Priests learn about vocations during annual clergy convocation

Friday, Oct. 18, 2024

MIDWAY — Priests who minister in the Diocese of Salt Lake City gathered for the fall clergy convocation Oct. 7-10 at Homestead Resort in Midway, where they shared fellowship and heard several presentations as part of their ongoing formation.

The theme of the convocation was “Called to Heaven: The Point of Priestly Vocations and Formation of the Whole People of God.” The presenter was Father Michael Niemczak, coordinator of propaedeutic stage formation director at Mount Angel Seminary in Saint Benedict, Ore.

Vocations are “our future as a Church,” said Father Dominic Sternhagen, vocations director for the Diocese of Salt Lake City. This means not just vocations to the priestly or religious life, but “if you use vocations in the wider sense of the word, it means people living out their Christian vocation, being disciples, and if we’re not doing that, then nothing else that we do has any meaning.”  

Fr. Niemczak addressed this wider meaning of vocations, speaking about “Forming Saintly Families” and “What about the Single People?” as well as the call to priestly and religious life. 

His first talk addressed why there are so few vocations these days, and how priests can help people in their vocations. 

His next presentation was about heaven, and “how if we can’t imagine it, we won’t desire it; if we don’t desire it then we’re not going to have the energy that we need to meet the demands of Christian life,” he said in an interview.

In his third talk, Fr. Niemczak discussed changes in priestly formation. Seminarians now are undergoing additional stages of formation and focusing more on the relationship of the man to Jesus Christ, he said. In parish life, this is a helpful model for priests to look at their ministry as trying to help God form people in every dimension of who they are, he said.

In his presentation on religious women, he showed the YouTube video “A Problem and a Paradigm” by Father John Burns, which discusses the importance of vowed women religious to the Church.

“Most Catholics have never had any meaningful contact with a woman religious, and the Church is sick because of it,” Fr. Niemczak said. “We don’t have that which has been part of the ecosystem from the very beginning, and a lot of these women who are still being called feel like they have nobody to turn to to help accompany them in their discernment, to help them find the community that God has in mind for them.”

Addressing the topic of people who are single, he said they are “meant to be living witnesses to what it means to be a baptized person in the world, living out that call to be Christ to anybody or everybody.”

Single people can “go to places where a priest is not welcome,” he said, adding that they “can be with people who would never speak to a nun or to a brother, but they’ll speak to you and they’ll encounter Christ in you.” 

Fr. Niemczak said his hope for the priests, as they left the convocation, was that “they can have this burning desire to get to heaven themselves and to help as many people to get there as possible.”

Fr. Sternhagen said one aspect of Fr. Niemczak’s presentations that he thought was particularly important was that every person has a vocation to live his or her life as a Christian. 

“That’s something we need to remember when we’re talking about vocations,” said Fr. Sternhagen, who also appreciated the Fr. Burns’ video. 

“Of all the things that he shared, I think that might be the one that I would point people to the most” because it shows the ripple effects of the lack of vocations of consecrated women, Fr. Sternhagen said.

Father Martin Diaz, chairman of the diocese’s Board for the Ongoing Formation of Priests and rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, also particularly liked that Fr. Niemczak spoke about the calling that all Christians receive to service and to heaven, he said.

The topic of vocations will be continued at next year’s convocation, Fr. Sternhagen said. Rhonda Gruenewald, founder of Vocations Ministry, is scheduled to be the presenter. She also will give a workshop for the laity.