Vocation Essay

How do religious leaders such as priests, deacons, religious brothers, and sisters help us hear God’s Call in life? Some ways religious leaders help us hear God’s Call are by spreading the word of God, being role models of the church and community, being celibate, and above all showing love.
The first way religious leaders help us hear God’s Call in life is by spreading the word of God. Priests and deacons spread the word of God all the time everyday, just by saying the Gospel and Homily at mass. Another way religious leaders spread the word of God is by teaching at Catholic Schools. Nuns, such as Sister Nicolette Etienne, a teacher at Holy Name and former principal at Our Lady of Lourdes, and Sister James Michael, principal at Saint Jude.
The second way religious leaders help us hear God’s call in life is by being role models of the church and community. Being a role model can be very inspirational. When a parishioner sees a nun or priest doing a random act of kindness, they are inspired to do the same.
The third way religious leaders help us hear God’s call in Life is by being celibate. Celibacy is a promise to God to abstain yourself from sexual activity or marriage. This is important because it is showing God and the rest of the world that your body is a temple of the Lord.
The last way religious leaders help us hear God’s Call in Life is by showing love. Loving is very, very important because when someone knows you love them for who they are they will feel accepted by God and his creations. All of us should love all creatures because it will show God we love him and that we are thankful for this wonderful world he gave us.
These are the ways religious leaders help us hear God’s Call in Life…I can hear him…can you?

Kristen N.
8th Grade

Fr. Matthias Neuman's Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Prov 9:1-6; Eph 5:15-20; Jn 6:51-58

I’m currently listening to one of the Teaching Company programs, entitled "A History of Byzantium." The program is taught by Prof. Kenneth Harl of Tulane University. I always have to chuckle whenever I hear his description of the Norman knights who traveled east on the First Crusade in 1096. He said they "were deeply devoted to Christ. Little shaky on the ten commandments, but deeply devoted to Christ." I was reminded of this when I read through the readings we have just heard. The gospel is about receiving the bread of life, the central ritual of the Catholic Church; the second reading from the Ephesians letter is a great exhortation to live a good moral life..."watch carefully how you live...don’t get drunk, etc." These two readings reflect the moral and the ritual side of a total faith and both of them are based on still another element, that of beliefs. We receive the living bread because we first believe it is the living bread. And we live a good moral life because we first believe that Jesus taught us to do so and gave us his life as an example.

Now bear with me because I’m going to do a little abstract analysis. Belief—morality—ritual, they are three separate but interlocking aspects of a complete faith. In a good, healthy faith expression all three should be present and each interacting with the other two. But all too often one or two of them gets skewed or a bit off-track. Like the Norman knights...they were strong in their belief in Jesus Christ, but pretty weak in their morality. But I think we are all like that at times. The chances are good that at some time or another in our lives we find ourselves weak and teetering in one area or another. We may struggle with understanding a particular belief, like the virginal conception. Or we find that we can’t pray and all the rituals, even the mass, seem empty. Or we struggle with some aspect of morality, maybe finding it impossible to forgive someone who has offended us. We all find ourselves in situations like these; they are human situations that simply show our mortal natures.

I did this three-way analysis for a reason. It so often happens that when we struggle in one area, the easy temptation is to see that area as our whole faith. Over my forty years as a spiritual director I’ve seen people do that many times. A person struggles with a particular belief, e.g. the Immaculate Conception, and they immediately jump to: "I’m losing my faith." I ask: "Do you still try to be an honest and loving person?" They usually answer, yes. I ask: "Do you still attend mass regularly?" They usually answer, yes. The reason they came to see me in the first place is because they are conscientious individuals. I try to help them see that they aren’t "losing their faith." They are struggling with one aspect of it, yes, but there’s a lot of a total faith they still possess. The most immediate thing is to help them strengthen those areas of faith they are still strong in. And then they can deal as best they can with the area and issue they are struggling with.

The key virtue here is being patient with oneself. We don’t live in a very patient society or culture. We want results NOW. And if we don’t get them now, we tend to throw the whole thing away. Living a faith honestly and well requires patience, patience with others and, above all, patience with ourselves over a lifetime. I think the best thing we can do at this Eucharist is to take a few moments of quiet and ask and pray for the gift of patience with ourselves when we find ourselves struggling with some area of faith.

