God continues to call workers for His harvest, but how will this call find an echo in the souls of young people if they are constantly bombarded by so many distractions, entertainments and temptations, and often find no support within their families?
Newsroom(24/01/2023 2:42 PM, Gaudium Press) In the not too distant past, when families were larger, it was a joy for parents when one of their sons decided to go to the seminary and become a priest, or a daughter decided to become a religious sister. With time, however, the number of children in families has been reduced until we have reached the point where many who have one child are satisfied, and those who have two or more are considered extreme.
In having only one or two children, parents become more attached to them and often do everything to keep them around as long as possible, even, some would say, stretching the period of adolescence up to 30 years of age. It has become very common for bearded men to behave like boys who do not know what they want or where to go, living under the protection of their parents and often being supported by them.
There are young people who very early on choose their professions, who study and struggle to achieve their objectives, but there are also a good number who prefer to dedicate themselves to fun and leisure, suffering from endless identity crises, changing from one university course to another and from one job to another, when they do actually work – many do not – and continue to be supported by their parents even after they are married.
Parents who do not give their children religious formation
In recent decades, after the social revolutions that began in the 1960’s, many parents have chosen not to give their children religious formation, so there are many who barely know the Catholic Church. With luck, they are baptized, sometimes they make their First Communion, or not even that. How can one discover a vocation without contact with faith and religion?
And, because of this, with few children, as well as the extreme (pathological, even?) attachment to their one or two children, when a child actually shows interest in following religious life, some parents react as if the idea were something from another world and do everything to forbid the boy or girl from corresponding to the divine call.
When this happens, there is no lack of supporters “of the opposition”, people who are not Catholic, or Catholics in name only, who choose to destroy and undermine the young person’s choice, criticizing religious people and institutions with unfounded accusations and lies, without even knowing the reality of the religious world and priestly life. It is a striking observation that the choices of other professions do not receive the same opposition, criticism and derision…
What will be the future of the Church?
But what will be the future of the Church if there are no priests? We see excellent seminaries which, until a few decades ago, were full, but which today have only half a dozen students and, of these, some give up part way through. Formation for the priesthood begins with the vocation, but it requires much more than that from the candidate. The period of study and preparation is normally eight years.
The priestly candidate will study theology and philosophy, will go through a period of discernment and, not infrequently, before or soon after priestly ordination, will specialize in some area. Among the priests there are many with Masters and Doctorate degrees, who, while necessarily being people of faith, must also be very well prepared people, who understand human psychology and the challenges faced by individuals and society.
In Europe, the continent that was the very cradle of Catholicism, religion is waning and many churches are closed for lack of priests. There are priests who look after more than one parish, doing whatever they can to meet all the demands of the community.
Making money and enjoying life
From birth to death, people need priests and they play a very important role in the lives of the faithful. In Brazil, a predominantly Catholic country, the reality is still a little different from Europe and other parts of the world, but here too, the experience of vocation faces difficulties.
Children grow up dissociated from God and, from an early age, are taught that the most important thing is to make money, to take advantage of and enjoy life, without any encouragement to look within themselves to know what they really want, and with very little incentive to develop their vocation or to respond to God’s call.
The God of old is still the same, He is still calling workers for His harvest, but how will this call find an echo in the souls of young people if they are constantly bombarded by so many distractions, entertainments and temptations? How will they live their vocations if those who should be the greatest supporters – the parents – through ignorance, through lack of interest, through following false doctrines or through being led astray by mistaken opinions, end up hindering and interfering with God’s plans for the lives of their children?
Suffering or grace?
If parents knew what they are giving to God, to the world and to themselves when they allow their children to follow the path of their vocation, they would certainly be the main motivators when the young man or woman decides to give his or her life to God and the Church, living for the good of their neighbour, for the spreading of the Gospel and for the salvation of souls.
Some years ago, when a religious order suffered a defamatory campaign promoted by a biased media, I watched with great consternation a mother making the sad comparison of a young man who chooses religious life with a drug addict. My desire was to go to that mother and invite her to walk with me through the main streets of big cities such as São Paulo, for example, whose central region has been completely taken over by drug victims, who live there in subhuman conditions, like zombies, amidst rubbish and human degradation, many of whom their parents do not even know where they are and live in desperation looking for them.
There are pains that no words can describe, and the pain of having a child in such a condition is one of them. The distance and the longing for a son or a daughter who has gone to a seminary, a convent or a monastery is not suffering, it is grace, it is a blessing, it is a privilege given by God. In my prayers, I never forget to ask God to send more workers for His Church, because the future of the world depends on those who bend their knees to God in prayer, on the renunciation and the sacrifice of men and women who leave the world to live exclusively for God.
Moses and Aaron
This is a serious matter, with which the Church is concerned, so much so that the Holy See gives great importance and attention to youth movements, and the Popes commit themselves to being close to the young during those days of youth gatherings, in order to touch their hearts by the beauty of the vocation and its importance for peace and the equilibrium of humanity.
Let us not forget that God appointed Moses as His lawgiver, the man chosen to free the Hebrew people from captivity and oppression, bringing them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, but, at the same time, he appointed Aaron as high priest and gave the Levites the mission of worship and of transmitting the word of God. Each had different vocations.
Our Lord Jesus Christ established His Church upon St. Peter, and said that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her” (cf. Mt 16:18) and, since He is the Head of the Church and we are the body, we must trust that He will take care of her in the future too, as He has taken care of her thus far, during these two thousand years of her existence.
A stumbling block
But woe to those who try to impede or dissuade someone who has been called by God to live his vocation! Worse still, if that stumbling block is the father or mother themselves, who, through selfishness, excessive attachment or by letting themselves be led by others’ opinions, take away from their child the opportunity to respond to God’s call and continue the work begun by the Apostles, to whom Christ said: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15).
And blessed are the mothers and fathers who, even though they miss their children, do not interfere in their path, allow them to serve God and become like their guardian angels, standing at the back, in constant prayer for that priest, for that nun, for that missionary that God saw fit to be born in their family.
And to the young people, I would like to say that although many professions may give them money, fame and prestige, in none of those will they obtain such riches as in religious life, because if they fulfil their mission well and worthily, they will work here and have their reward in Heaven, for all eternity!
By Afonso Pessoa
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
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