Understanding the Vocational Call

Friday, Mar. 18, 2016

“The church in the United States is witnessing not just the birth of a new vocation in ministry. It is witnessing the emergence of a new process for calling people to ministry. Once we recognize that God calls individuals through the community, we can see in the story of lay ecclesial ministry the community actively calling through the voices of many members. To move forward in our theology of vocation will require imagining a new and active ecclesiology, one in which the church is not just the assembly of those called but the company of those who call.” Edward Hahnenberg (“America” magazine, Oct. 9, 2006)

Throughout the history of lay ecclesial ministry in the United States, the Holy Spirit has been moving. Following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the People of God gained new understandings about their innate dignity as the baptized and large numbers of lay men and women responded to their baptismal calls by presenting themselves to serve the Church’s mission. All are called to holiness, the bishops reminded us. 

This movement was a grassroots response, often centered in the parish where laity discerned their vocations to ministry. Catholic colleges and universities supported requests for lay formation and offered innovative courses in pastoral ministry. Parishes were blessed with new lay leadership. During successive decades, the U. S. Bishops observed and carefully discussed this rapidly growing lay movement. Their dedicated study resulted in the USCCB’s 2005 document Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord.

During this rapid growth that continues today, some people pondered that the old language around vocation no longer seemed to fit. Prior to Vatican II, Catholics associated the term vocation with a state in life. 

For many, this understanding continued after the Council. As a religious education teacher, I heard numerous talks on the three states of vocation: marriage, religious life and the ordained priesthood. At Mass, we prayed the important and familiar petition: for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life, especially in this diocese. Gradually intercessions began to reflect a significant shift in vocational understanding. 

Understanding grew. Meanwhile, religious education texts continued to present vocations as one’s permanent state in life. 

A vocation was defined as a mysterious individual call from God containing a strong attraction to a permanent lifestyle. The pastor, priest-formators and ultimately the bishop determined the validity of a candidate’s vocational call to ordination. The religious explained their charisms to students and the teachings on marriage as a vocation remained basically unchanged. 

In our diocese, the permanent diaconate formation program emerged during the 1970s. Vatican II had restored the ancient order and candidates were usually married men whose vocational call to ordination was affirmed by wives and children and approved by the hierarchy. The vocational model as a state in life was undergoing change.

 In the 1990s, we began to hear powerful stories of lay ecclesial ministry candidates, married or single, who shared how their encouragement from pastors, friends, family and parish members shaped their ministry. 

I met devoted laity, married and single, who had long served the local Church in leadership positions but whose service was not necessarily a lifetime commitment. The three vocational calls of priesthood, religious life and marriage based upon the permanent state did not fully describe their vocations to lay ecclesial ministry. 

In the new millennium, many rediscovered the conciliar teaching that the priesthood of the faithful is shared by all through baptism and, as Edward Hahnenberg observed in a 2006 article in America magazine, quoting Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for by it,” all are called by God to holiness. After centuries of discussion and three Councils, Hahnenberg noted, “the Vatican officially ceded the point: Everyone has a vocation.”

An emerging model of church embodies this deeper understanding. Through baptism, we become the Body of Christ, but refined vocational calls exist and arise within that unified Body. 

The Holy Spirit works through the Christian community and calls some men to ordination. Some men and women are called to the religious life. 

The People of God may be called to varied leadership roles such as teachers, evangelizers, youth or religious education leaders, liturgical music directors, master catechists, finance directors, R.C.I.A. directors, pastoral assistants, jail ministers. 

These calls include the married and single. The periods of service vary and the entire faith community plays an important part in vocational discernment. Most lay persons witness to the faith in everyday encounters at home, in the community and in the workplace, all of which provide daily opportunities to live out the Gospel message. 

There are many agents of God’s call and the Spirit works in mysterious and wonderful ways to help us realize and say “yes” to our vocational calls.