Vocation Essay

How do priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters help us hear god’s call? They do many things to help us hear God’s call or vocation. At the time of Baptism God calls each of us by name and made us to be his own. It is the original call by God that stands at the center of all vocations in the church.

The definition of vocation is defined in a religious environment is an occupation for which a person is suited, trained, or qualified. Often those who follow a religious vocation have an inclination to undertake the often called a calling. This type of vocation is either professional or voluntary and can include many different religious backgrounds.

God helps Priests lead us closer to our vocation. The priest is the one who Baptize us through God. So in this way God is working through priests today. Deacons also help in this.
Sisters help teach us about what God wants our vocation to be. They teach us about the bible which can help us deepen our relationship with God. Which God is the one who tells us what our vocation is going to be even if it is becoming a priest, deacon, sister, or anything else. Brothers do the same things as sisters. They teach us about God.

All of these people lead us in the right direction towards our vocation. God also plays a big part in this. God lead us to these people to help guide us to the right path, to find our vocation.
Our vocation can be anything as becoming a doctor, police officer, teacher, or becoming a religious person. Whatever vocation it is we should do it for God. We each play a part in society.
We also need to use our vocation to help one another. That’s the main thing God wants is for us to use our vocation in life to help others.

Jake F.
Grade 8

A Commentary for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Fr. Matthias Neuman, OSB

Readings: 1 Kgs 19:4-8; Eph 4:30–5:2; Jn 6:41-51

In 1979 I received my first academic sabbatical. I chose to study what was a fad at that time, phenomenological theology, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. I traded off part-time help in Holy Rosary Parish for room and board. It didn’t take very long for me to realize that I was going to learn a lot more from serving in the parish than I would from any amount of phenomenological theology.

Over time I noticed at the 10:30am Sunday mass over in the side pews there was a group of fifteen to twenty people who came faithfully, sang mightily, and were obviously very engaged in the service of the mass. But they never received communion. Puzzled, I asked the pastor about them. "Oh," he said, "they are those who are divorced and remarried without an annulment. They aren’t permitted to receive communion." I thought to myself, "Wow! There are people who really hunger for the bread of life. Even though they can’t receive it, they just want to be close to it." I thought about those people for a long time.

I was reminded of them recently when I read a passage in Fr. Timothy Radcliffe’s book, Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist. He writes: "The Eucharist is our home, whatever we have done and been. So many people feel excluded because of their personal circumstances, surprisingly often to do with sex! People are divorced and remarried, live with partners, are gay or whatever and feel unwelcome, or second-class Christians. But these are the situations in which ordinary people find themselves in our society, and these are the people whom Jesus surely invites to come and sit and eat with him on the beach. God accepts our limited, fragile forgetful loves if that is all we have to offer him now." (p. 194) I was to discover that there were a lot more people in that group than just those sitting in the side pews.

Anyway, back to 1979! After learning the situation of those people who attended mass so fervently, yet could not receive communion, I determined to look for special occasions when I could make an exception to the rule. Sadly, one occurred about a month later. A little twelve-year old girl in the parish was accidentally electrocuted while playing on her grandparents’ farm. The parish’s CCD director filled me in on the family history. The girl’s mother was Catholic, but divorced and remarried outside the Catholic Church. The mother had no involvement with the parish, but she was insistent that the girl receive CCD lessons. The mother brought her daughter faithfully every Sunday. At the funeral mass right before communion I made the announcement that the regular practice of the Catholic Church is that only members in good standing receive communion but that special occasions like a funeral are an exception. I hadn’t even finished the sentence before the girl’s mother was climbing over five people to get out of the pew. She received the Eucharist with great reverence.

I’ve told you some stories today of people who really hungered for the bread of life come down from heaven. In a few minutes we shall receive that bread of life. How much do we, how much do I hunger for it? We celebrate the Eucharist almost daily; it is so easy to begin to take it for granted or forget the great gift of God that it is. I think it would be good to revisit some of the words of Fr. Timothy Radcliffe that I quoted before: "The Eucharist is our home, whatever we have done and been. God accepts our limited, fragile forgetful loves if that is all we have to offer him now." Let’s take a moment and let ourselves truly become those who hunger for the bread from heaven!

