What Does God Want for My Life?

This weekend we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, and the Lord tells “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish”. (Matthew 10:27) This is reminder that Christ has chosen us in the Father and that Jesus desires for us to follow Him. The word vocation does allude to being called and this is true for each of us. Yet, we as members of the Body of the Christ, the Church should especially encourage our young people to listen for God’s voice to first become friends of Christ and then to receive His direction for their lives.

Vocationally speaking our young people should understand that priesthood and religious life are real options for their lives. Obviously, holy sacramental marriage should also be encouraged but I do think we have an obligation as Catholics to help young people understand the vocations of priesthood and religious better because both are less visible today than in past generations. This lack of visibility can make it harder to show the goodness, beauty, and reality of priestly and religious vocations to the young. Making our responsibility to help bring both possibilities into the consciousness of our young people and encourage them to prayerfully discern their respective vocations.

Thus, I would encourage each Catholic to try and invite 2 individuals to consider the possibilities for a young man to be a priest and for a young woman to be a religious sister. This should be done from a place of prayer. As we do not want to simply just invite everyone we meet thus making the possibility pedestrian. Instead through prayer asking the Lord to help us to identify those he may be calling to the priesthood or religious (though just because we think and pray about it does not mean someone is actually called. Humility is required). Make it an invitation to prayerfully think about their vocation and swerve from pontificating a demand.

For those parents with young children, I would encourage you to pray the Archdiocesan vocation prayer (prayer cards are at the back of most churches) at home. I would also encourage you to pray for your own personal openness to having your children become religious or priests. Finally, let your children know that whatever their vocation within the Church may be (religious, priesthood, sacramental marriage, consecrated life) that you would support them no matter what.

For St. Joseph, Pillar of Families parishioners I want to encourage you to be kind to your priests and be careful of the way you talk about them. The ire and critique meted out to priest in conversations (especially in the presence of children and teenagers) will make a negative impression upon them and could seriously discourage them from considering such a vocation. So be kind and fair in your vocal evaluations of your priests.

On that note, as you already heard Fr. John Tonkin will be the next pastor of St. Joseph, Pillar of Families. Fr. John is a prayerful, joyful, and experienced priest. I am grateful to him and the Lord that he said “yes” to the position of pastor of our Family of Parishes. With his experiential wisdom and engaging personality, Fr. John will do wonderful things for our Family of Parishes. I truly believe that he is much better suited to be your pastor than I am and for that gift I am grateful (as you should be as well) to the archbishop, the priest personnel board, and God our Father for the gift of Fr. John Tonkin’s forthcoming leadership. Please welcome him with joy, kindness, and generosity as that is what I desire for him as he takes on the role of pastor.

I want to end by reiterating my gratitude to Fr. John, Archbishop Schnurr, and the priest personnel board for working to best assign priests to fit the needs of the archdiocese and Family of Parishes as a whole. I hope all of you say a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of being assigned a pastor and also pray for the priest personnel board as they will be assigning the next round of priest on May 7th.

Peace in Christ,
Fr. Jarred Kohn