Today we are asked to reflect on, and pray for, vocations. Honest reflection refines our prayer. It winnows away the chaff of self-deception. Prayer that evades, or wishes away reality, is mere escapism. In our prayers for vocations we have refined escapism down to a fine art. This must not surprise us. As humans, we are beset with ambiguity. The actor's challenge to his critics could be addressed to us all: 'Let him who is without sin stone the first cast'.
The current 'vocations crisis' has been exhaustively analysed. Its cultural and social roots have been exposed. Only a fool would ignore such important factors. But as Christians we are not just dealing with a cultural crisis. Something more specific, something deeper, confronts us. And we are obliged to address this issue as passionate believers, not as disinterested social scientists. We are faced with a change in religious sensibility, a marked alteration in the way we feel about our God, our religion and our world. It is not that God has been banished. Far from it. But our aesthetic sense of his place and role in our world has altered. We defer to him as a benign 'Chairman of the Board'. Like all good chairmen, he is not intrusive. He affords each the space to develop, or to die. And there is a certain logic in our tasteful evolution. God is good, we are assured. So we invest him with democratic respectability, and all the civilising traits of our culture. For instance, our absence from his 'board meetings' won't send him into a flap. Like all enlightened father-figures, he is concerned for our welfare, he will listen to our troubles, but above all, he will mind his own business. He is a 'Santa Claus for all Seasons'. Somehow or other, I think we need to pay more attention to the God who challenges, the God who stretches us, the God who disturbs us and ours.
The truth is beginning to dawn on us that this whole area of vocations needs to be revisited and thought out again. As the world changes, the particular form in which vocations emerge will change. But yet the official Church continues on with its head down. When we are asked on this day to pray for vocations, are we being urged to implore God to turn back the clock to the 1950s? When seminaries were full, emigration was enormous and marriage was relatively rare and always late? Clerical vocations were so numerous that, unwittingly, lay people were nudged out of their rightful place in the Church. It will take us generations to recover from that universal generalisation. The notion 'that is the priests job' has been sown deeply in the subconscious life of the Irish people. Is this what we are being asked to pray for today? But you know in your hearts what you want for yourselves and your children. This is not what you want.
Parents openly admit that they would discourage such a choice. They genuinely seek the best for their children, but, as far as they are concerned, 'the best' doesn't lie down that particular road. Young people are disarmingly open in their stance: the life-style demanded is entirely at odds with their ambitions and expectations. Most have been educated by priests or religious. They hold nothing against them. Neither will they hold much for them! But because issues have not been clarified, there is great confusion. And this confusion will manifest itself in obvious ways: And most parents still want their children educated by religious. However, they would never wish a child of theirs to join them. Prayers for vocations from such confused quarters must require, not the gift of tongues, but the gift of forked tongues! You know in your own hearts that willing for others what we would not wish upon our own is a dubious type of praying indeed.
In the interests of clarifying our own vocations, we must confront some of our ambiguities and comforting idols. The first idol to be confronted is the belief that there will be a swing around, a turning back of the clock. Clocks move in only one direction. The second idol to be confronted: the responsibility for the gospel cannot and should not be passed on to a professional group. No one can live out the gospel for another person. We must all take on our responsibilities. When we have cleared away this misleading clutter, we may be in a position to confront the problem of vocations in a realistic and honest way. Because at the moment we are speaking out of both side of our mouths at the same time. That, I suggest, would confuse even a very good shepherd.
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