We often hear that we have a vocation crisis in our Church.
When we here this we automatically think of the priesthood. It is true that we
do not have enough men answering the call to become priests and that there is
not enough of them to meet the need. Without priests to consecrate we have no
Eucharist. So goes the priest, so goes the Eucharist.
But the priesthood is not the only vocation in crisis. The
diaconate is also a vocation. Deacons are consecrated servants of God. Can you
have too many men answering the call to serve? If your diocese is like mine
most of your deacons are getting up there in years and are serving much longer
than they should be.
The consecrated life is another vocation people aren’t answering
like they used to. Catholic hospitals and schools used to be staffed by the
nuns in their habits. During the cultural revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s
nuns lost their habits and shortly to follow the Church lost many of their
nuns. Catholic education is now taught mostly by secular teachers, many whom
aren’t even Catholic. The vocation to the consecrated life is also in crisis.
There is one vocation that is in greater crisis than any
other. This is the vocation of sacramental marriage. The crisis in secular marriage
is that the culture is demanding that anyone should be permitted to marry
anyone they wish and that this marriage should be accepted by everyone no
matter what their personal beliefs may be. Sacramental marriage is not a right,
it is a vocation. The call from God comes first. If God does not call one to a
sacrament the sacrament does not exist no matter where a couple gets married.
A secular marriage is a contract, an exchange of goods and
services for a time. A sacramental marriage is a vocation where we have a total exchange
of self for life. God does not call everyone to the sacrament of
marriage. The first thing a couple who are contemplating marriage should ask
themselves is, “Is God calling us to this or is this something we want for
ourselves?”
A sacramental marriage is a microcosm of the Holy Trinity. God
is the head of every sacramental marriage. The husband and the wife work
together to do the Will of the Father, that is, to be fruitful and multiply. Far
too many marriages today start with two people who choose to take a sacrament
that they were not called to and then live that sacrament for purposes other
than what the sacrament was designed for. A sacramental marriage is the
fundamental building block of society. God’s purpose for marriage is to fill
heaven. Man’s purpose for marriage is to raise the next generation, or at least
it used to be.
Knowing this, the devil has done everything he can to attack
sacramental marriage. If sacramental marriage is destroyed it greatly limits
the amount of children that are born and slows the growth of heaven. As goes
marriage, so goes society and when society falls the creation of Saints goes
with it. When sacramental marriage is not fruitful we have fewer men available
to become priests. When sacramental marriage is not fruitful we have fewer
people to become deacons and enter consecrated religious life. When sacramental
marriage is not fruitful we have fewer students to fill Catholic schools. When
sacramental marriage is not fruitful we have fewer people to answer every other
vocation. Sacramental marriage is not only the fundamental building block of
society but it is the primary building block of God’s Kingdom.
Pray for all vocations. We need more people to hear and answer
God’s call in their lives. Pray especially for the vocation of marriage. Pray
for marriages to be open to life and to God’s command to be fruitful and
multiply. Without people answering this vocation there ceases the need for the
others.
