee Year 2000.

I asked Sister Eva how they were able to get out of Hungary. It took two attempts. On the first one, she was in sight of the U.S. flag in the American occupied part of Austria when she was stopped. Her alibi was that she was on her way to visit German relatives, but her bad German gave her away and her forged passport was discovered to be false. She was arrested and sent back to Hungary where she was sternly warned not to try to escape again and sentenced to four months in prison. On the second attempt, with another false passport, she succeeded, speaking as little German as possible.

Once the other Sisters were free, Sister Hermine made her way to the West with the help of a false passport and smugglers who got her to Austria through what was then Czechoslovakia. Sister Hermine had three brothers were who Jesuit priests, one of whom, Fr. Stephen, served as a missionary in China. Sister told me about how one of Fr. Stephen's fingers was crushed by the Chinese Communists before he was released and migrated to Canada.

I also heard stories of the present good work of the Sisters of the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart. Sister Arlene works in Taiwan at Cardinal Tien Hospital where she serves as a medical doctor. On September 3 she will be in Omaha for an International Medical Conference on NaPro Technology, sponsored by the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary. In her talk she will discuss her use of NaPro technology in Taiwan.

The spirit of these Sisters is contained in the following prayer that Sister Ida wrote:

"Come, follow Me." (Mt. 4: 19)

Lord Jesus Christ,
in baptism You placed Your hand upon me,
You chose me to belong to You.
You gave me new life.
Now I can respond to You.

I want You to make me holy.
I want to belong to You.
I want You to be the center of my life.
I want to love with Your Heart.

Let the splendor of holiness
shine on the world through me.
Help me to reach for more,
for holiness, for strength, for divine life,
to be like You,
to radiate holiness in the world.

Culture of Vocations Revisited

Last June I posted an entry entitled "A Culture of Vocations" in which I wrote about how the Daily or Morning Offering can help foster an environment in which young people can begin to see that life is about "giving" rather than "taking." Such a mindset will lead to generous vocations to the priesthood, consecrated life, marriage, and, yes, the life of the single lay person who faithfully lives out his or her baptismal promises. Tomorrow I will be giving a talk at a staff retreat for the Institute on Religious Life and I plan on expanding on this topic of creating a culture of vocations.

I believe that the Eucharistic spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer can play an essential role in creating a culture that 1)helps Catholics see that everyone who is baptized has a vocation, and 2) helps young people to be open to a vocation to priesthood or consecrated life. How does this happen? In five movements.

First, we begin with a knowledge of God's love. It is a deep and personal love that is revealed most clearly through the pierced side of the Crucified Jesus who continues to show us his love in the Eucharist and his Sacred Heart. A deeper knowledge of this love is essential for a "vocation friendly culture." Besides promoting devotion to the Heart of Jesus, I also lead people through the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius. In both of these I see the words of an early Church Father named Diadochus come to life: "The measure of our love for God depends upon how deeply aware we are of God's love for us."

Knowing the love of God in a deeper way leads to a response. Devotion to the Sacred Heart entails making a consecration, individually or as a family, and then periodically renewing that consecration or offering. The "Spiritual Exercises" culminate in a prayer of offering known as the "Suscipe:" Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me only Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me. Out of a deeper awareness of God's love for us flows the response of a total gift of self which is at the heart of every vocation. The Daily or Morning Offering is one way to keep this gift of self fresh.

The third movement involves living this offering in daily life. Whether one is young or old, lay or ordained, married or consecrated or single, each of us is called to make every moment of our day an act of worship, an offering to God. The "Suscipe" or vows (marriage or religious) or Morning Offering--these need to be lived in the moments of daily life. Thus we strive throughout the day to be aware of how we are being called to make an offering of "our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings," as the traditional Morning Offering puts it.

The fourth movement is at the end of the day when we review it. The Examen, Evening Review, or Examination of Conscience asks the basic question which reinforces our response to God's love: "What have I offered to God today?" Some of what was part of the day we offered may make us happy. We are pleased that we offered something that surely pleases God. We share in the pleasure God has in our offering. But some of what became part of the day we offered may not be so pleasing to us or to God. We may be ashamed of some things that became part of the day we offered to God. These are the things that are not worthy of God--our faults and failings and sins. By reviewing our daily offering with both gratitude and contrition we end the day reminding ourselves of our basic identity as Christians who are called, as St. Paul wrote, to offer ourselves "as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12: 1). This daily review also nurtures the habit of discernment by which we more easily see God's presence and direction in our daily lives. Discernment is another important element of the culture of vocations.

