Please Pray for Vocations

Friday, May. 09, 2014

The Catholic Church’s World Day of Prayer for Vocations is May 11 this year, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday, which is appropriate, because the purpose of this day is to publicly fulfill the Lord’s instruction to “pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest.” (Mt 9:38; Lk 10:2) 

The World Day of Prayer for Vocations is very important. As we know, prayer is very powerful; it is an incredible statistic that those dioceses that have regular prayer for vocations, often in front of the Blessed Sacrament, do experience an increase in vocations. 

People say that we need priests and we want priests, and they wonder what they can do. Well, what we can all do, from the age of reason to those who are centenarians and older, is to pray for vocations; pray that the Lord of the Harvest will increase vocations to the priesthood, to the religious life or to the diaconate. 

 Prayer is very important, but we also must put our prayer into practice. Scripture tells us that we need to go forth from our Eucharistic celebration and live what we’ve celebrated, so we need to give witness by living a Catholic life. If we pray for vocations, if we live the Catholic faith and give witness to Christ in our lives, that is going to touch young people and hopefully some of them will be called to the priesthood or to religious life. 

 A year ago here in the Diocese of Salt Lake City we asked each parish to have a vocations promoter who would communicate vocations awareness programs and help organize prayers for vocations by taking a leadership role. Having a layperson promoting vocations speaks loudly to young people because in that context they might hear God’s call.

In a few months, several of our seminarians will return to Utah to take assignments in local parishes for the summer. This will be a wonderful opportunity for the Catholic community to let these young men know of our prayers for them, and to tell them how much it means to us that they are devoting their lives to Christ in this way. That affirms them in their decision.

Also, on June 28, we will celebrate the ordination to the priesthood of Deacon Jorge Roldán Sánchez. On the same day, we will celebrate the ordination to the transitional diaconate of two of our seminarians, Joseph D. Delka and A. David Trujillo. This will be a wonderful day for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, and I pray that God will work through these ordinations and inspire other young men to say “yes” to the priesthood.

Please join me in praying for all of our seminarians and those young men and women from our diocese who are entering religious life. Also, I ask that you pray to the Lord of the Harvest to open the ears of those whom he is calling, that they may hear and respond to him.