Vocation Essay

Priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters help us hear God’s call in our lives in different ways. At first they can help us through prayer. Prayer means to talk to God. And if you don’t talk to God how can you pay attention to him? They help you comprehend the meaning of prayer and how to pray. When we meditate we are quiet and secluded from the people around us. They teach us how to contemplate, and how to listen.

Priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters also help us hear God’s call through experience. They have already been through what today’s youth is going through now. They know what it’s like. They teach us how to live a Christian life. If we don’t live a holy life then we lose our sense of hearing. We would be dead to the call God is trying to tell us. Holy men and women give us back our hearing just like Jesus would do. When I listen to the priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters in my life, it inspires me to find my holy duty as a Catholic child of God.

I have a sister teaching religion at my school. She’s a great person and role model. Just seeing people who have heard the call wants me to hear, too. Priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters also help us to hear God’s call by their advice they give to young Christians. It is the guidance to love God and to serve God’s people.

When you lost your way and turned toward sin go to them for help. They will not lead you astray. But they will show you the way to good. When you are on the path of righteousness. hearing God’s call is ultimately up to you to believe.

Joseph English
7th Grade

A Commentary for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Sr. Mary Luke Jones, OSB

Gospel Commentary
August 2, 2009

John 6:24-35

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,
they themselves got into boats
and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
And when they found him across the sea they said to him,
“Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered them and said,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
you are looking for me not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.”
So they said to him,
“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
So they said to him,
“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
So Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”
So they said to him,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them,
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
Those Israelites were a bunch of complainers, weren’t they? The first reading for this Sabbath tells of their grumbling and whining to Moses and Aaron…”We don’t have anything to eat…you should have left us alone where we could have had our fill of bread.” Then when they woke in the morning to fine flakes of hoarfrost they said, “What is this?” Now, we don’t know from the written word if they said a pleasant, “Oh, what is this?” or an irritable “What the heck is this?” What’s your guess?

Both the first and third readings for this Sunday deal with eating…with bread; the staff of life. Jesus quotes from Exodus to the crowd reminding them that their need for bread in the past and their need for bread in the present has been met by the God who loves them and is always there to take care of them.

Every year around Christmastime, the Sunshine Bakery puts billboards around town that proclaim, “We do not live by bread alone.” I’ve always admired that because although Sunshine Bakery’s livelihood depends upon people buying bread, they know the Scriptures. They understand that Jesus is the bread of life. It is Jesus who fills us, not what we put in our mouths.

So many of Jesus’ encounters with people happen around food…often bread. We pray several times a day… “Give us this day our daily bread.” The implication being we need bread for our very survival; both the bread kneaded by hand and the bread that is Jesus Christ himself. The Eucharistic bread symbolizes the willingness of Jesus to be broken for us, to be consumed by us, to be the stuff of which we are made.

In this Gospel, the people are asking for what they think is bread…a steady supply of food that will sustain them. Jesus’ response “I am the bread of life” must have been puzzling. I guess it only really makes sense when we fast forward to the Last Supper.

What we know is that we believe Jesus is the Bread of Life, that Jesus is present in the bread at Eucharist and that Jesus enters and transforms our bodies and souls when we receive the host. His promise that no one who comes to him will ever hunger is what keeps us coming back to the altar.

Jesus' August Message

Dearest apostles,
I thank you for your efforts for Me. Do you see the fruit of your labors? Perhaps not. Perhaps you continue serving, living out your commitments with no understanding of how I bless the world through your service. I hear your sighs. I am with you in your uncertainty. In humanity, there is always uncertainty. In humanity, there is always doubt. There also comes fear and each human will experience heaviness in his heart some day. None of these things should persuade you that you are serving in vain. None of these things should distract you from a zealous representation of the gospel message. You see, the message is so much bigger than each of you. And yet, each of you is necessary. The gospel truth pushes itself into a world that craves truth, even while it rejects truth. You, beloved apostle, are part of that push. You will feel the strain in your body and soul. You will feel the sacrifice. If you did not feel any such strain or sacrifice, there would be cause for concern because living and spreading the gospel is work. When you feel tired, remember that I also felt tired. Never separate your sufferings from My sufferings and you will be at peace, even as you carry your share of the cross for this time. I am with you, loving and sustaining you. I am ever watchful. When you need Me in a special way, you shall have Me, with every grace required. Do not be afraid of anything. Your Jesus will never abandon you.