Lastly, our response or offering has a communal dimension to it. We make this offering in union with Jesus who offers himself in every Mass and in union with the whole Church, the Body of Christ. Part of a culture of vocations is having this ecclesial mindset and it is fostered in the Apostleship of Prayer when we make our Daily Offering for the Holy Father's monthly intentions. These prayer requests of the Vicar of Christ help us to think with the Church and to see ourselves at the service of the Church.

To sum up: the Apostleship of Prayer's Five Step Method for Creating a Culture of Vocations is:

1. To know God's love revealed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
2. To respond to that love with an offering of oneself.
3. To renew that offering through the events, prayers, and works of each day.
4. To review the day's offering in the evening.
5. To serve the Church by praying for the Pope's monthly intentions.

"Spring" Ministry

On Wednesday, on my way to the St. Paul, MN area, I stopped in Spring Valley, Wisconsin, a small town not too far from the Interstate on which I drove. Sacred Heart Church invited me to meet with their young adult group. After a fabulous pot-luck supper (it seems parishioners always outdo themselves in providing the best of their recipes for things like this), I met with the young people from 6 to 8. I began by telling the story of St. Ignatius and how he went from being a very worldly young man to being on fire for the Lord. It all started with a canon ball, a badly injured leg, an illness that almost killed him, and a couple books. Laid up from his wound and the subsequent surgeries, Ignatius ended up reading the only things that were available in his family's castle--a book of the life of Christ and another of the lives of the saints. His dreams gradually changed from continuing his worldly path of doing brave deeds to win the hand of a fair maiden to doing brave deeds for Jesus. I used this story of his life to talk about discerning one's way through life, one's vocation, and how important it is to pay attention to the movements of our hearts.

I then talked about how St. Ignatius, in the Spiritual Exercises, taught a method of prayer involving the use of one's imagination. We are to read a gospel passage and imagine ourselves in the scene. I always like to take that a step further and invite people to imagine what was going on it the mind and heart of Jesus and, in that way, learning to think His thoughts and feel with the deep desires of Jesus' Heart.

Before our break, I played a song entitled "Salt and Light." I've always thought of this song as an example of how the symbol of the heart is universal. While Catholics may speak of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, all Christians speak of a desire to have this Heart. This song, written and played by Evangelical Christians, speaks to me of what devotion to the Sacred Heart is all about. Here are the lyrics:

You make me want to be like You

Your holiness I will pursue

I want the heart of Jesus

Show me the meaning of Your grace

I want to give the world a taste

of the love of Jesus.

Make me salt

Make me light

Let Your holy fire ignite

Reveal Your glory in my life

I am not ashamed

To lift up Your holy name

Make me salt

Make me light

As a city on a hill

A lamp on a stand

Mold me in Your image

The work of Your hand

Did you notice how even some of the imagery of pictures of the Sacred Heart is in this song? "Let your holy fire ignite." That holy fire is the fire of love that burns in the Heart of Jesus. It's a flame that will set us on fire and then spread to others. That, I think, is the essence of every vocation. The vocation of every human being is to know, love, and serve God. We come to know God through Jesus who reveals the depths of God's love. As we come to know God we can't help but love God and this love shows itself in action, in how we live our lives. So no matter what vocation we are called to--marriage, consecrated life, priesthood, single--we will only truly live that vocation faithfully if we do so in response to the love of God, if we are on fire with the love of God revealed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Motherhood of Mary

Happy and Blessed New Year! On this first day of the calendar year we celebrate a Solemnity in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. We are celebrating her motherhood. The Responsory in the Office of Readings today says it all:

O pure and holy Virgin,
how can I find words to praise your beauty?
The highest heavens cannot contain God whom you carried in your womb.

Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
The highest heavens cannot contain God whom you carried in your womb.

Mary is the Mother of God. Because Jesus is truly God and truly human we can truthfully call Mary the Mother of God.

Mary is the Mother of Christ. She gave flesh to the Messiah, God's Anointed One.

Mary is the Mother of the Body of Christ, the Church. In Baptism each of the faithful are joined to Christ and become members of His Body. We can truthfully say that Mary is the Mother of the Church and we can say that Mary is the Mother of each member of the Church. She is, in a very real and personal way, my Mother and your Mother.

