Supporting a Vocation for a Lifetime

By Dennis J. Gerber, Jr.

When we think about supporting vocations, our minds often go immediately to the seminary. We pray for more vocations, support seminarians, celebrate ordinations and professions of vows, and rightly invest significant resources in helping men and women discern and prepare for religious life. But our responsibility to the men and women who answer God’s call does not end at ordination or final profession. A vocation unfolds over a lifetime, and at every stage there are moments when our generosity can help a priest, sister or brother continue to say yes to the life God has called them to.

I learned something about the very beginning of that journey years ago as a volunteer with the Labouré Society, an organization that helps aspiring priests and religious overcome a surprisingly common obstacle to entering formation: student-loan debt.

I had the opportunity to work with a young man who was discerning the priesthood. His story, like so many vocation stories, was remarkable. Many men and women who eventually enter religious life do not travel a straight path to their vocation. They pursue careers, graduate degrees and other opportunities while discerning — and sometimes even trying to avoid — the persistent sense that God may be calling them to something else. By the time they are finally prepared to answer that call, the education and life they pursued along the way may have left them with significant debt that prevents them from entering formation.

The young man I worked with ultimately discerned that God was not calling him to the priesthood. But that did not mean his discernment was unsuccessful. The purpose of discernment is to discover God’s will and to have the freedom to follow it. Organizations like Labouré help give men and women that freedom by removing a financial obstacle that should not stand between someone and an authentic opportunity to discern a vocation.

A vocation doesn’t end at ordination

Once someone enters formation, however, our responsibility does not end. Nor does it end when a man is ordained or a woman professes her vows. Priests and religious remain human beings, and their vocations do not make them immune from loneliness, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, addiction or the accumulated burdens of a life spent serving others. We invest tremendous resources in the formation of a priest, and the priest himself gives years of his life preparing to serve God’s people. Once ordained, he may spend decades administering parishes, counseling families, celebrating the sacraments, burying our loved ones, responding to emergencies and being present at some of the most joyful and painful moments of our lives. We should be equally committed to supporting him throughout those years.

That is part of the important work being done by organizations such as the Integrated Life Foundation, which provides priests with confidential, authentically Catholic accompaniment as they navigate the pressures and challenges of priestly life. There is tremendous value in helping a priest before he reaches a crisis — giving him the support, fraternity and human formation necessary to remain healthy and flourishing in his vocation. If we are willing to invest so much in preparing men for the priesthood, we should also recognize the importance of investing in their well-being throughout their ministry.

There are also times when more intensive help is necessary. Guest House, which we highlight in this month’s newsletter, has spent decades caring specifically for Catholic clergy and men and women religious struggling with alcoholism, substance-use disorders and other behavioral health challenges. I was particularly struck to learn how many women religious have also needed this kind of care. Perhaps we unconsciously imagine that those who have given their lives completely to Christ should somehow be immune from these struggles. Of course, they are not. Priests and religious experience illness, addiction, anxiety, loneliness and human weakness just as the rest of us do. Helping them receive treatment, recover and return to healthy lives and ministry is not something separate from supporting vocations; it is an essential part of supporting them.

Eventually, every vocation also reaches another stage: old age. This part is particularly personal for my family. My wife’s uncle is a priest, and he married us. Today he is retired and suffering from dementia, and his religious community is caring for him. His experience makes me think about what priests and religious give over the course of their lives: thousands of Masses offered, confessions heard, children baptized, couples married, students taught, the sick visited, families comforted and countless prayers offered that none of us will ever know about. Many continue serving long after most of us would consider ourselves retired. When age or illness finally limits their ability to continue that service, they deserve the same generosity and care that they have spent their lives giving to others.

How can Catholic donors support vocations?

Catholic philanthropy should therefore think about vocations as a lifelong commitment. We should help remove the financial barriers that allow someone to answer the call. We should support their formation. We should accompany priests and religious through the pressures and challenges of ministry and provide opportunities for healing when they struggle. And when age or illness limits their ability to serve, we should care for them in their final years. This is all part of the same responsibility: stewardship of the vocations God has given to the Church.

The Church needs more priests and religious, and we should continue praying fervently for vocations and generously supporting seminaries, formation programs and vocation initiatives. But perhaps our understanding of supporting vocations should be broader. The question is not simply how we encourage more men and women to answer God’s call. It is also how we care for those who have said yes, from the first stirrings of a vocation through formation, decades of ministry, moments of difficulty and, eventually, retirement and old age.

These men and women have given their lives to Christ and spent those lives caring for his Church. Our stewardship and generosity should help ensure that the Church, in turn, cares for them.

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