In 1969 I went on a two week camping trip that changed my life. I and five of my high school classmates and Fr. John Eagan, a Jesuit who taught and mentored us, drove around Lake Superior. From the first morning to the last, when we got into the station wagon to head out, we began the day's journey with a rosary. This was not something we were excited about. We vied for the very back of the station wagon where, behind all the knap sacks, sleeping bags, and tents we wouldn't have to participate in reciting the rosary. But by the end of the trip something had happened to me. It was my turn to be in the back and be free of the obligation to pray the rosary and I opted out. I gave my turn to a classmate and chose to sit up front in order to participate in the recitation of the rosary. I can't help thinking that in a quiet and gentle way Mary heard the reluctant prayers of this youth going into his last year of high school and claimed him as a special son.

I entered into my senior year of high school a different person with a more positive attitude toward myself and toward life. And I began to think: maybe I should do for other young people what Fr. Eagan had done for me. Maybe I should become a Jesuit. The seed of my Jesuit vocation had been planted, but I decided to go off to college first and to experience more of life. I commuted to a small Catholic college a half hour from where I lived. Every day as I drove to school I first prayed a rosary. Sometimes I prayed it very fast in order to get through it as soon as possible so that I could then turn on the radio and listen to the Top 40.

I can't help thinking that this, in a way, is what Blessed Francisco of Fatima did as well. Before Our Lady appeared to him and to his sister Jacinta and his cousin Lucia, they would pray the rosary while tending sheep. But he wanted to play and so he suggested that they shorten their prayers and instead of praying the entire Hail Mary they simply pray the words "Hail Mary." Perhaps this is why when Mary first appeared to the children Francisco could not see her and she told Lucia that he would only be able to if he prayed the rosary. Before he finished the first decade he could see her.

"Hail Mary!" the children shouted. "Hail Mary...." I recited quickly as I drove to school. And Mary answered. She appeared to the children at Fatima and somehow she nurtured the seed that had been planted in my heart. After a few months of college I decided to apply to the Jesuits and was accepted.

Mary, Mother of God. Mother of Christ. Mother of the Church. Mary, my Mother. And that's why I add another title to this little litany: Mary, Mother of my vocation.

A Culture of Vocations

June is a month of celebrations, a time for weddings and ordinations. I've been to several such celebrations this month. And I gathered with other Jesuits from my Province to celebrate anniversaries. One man celebrated 80 years as a Jesuit, two celebrated 60 years of priesthood, and others celebrated golden anniversaries of priesthood and religious life. Some good friends of mine in St. Paul celebrated 50 years of marriage and I sent a remembrance to them of how we first met 38 years ago when I was a Jesuit novice.

All of these are celebrations of vocations, God's call to individuals and couples.

It's been said that there is a "vocation crisis." When we hear that expression we usually think of the call to priesthood or consecrated life, but this is a crisis that also affects the vocation of marriage. Many people are choosing to live together outside of marriage and many marriages break up.

I think what's needed is to foster a "culture of vocations." The word culture comes from a word meaning "to cultivate" or "to till." Basically a culture is the environment within which one grows or develops. It's the soil, as Jesus pointed out in the Parable of the Sower, within which the seed of the Word of God is received. It's the soil in which a vocation is planted.

One way to develop a "culture of vocations" is to practice the Daily Offering and to teach it to the young. Notice: we need to "practice" the Morning Offering prayer; we need to really pray it and not just say it. When we pray the Daily Offering we offer ourselves with Jesus for the salvation of the world. Doing this creates a habit of offering, a mind-set of giving as opposed to taking.

With this habit of offering the seed of a vocation is more easily planted and can grow. This is true for all vocations. Certainly those who receive a call to the priesthood or consecrated life will more readily respond because they have been developing, over time, a spirituality of offering themselves to God and His service. But this is also very true for the vocation of marriage. Individuals who practice the Daily Offering will be more ready to commit themselves whole-heartedly and, in the living out of their marriage vows, will be in the habit of making a total offering of themselves to the other. Finally, this is true for the single vocation. Those who are called to this vocation are not following it because they are selfish or afraid of commitment or afraid of losing their independence. Those who are called to the single vocation find in it a way to offer themselves to God's service in ways that the other vocations do not allow.

The key is that every true vocation involves a call and a response, a gift of oneself. Every vocation involves an offering of oneself. God does not call people to be self-serving, to look out only for themselves, or to take and keep. God calls everyone who is baptized to a particular vocation which requires making an offering of oneself. By using the Daily Offering to foster the habit of making an offering of oneself, we will address the crisis of vocations and create an environment in which every vocation can flourish.